Teaching On Haggai | Jake Sweetman

you. We're going to be in the book of Haggai. If you want to start turning there, you may now. Before we dive into the message, I wanted to say a couple of remarks, if I may, and I think that I may because I'm the pastor and I'm holding the microphone. I wanted to say a couple of remarks about the opening ceremony of the Olympics. I don't want to go into detail about it because it's quite a shameful display that we saw of a making of mockery of the Lord's Supper in the opening ceremony of the Olympics. And I don't feel the need to comment on all the things that happen in culture. I really don't. I'm not one of those guys who feels like I have to do that. But I did wake up this morning with a very strong sense that I should comment on this. The video has gone viral. If you want. In 1 Corinthians chapter 11, the Apostle Paul addresses the church in Corinth, Christians who, by their behavior, were also making a mockery of the Lord's Supper. They were getting drunk at the Lord's Supper. And this event that happens in the body of Christ is one of the most central things that we do. We do it every single Sunday as a church. We take the body and the blood. And it's a very, very significant event. And it's a very, very significant event. And it's a very, very significant event for us. And they were making mockery of it. And Paul says, this is why some among you are weak and sick and even some of you have died. Because they were making mockery of the Lord's Supper. And I just thought to myself, and Paul goes on to say how they're experiencing God's judgment as a result of this. And I thought to myself that if even the church experiences the judgment of the Lord by not examining themselves, and coming to the table of the Lord in right manner, then I don't think the world is going to fare very well if they consider it okay to make a mockery of the body and the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what has happened. And it's this kind of activity that the book of Romans, if you've never read Romans chapter 1, I encourage you to do that. The book of Romans says it's on account of this kind of activity, our immoral activity in the world, that the wrath of God is going to come upon the world. I know that's kind of an uncomfortable notion for us in 2024 because we don't really like talking about the wrath of God. But the wrath of God is a biblical reality. And so we need to be aware of this, okay? And it's no surprise to any one of us, I'm sure, here, South Bay, Nashville, that the West is unmooring itself from its foundations, which are grounded in Christianity. Some people don't like to recognize that, but that is the truth. And I want us to be aware, and here's my point. My point is not that we become judgmental. We can expect the world to act like the world, okay? Now, when things like that happen, I do think it's worth acknowledging and recognizing and saying something about it. But more than saying something about it, it's worthy of our response. And our response, I believe, needs to be seeking, after a move of God all the more. So every single Wednesday morning, we get together and we pray. We do it in all of our locations. We come together and we pray. And we are praying for God to move in the midst of our culture. I still believe that the Holy Spirit of God wants to move in the USA, all throughout the world. I believe that God wants to come and meet people wherever they are and encounter them. And that's going to happen through the church. But it's not going to come from a church that's complacent. It's going to come from a praying church. Blaise Pascal, who was a brilliant man that lived in the 1600s, he said, God gave humanity prayer to give them the dignity of causality. God gave humanity prayer to give them the dignity of causality. In other words, you can make a difference through your prayers. And so as we come together to pray, we can expect God to ride on our prayers and to bring a move of God in the midst of the cities that we're in. We inhabit. It is our responsibility to do that. I see a lot of complaining happening on social media about the state of the world and the state of morality in the world. Make no mistake, that is because we reject Christ and we attach ourselves to postmodern and secular ideologies. It is absolutely a result of that. Christianity is the hope of our society. But it's going to come through a praying church who gather together in faith that God could use us to make a difference in the lives of others. Do you guys believe that? Okay, so this Wednesday at 7 a.m., Nashville, 6 a.m. You can think we have a heart at 7. Nashville gets together at 6. We're going to get together and we're going to pray. And we're going to believe God for him to move in the midst of our church and in the midst of our culture. Okay? Praise God. Or don't. I said praise God. You can clap. You don't have to if you don't want to. Okay, did you find Haggai? Or were you distracted by my comments? The book of Haggai, we see two primary things that prevent us from pursuing the good works that God has called us to. Haggai is a short book. It's only two chapters. It's in your Old Testament. You could go home and read the whole thing this afternoon and be able to wrap your mind, you know, pretty easily around the message of what God is saying through the prophet Haggai. And it has to do with the things that prevent us from taking up the good work that God calls us to as people. focus on the second thing that we see in the book of Haggai. But I got to begin with the first because it helps us set up where we need to go today. The first thing that we see in the book of Haggai that prevents us from pursuing the good works that God calls us to is the issue of self consumption. Everybody say self consumption. Yeah, self consumption is literally using up our resources on ourselves. And that's what the Israelites were doing in Haggai's day. A remnant of them had returned from exile in Babylon, where they had been at this point for about 50 years or so. And then this remnant returns from Babylonian exile. And they have to start rebuilding the entirety of their lives. Because when Babylon came, they totally destroyed Jerusalem and they took a bunch of Israelites captive. So now here they are, they're back and they're rebuilding their lives. But something very important goes neglected in the rebuilding. And that something was the temple of God, where God's presence was supposed to dwell amongst God's people. Now, when they first returned from Babylon, the rebuilding project on the temple had begun, but it ended up getting paused because of some opposition that they were facing. And one year goes by, two years goes by, one thing after another. Before you know it, 16 years have passed. And in Haggai's day, the temple project still lay completely unfinished. And the people had been making all kinds of excuses to justify their neglect of the rebuilding of the temple. They say it's not time to do that. And so in Haggai chapter 1, verses 3 and 4, it says, then the word of the Lord came to the prophet Haggai. And God asked this question of the people. He says, is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses while this house, speaking of the temple, remains a ruin? And God's point is really quite simple. They were neglecting the good work, of rebuilding God's temple that he'd been calling them to, because why? They were consumed with themselves. And this happens to us as well. If you look in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 10, this is about you. If you're a follower of Jesus here today, this is true about you. For we are God's handiwork, maybe your translation says God's masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus to do good works. Everyone say good works. Yeah, which God actually prepared in advance. Now, in the context of the Bible, we're talking about good works. We're talking about good works. We're talking about good works. The context of Ephesians in advance here means before the foundation of the world. Before God created, he prepared good works for you and I to do. So there are good works that God has prepared for us to walk in since before the creation of the world. And those good works, they live at the intersection of bringing glory to God, being a blessing to his people, and extending the boundaries of his kingdom. And at that intersection, you will find all kinds of tools that God has made available to you. And at that intersection, you will find all kinds of tools that God has made available to you. So that you can participate in those good works of God. Those tools include the skills that God has blessed you with, the spiritual gifts that God has graced you with, your unique personality and perspective, and most of all, the presence of his Holy Spirit with you to help empower you in that life. But we, like the Israelites in Haggai's day, we tend to resist the good works that God calls us to. And a lot of times, it's because we suffer from the same problem of self-consumption. We're focused on using our resources on ourselves. Here's what we do. We view our lives primarily through the lens of personal fulfillment and personal success, rather than through the lens of generosity and mission grounded in love. And that mentality of personal success and fulfillment, it drives us to how we think about our work, where we're going to live, how much we're willing to invest our time and our money into things that we're going to do. And that's what we do. And that's what we do. And that's what we do. And that's what we do. And that's what we do. And that's what we do. We do things that fall outside of the realm of our own personal interest. And so we limit our availability to the Lord because we justify spending on ourselves. We justify our self-consumption. And it looked justified for the Israelites. Remember, they had lost literally everything and were rebuilding. Like, imagine if we were in that circumstance. We'd feel pretty... In fact, let's just do a little thought experiment. I know it's a wild idea and a complete idea, but let's just do a little thought experiment. And I know it's a wild idea, completely crazy notion, but let's just imagine for a second by some act of God that Canada were able to defeat the USA in a battle. Let's just imagine that. idea. I know. And so Canada comes and they conquer us and they take a bunch of us. Let's just say all of us. We go into exile into Canada. And we're living in exile. And then one day the British come over and they conquer Canada. And as a result of that conquering, the British, they're feeling quite benevolent by the grace of God. They allow us to run. They allow us to run. They allow us to run. They allow us to run. They allow us to return to our homes. And so we come home, but our houses are destroyed. Our businesses and jobs have been burned down. And we've lost family members and loved ones. They died when Canada came, aka Babylon came and destroyed our homeland. So now here we are and we're having to rebuild. Well, at first we're going to feel pretty justified in tending to our own selves, aren't we? Like, we have nothing. We got to focus on ourselves. And then one year goes by and two years go by. And then before we know it, 16 years pass us by. And so also does the purpose of God for our lives. Because self-consumption does not let you go just because you move from one season to the next. The mentality of spending on self does not release its grip on you just because you overcame that obstacle back there. Friends, there will always be a new excuse to orient your life around yourself. And it always comes at the same expense, the same result of keeping us from doing the good stuff, the good works that God has called us to. So that was problem number one for Israelites in Haggai's time. So God has an answer. What does God do? God sends a man named Haggai to preach and to prophesy to the people. And if you go read in Haggai chapter one today, you'll see that it starts out by saying, first day of the sixth month, Haggai began to prophesy. And he tells the people, not only have they been neglecting the rebuilding of the temple, but also all of the economic and the agricultural misfortune and hardship that they are experiencing is a direct result of their neglect of the good work that God had called them to. They'd been planting much and harvesting little. They'd been eating and drinking, but never getting full. Their dollar wasn't going very far. And Haggai says it's their framework for living was self-consumption, which again looked justified. It made sense on the surface. But Haggai says, hey, pay attention to what you're experiencing. Your way of living is not working. Now there are ridiculous amounts of kingdom wisdom for us in this, by the way. Like the people don't have enough. And so naturally they think the way to get enough is to double down on getting enough and on making our lives about ourselves. They keep focusing on that, but it doesn't work. Now this whole story is just a giant sign pointing to at least one really prominent scripture in the New Testament. I know you're already thinking about it because you're such Bible nerds. You're already thinking of Matthew chapter 6 and verse 33, where Jesus says, what? Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and then all these things will be given to you as well. So Jesus would say, just as Haggai would say, make your life about serving God yourself. These people had prioritized themselves, and they were suffering as a result. And I just want to say to us today, if the lifestyle you keep justifying with this reason or that reason or whatever else is not bearing good and godly fruit in your life, friend, it might be time to acknowledge the foolishness of your lifestyle, abandon it, and start obeying God. Translation, if the horse is dead, dismount.

So anyway, that's what Haggai says is the problem. And then something really amazing happens. Something really surprising. The people, they listen. It's crazy. Like they do an immediate about face. They acknowledge that God is speaking to them through the prophet Haggai, and they begin to work on the temple. It's a stunning thing. I mean, other than Jonah, who had like the entire pagan city of Nineveh repent. With one sentence. Other than him, Haggai is the most successful prophet in the Bible. Because Israel, if you know anything about Israel's history, they didn't listen to the prophets. In fact, sometimes they would kill the prophets. They would persecute the prophets, and that's why they ended up going into exile in the first place. That's why God allows Babylon to come and attack them and take them into exile. But now they're back from exile, so they've learned their lesson, and so they listen to Haggai. They take about three weeks to prepare the work, and then on the 24th day of the sixth month, about three weeks later, they begin to work on the temple. And that's what brings us to the second thing that prevents us from moving forward in the good works that God has called every single one of us to. Let's begin in Haggai chapter 2, verse 1. It says this, on the 21st day of the seventh month, so about three and a half weeks, after they began the work, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai. So this is the second time Haggai's prophesying. And God said this, speak to Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, to Joshua, son of Josedach, the high priest, more about those two guys in a few moments, and to the remnant of the people, and ask them, who of you has left who saw this house, speaking of the former temple, in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it not seem to you like nothing? So the people have been working hard for about three and a half weeks in a project that would ultimately take them five years to complete. And there's a bit of a vibe. Like you ever walk into a room full of people and you can tell something awkward happened before you showed up? There's something in the, there's a vibe. And the text doesn't say that anybody present is acknowledging the reason for the vibe, but they're all thinking it. And so Haggai takes it upon himself to prophesy to them, and he says the quiet part out loud. He says to them, hey, it's very obvious that the temple we're building is not anywhere remotely as awesome as the previous temple that we had. In fact, the last three weeks of work only underscore that reality, because we've hardly made a dent, and things aren't looking great. And if anybody here is old enough to remember the last temple, you know that this pile of rubble in front of us is basically as good as nothing. And all the people are thinking, wow, cool speech, Haggai. Like, what are you talking, why are you rubbing it in? But what's Haggai doing? He's surfacing the problem that they're all feeling so that they don't give up in the good work that God has called them to. And this problem is a universal problem in the body of Christ. This problem has halted good and godly men and women on their path. Stopped them in their tracks from continuing on in the goodness that God has called them to. This problem has even caused some people to send themselves to an early grave. This problem has confronted you. I know as a matter of fact, this problem has absolutely confronted me. It's affected me. And here is the problem. It's the problem of growing discouraged because of comparison.

The people were discouraged, because they were comparing what they were building to what their ancestors had built.

Anybody here ever finally found the faith and the resolve to do the good things that God was calling you to do, only to get a little bit down the road and start looking around and recognize, well, what I'm doing is nothing compared to what they did back there or what they're doing over there. And what I'm doing is just not anywhere as great or significant as what they're doing. And so what happens? You start to get discouraged. And you think that what you're doing doesn't matter. And you think that what you're doing, people aren't going to be interested in or impacted by because surely they're only paying attention to what that person over there is doing. It can even become pretty easy to convince yourself that surely God is actually paying more attention to those people than he is to me because what they're doing seems much more significant. And to make matters more frustrating, it's not that you don't want to, you want to do something great for God. Like you overcame the selfishness. You overcame the laziness. You overcame whatever else it was that was preventing you from taking up the good work of God in your life. And you want to do something great for God. And that's like Israel here, right? They wanted to build a beautiful temple. It's just that they didn't have anywhere near the resources that they needed to make it happen to match what used to be. You see, the last temple was built by Solomon. Solomon had almost unlimited resources of wealth, and workers at his disposal. And these guys don't have anywhere near that kind of resource. There's no way they can come close. How could God ever be glorified through the temple they were building? There's no way, they think. So we might as well give up, right? And you, you have the passion. Maybe you have even the direction and the clarity of what God is calling you to do in the world. And you have the passion. Maybe you have even the direction and the clarity for His glory, what He's prepared for you to walk in. But it really doesn't look like much compared to what somebody else is doing. Or maybe it doesn't look like much compared to what you expected it to look like. That's a major factor in comparison when we compare where we are to where we expected ourselves to be. And that happens to us all the time. Because even when we leave a life of self-consumption behind and we say, wow, I'm going to serve God, what we find, sorry to pop anyone's bubble if you didn't already know this, it doesn't quite look how you thought. There are way more zigs and zags and ups and downs and detours than we expected. We are expecting a predictable path. Which, by the way, that expectation of predictability is just residue left over from your previous life of living for yourself. Because predictable paths, they really only benefit you anyway. But we start comparing where we are to where we expected God would take us. And we become discouraged. So we might as well give up, right? Might as well abandon the good works of God and go figure out how to make life about the perpetually disappointing and ungratifying pursuit of comfort. I remember back in 2020, for obvious reasons, I was feeling very discouraged, dealing with some rather dark thoughts of my own, as I'm sure many of you have experienced in your own lives. And I remember talking to a friend of mine, and I said, I'm going to give up. I'm going to do a really close friend of mine. And just kind of opening up about where I was and the thoughts that I was thinking. And I said, man, do you ever experience anything like that? And he goes, nah.

But sometimes when I'm having a really hard time, I just daydream about abandoning my life and going to pump gas at a gas station in Louisiana. That was his response. And I thought, relatable, right? Like, because we can all get to that point where it's like, well, does what I'm doing have any significance at all? And we started comparing ourselves to other people. And I was like, we're tempted to just give up. Let's take Paul for an example. Paul, that church that you planted in Corinth, there's a guy there who's sleeping with his stepmother. Yeah, and some of the people are getting drunk off the communion wine. Those churches that you planted in Galatia, they're about to throw a circumcision party. Things are getting weird. Go read Galatians. Something.

And beaten and chased out of cities. Maybe you should consider that this church planting thing is not for you. Might as well give up, right? Right? No, Haggai says. Because even though this work of your hands looks like nothing to you, verse 4, but now be strong, Zerubbabel declares the Lord. Be strong, Joshua, son of Josedach, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord. And, work, for I am with you, declares the Lord Almighty. This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, and my spirit remains among you. Do not fear. This is the key part of the passage, really, of the whole book right here. That even though the people are discouraged, they're to do three things. Be strong, keep working, don't fear. And all three of those things are based upon the same foundational reality. That reality is this. That God is with you. In fact, He is with you in the same way that He was with your ancestors when He brought them out of Egypt, and through the Red Sea, and through the wilderness into the promised land. And you will notice again and again that God's promises are predicated upon the reality of His presence. God doesn't send His promises by post in the mail to you. No, God's presence comes with His promises. It's Him that grants you the strength. It's Him who says, I am with you to complete the good work that I have planned for you. you. God is with his people. And if God were not, then this prophecy from Haggai would be nothing more than a pep talk. But because God is with them, that means that their circumstances do not change the fact that this pile of rocks in front of them is actually a miracle in disguise.

Now let's just break those three things down really quickly that God says through Haggai. Be strong. Everyone say, be strong. Haggai says this one three times. First to Zerubbabel, the governor, then to Joshua, the high priest, then to all the people. Now for all of you Bible nerds out there, you probably read those repetitions of be strong and you thought of another time that God three times said be strong to a man named Joshua. When Joshua had inherited the leadership of the people of Israel from Moses and he's to lead them out of the wilderness into the wilderness. God says to Joshua three times, be strong and courageous. Be strong. Joshua needed to be strong because the work before him was great. And so when God says through Haggai, generations later to this group of Israelites, three times be strong, he's communicating something very important to them. The work before you is great. It's no insignificant work. It's no ordinary work. And I would just like to say to you today, if the good works that God has planned for you do not come easy to you, do not let that discourage you. Rather take that as validation that the work God has set before me is a great work. And that's why I must be strong. The phrase in Hebrew means the same as it does in English. It's not just about physical strength. It's moral strength, emotional strength, mental strength. It's a whole person perseverance into the will and purposes of God. And he says, and work. I love that because God has created you in Christ Jesus for good work. From the moment God made mankind, he's been seeking partnership with us to extend the boundaries of his kingdom through the good works of our hands. And if you're here and you don't know what good works God has prepared for you, don't worry. That's part of our job as a church to help you figure that out. But just begin by taking steps towards serving God. Now here's something that I want you to notice as it connects to this generation of Israelites here in Haggai's day. Because they were unique. They were unique. They were unique. They were unique. They were unique. They compared to almost all of their predecessors. You see, in previous generations of Israel, God had to correct them, but for different reasons. The previous generations, they were doing a lot of work, a lot of activity that on the surface looked like they were serving God. But beneath the surface, they were corrupt with all kinds of sin and all kinds of idolatry. And so God says, your service means nothing because it's just a cover-up for your hypocrisy.

But these Israelites in Haggai's day are suffering from a different problem. You see, they've just come back from Babylon. They're doing their best to avoid sin. They know that idolatry is what got them into trouble in the first place. And so they're trying to live a pure life. And yet as the book begins, we find that God was not pleased with them. Why? Because even though they were avoiding sin, they were also avoiding purpose. They were avoiding the good work that God had called them to. And you and I, we can fall into one of those two camps as well. We can be serving God on the surface. We can be serving God on the surface. We can be serving God on the surface. We can be on the surface, but caught up in sin when people aren't looking. And maybe that's some of us here today. Or we can be really focused on avoiding sin, but we don't care about actively serving God with our lives. And I think that's where a lot of Christians fall today in this increasingly post-Christian culture. Their Christianity has become about just giving themselves a gold star because they are not participating in the stuff that culture celebrates. So they avoid sin, but they also buy it. It's all about purpose, by sin, by purpose. Parents, moms and dads, you know this feeling. I can relate to this. Sometimes we can get so caught up in protecting our kids from the world that we forget we're actually supposed to be raising them to be a part of changing it. And the result is we get bubble boy Christianity. You remember that movie? Jake Gyllenhaal? His mom's so afraid of him getting sick. His kid lives in a bubble. And he's safe, but he's useless.

We'll just let that one sit for just a moment.

We aren't faithful merely because we avoid sin. We are faithful because we participate in God's purposes. Christianity isn't summed up in a life of sin avoidance. It includes fulfilling purpose. So don't get discouraged and work, God says. And then finally he says, don't fear. And this command is linked to the fact that God is with them through the real presence of his Holy Spirit. When God says he's with you, he doesn't mean he's rooting for you.

When God says he's with you, he means I am really with you. The presence of my Spirit is dwelling amongst you just as I promised. And so when you feel fear, when you feel intimidation, you've got to recognize that God is with you to overcome. Fear and intimidation do not come from the Lord. 2 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 7 says, The Spirit God gave does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline. So when you're feeling intimidation, you need to tune into the fact that the Spirit of God is with you to help you overcome that fear and that intimidation. And God says, if you do this, if you will be strong, if you will work, if you will not fear, then here's my promise to you. We see it in verse 9. Haggai chapter 2 and verse 9. God says this, The glory of this present house, the house that you are building, will be greater than the glory of the former house, says the Lord Almighty. And in this place I will grant peace, declares the Lord Almighty. Now that is a wild thing for God to say. Because Solomon's temple was more opulent than anything they could imagine. It was built with the best materials, built by the most talented people. And these guys can't come anywhere near that, except God says they'll do even better. And the tension here, of course, is how can Israel know that for sure? How can they know that if they give themselves to this good work, that it will amount to such a miraculous result of glorifying God? Especially because everything about their circumstances pointed to the fact that that was physically an impossibility. And that's the tension that you and I feel all the time regarding the good works that God has called us to do. We feel that tension in our jobs, with the skills that God has given us to steward. We feel that tension with the kids that we're raising. God, how can I know that if I give myself to the good works you've called me to, that it's going to amount to you getting glory? If I serve you, how do I know you're going to use it? And how do I overcome the discouragement when what I'm doing doesn't look anywhere remotely as awesome to what they are doing over there?

I think the answer to that question lies in the one aspect of the text that we haven't examined yet. And it's in the aspect of how God addresses the people he's talking to. There's three parties, Zerubbabel, Joshua, and the population, the people. And in how God addresses the people is the answer to how you and I overcome our discouragement about the works that God has called us to. Begin with Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel's name literally means seed of Babylon.

Now he's Jewish, but up until this moment, he's never been to Jerusalem because he was born in Babylon. That's why his name is seed of Babylon. He was born during the Israelites' time of exile in the Babylonian empire. So he's the seed of Babylon. If anybody on the surface looks more disqualified from doing something great for God, it's somebody named seed of Babylon. I don't know if you know the biblical story arc, but Babylon is always the bad guy.

And yet here's seed of Babylon that God has called. But then God says this, He's Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel. Now that doesn't mean anything to us on the surface, but what God is reminding Zerubbabel of is actually he's the grandson of the last legitimate king of Israel who comes through the line of David. And God's promise to David is that he would always have a heir, a son on the throne. And so God says to Zerubbabel, you may be seed of Babylon, but to me, you're the rightful king. On the surface, you are a subject of the Persian empire who've come in and taken over the land, and over Babylon, and now installed you as a ruler here in the land. But to me, you are the rightful Davidic king of Israel. And then God goes on. He says, Joshua, son of Josedach, the high priest. Now this one's interesting because the biggest responsibility of the high priest, anybody know it? The biggest responsibility of the high priest in Israel is that once a year on the day of atonement, they got to go into the holy of holies, the most holy place in the temple, and they had the honor of getting to make atonement for the sins of the entire nation. That's what the high priest got to do. This is one problem. There's no functioning temple. So there is no functioning holy of holies. So Joshua can't even do the one thing that makes his job significant. And yet God says, you are the high priest. And then he turns to the people. He says, people of the land. And this one's easy to miss. One scholar points out that up until this moment, in Haggai, God had addressed the people as remnant of the people. But here in this moment, now that they've taken up the good work of God, where God is encouraging them to be strong and fearless and to keep on working, God goes from calling them remnant of the people to people of the land. It's an identity shift that takes place in the text where they go from mere remnant to mighty people. Now nothing has changed physically. There's still the same amount of them. The circumstances still look the same. But their identity has shifted as a result of their obedience of faith to God that they have gone from just a mere remainder, a mere remnant, to now a mighty people who are doing the work of God. And this little detail here of how God addresses the leadership and addresses the people contains a really important message for us. And it's that while they were discouraged over the work that lay before them, God was pointing to the work that he had done in them. You see, remember how I told you how miraculous it was that the people listened to Haggai in the first place because that never happened in Israel. But these people experienced a change within themselves. The word of the Lord came to them after one sermon and they were totally transformed. Just a few weeks prior they were selfish and self-consumed and only concerned about their own lot in life and now all of a sudden they're devoted wholeheartedly to the work of God even though every single odd is stacked against them. That's a miracle that has taken place in them. In fact, I think it's the greater miracle in the story. And it's the same with us. We were created for good works from beginning to end. But the greatest thing about our lives is not what we do for God. The greatest thing about our lives is what God does in us. That's the gospel. The gospel isn't what you do for God. The gospel is what God has done for you in and through Jesus Christ. And that's why Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2 verses 4 and 5 he says, But because of God's great love for us God is rich in mercy has made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions dead in our sins it's by grace you have been saved. And it's only after acknowledging that amazing truth that Paul goes on to talk about the good works that God has prepared for you. Why? Because the greatest miracle isn't the good works God does through you. The greatest miracle is the great work that God has done in you. And from that place of being made alive in Christ we live the life that God has called us to live. We do the works that God has called us to do. And yes, there are zigs and zags and ups and downs and detours and even the occasional U-turn because we're still works in progress but that cannot rob us from our confidence that God still wants to do good things through us because He's already done the best thing in us.

And ultimately God would fulfill that promise to Israel half a millennium later. God would fill the house with glory as Jesus Christ, the Son of God who came into the world was carried in the arms of His parents into the temple and dedicated to the Lord. And the peace of God that surpasses all understanding filled.

You see, here's what I think Haggai is saying to us today. This is the point of the sermon. Write this down. This is God's prophetic word to you today. It's this, that the work God does in you is infinitely greater than the works God does through you. The work God does in you is infinitely greater than the works He does through you. But that's how you can know and trust that God is going to do great things through you. If He's already done the greater work of transforming you can trust that He'll do the great work of working through you. Friends, do not get discouraged because you compare yourself to where you thought you would be or to where other people are. God has promised, I will finish the good work that I'm doing in you. And if He's going to complete the good work that He's doing in you, friends, He is capable of completing the good works that He wants to do through you. Why? Because the good work God did in you took the cross and resurrection. Everything after that requires a lesser measure. That's already the greater miracle. That's the greatest thing that God could do for you. So surely He's able to complete the good works that you put your hands to as a result of His calling upon your life. If you received the word today, give God praise. Honor His name for His faithfulness and goodness.