Life Isn't Trivial

Today, I want to sound the trumpet on the Need for Endurance and Perseverance. There are many things we are called to endure. Today’s message is designed to offer you fuel for the race to endure. I think of the early church martyr Polycarp, the Bishop of Smyrna. Polycarp was eighty-six years old when he was burned at the stake. He could have saved his life had he chosen to curse Christ. But he said, “Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He has done me no wrong; how then can I blaspheme my king who saved me.”

Turn in your Bibles to Haggai Two. As your turning to the book of Haggai, let me tell you a little about him. Haggai is only mentioned one other time in your Bibles, in Ezra 5 and 6. His book is the second shortest book in the Old Testament. And his name means “festival” or “pilgrim to a festival.” The word is very much like the Arabic word hajj (“to go on a pilgrimage”). So Haggai means one who has been on a pilgrimage.

“In the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, 2 “Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to all the remnant of the people, and say, 3 ‘Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? 4 Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts, 5 according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. 6 For thus says the Lord of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. 7 And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. 8 The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts. 9 The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts.’” (Haggai 2:1-9)

Haggai’s message is simple. He calls on the people of God to rebuild the house of God. “Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord” (Haggai 1:8). Everything in the book is designed to get the people busy building God’s House. Yet, don’t be confused by drywall and concrete footers. More is happening in this book than building a house. The House of God communicates the people’s zeal for the Glory of God.

Today’s Big Idea: Disobedience Brings Discouragement; Obedience Brings Empowerment

1. When You Overwhelmed

The words of the Bible show the people overwhelmed. They are overwhelmed and stressed by the task God has called them to. Discouragement and depression are dripping from these pages. The past seemed incomparably better than the present. While the present seemed insignificant because it couldn’t compare to the past. The Prophet Haggai stands up to blow a trumpet for the saints to endure.

There are at least two good ways to handle multiple stresses in your life. One is to reduce the number of stresses. But sometimes that's not possible. And sometimes it’s not desirable — for example in wartime or in some crisis, we simply have to learn to live with more than usual stress. The second way we handle stress is to see a good design in the multiple stresses of our lives. If the pressured pieces of our lives seem chaotic and meaningless, we cave in or just run away. If we begin to see that all the pieces are fitting together into some good design, and that each piece has meaning as part of some significant, larger purpose, then the pressures become endurable. And for many, not just endurable but challenging and energy-producing.

When we last saw the Jewish people were hard at work rebuilding the destroyed temple. The Jewish people had been conquered and their homes were destroyed. After 66 years in another land, more 42,000 (plus an additional 7,000 servants) left the foreign lands to come back home to Judah. The returning people had heard of the glory of Solomon’s Temple. Those in their 70s or 80s could tell of the lavish gold of the former Temple (Haggai 2:3). They had lived for decades in the foreign lands of their enemies. And their Temple was destroyed. The Temple that Solomon had spent seven years building (1 Kings 6-7; 2 Chronicles 3-4) was eradicated. Once they arrived back home, they had initially been concentrating on their own self-interests and had abandoned the construction of the Temple. God had sent the prophets Haggai and Zachariah to stir the people to work again. And they had begun the process of rebuilding the Temple just three weeks earlier (Haggai 1:14b-15). And in just three weeks of work, they already they were discouraged. Their zeal had diminished. Already they were ready to throw in towel.