How to Fight Comparison - Haggai 2:1-5
Comparison cripples. Have you ever been compared to someone else? I have. My brother Phil is two years older than me and when I was growing up I always lived in his shadow. It didn't help that my brother was smarter than I was and was the go-getter of the family. I never seemed to be able to measure up. I remember often starting a new class in elementary school in September and the teacher reading my name off the class list. I remember more than one saying, "Peter Toy, so you're a Toy eh? I have high expectations of you." But I just couldn't seem to measure up. My brother would score 90's and I would get 80's. He got a job while in high school working at the auto shop at Sears. I got a school job working at Dairy Queen. Phil got into Waterloo for engineering. I got into Queen's for engineering. My big brother always seemed to be two steps ahead of me and I could never catch up.
I found that comparison against my brother wasn't healthy for me. It made me unsatisfied with who I was. Maybe you can identify with me. Maybe you've been compared to another and been found wanting. Or maybe you find yourself doing the comparison. You see someone at school who seems to have it all, good grades, popularity and a great personality and you wonder why you can't be more like her. Or you see a co-worker who has been promoted so quickly and you wonder why you can't be as successful as him. Or you see a woman who dresses like a model, who holds down and full time job, and yet seems to balance a healthy family and also be involved in the church and you look at yourself and you are barely holding your life together, and you wonder, why can't I be like her?
When we compare ourselves to others we cripple ourselves. And that's also true for our spiritual lives. We can compare our spiritual maturity to another Christian and wonder why can't I know the Bible, or pray, or be as godly as them. Or we can compare our church to other churches that seem to be doing so much better. We can say, "Look at such and such a church, they have so many people coming. Their worship is so uplifting. Their youth group is vibrant and growing. They have so many outreach programs. Why can't our church be more like theirs."
Comparison cripples. That is a problems today and it was a problem 2500 years ago. This morning we will be looking at chapter 2 in the book of Haggai. The people had begun to build but the problem of comparison threatened to sabotage their efforts. But before we look at the passage, let's look to the Lord, let's pray (pray).
Comparison cripples. We have been working our way through the Book of Haggai, which is a short book, but it is a rich one. To give you a little bit of a review, the Israelites had been taken into captivity to Babylon because of their persistent disobedience to God and their constant idolatry. God punished them by sending the Babylonians to attack Jerusalem and besiege it. The city was captured, most of the people were killed, the temple and all the major buildings were demolished and burnt to the ground and the walls around the city were destroyed. The survivors were taken away to captivity to Babylon and there they remained for 70 years. At this time the Babylonian empire fell to the Persians and a new king came to power. King Cyrus had a new policy about foreigners. He encouraged them to go back to their homelands to establish worship to their gods so they could pray for the welfare of the king. So about 50,000 Israelites responded to this invitation. They returned to Jerusalem and find it a ruin. After a couple of years settling down and collecting supplies they began rebuilding the temple. They laid the foundation, but soon they were opposed by the surrounding people who felt threatened by this influx of new immigrants. They hired people to frustrate the construction and eventually sent a protest letter to Persia. By this time King Cyrus had died and King Xerxes has taken his place. This new king, unaware of Cyrus' decree, issued the command for the building to stop and the surrounding people forced the Jews to stop the rebuilding of the temple.
Sixteen years pass and we come to the beginning of the book of Haggai. In chapter one Haggai challenged the people to refocus on their goal for being in Jerusalem in the first place. God tells the people to stop focusing on their own goals and instead rebuild His house. In Haggai 1:12-15 we see the response of the people. They begin rebuilding and as a result of that decision, God stirs their hearts and they commit themselves to the work.
That brings us to chapter two. This chapter begins with a timestamp in verse one (read verse). If you read the last verse of the previous chapter you find out that almost a month has passed by since the Israelites took up their God given purpose of rebuilding the temple. But God gives Haggai a second message. The Lord addresses a potential problem that could upset the whole building process. Look at verses 2-3 (read verses). The Israelites had a problem. They had to fight against the temptation of comparison. Some who were there had seen the former temple in all of its glory. There was the danger of comparing what they were building now, to Solomon's temple which was one of the wonders of the ancient world. This morning I want to look at first, the problem of comparison, and second, the commands of God. Next week we will look at the encouragements of God. If you have a bulletin you can follow along in the sermon notes, or better yet you can take notes in a notebook.
First, let's look at the problem of comparison. The Israelites had begun building well, but now almost a month as passed by. Reality sinks in that this isn't going to be an easy or quick job. To get building material, they have to climb the surrounding mountains, cut down trees and drag them down to the city. The building site itself is just a pile of rubble. The workers have to clear out the broken and burnt stones and timbers to begin building. And they didn't have the resources to go buy dressed stones from the quarry. They had to take the broken stones and re-cut them as best they could.
What was going up was a hodgepodge of reused stones and substandard wood that they fashioned together. This new temple was a far cry from what the old temple was like. In fact we read in Ezra when they laid the foundation of the new temple, there was great celebration, but there was also grieving. Ezra 3:12-13 says: "But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted with joy. No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away."
The people who had seen the former temple wept when they saw the rebuilding project. Why were they grieving? They wept because in comparison to the beauty and the splendour of the original temple, this new structure seemed like nothing. To get an idea of how much effort and resources was spent on the original temple we can look at 1 Chronicles 22. In this chapter David makes preparations for his son Solomon to build the temple. David gives a summary of the resources that he amassed for the project before his death in verses 14-16: "I have taken great pains to provide for the temple of the Lord a hundred thousand talents of gold, a million talents of silver, quantities of bronze and iron too great to be weighed, and wood and stone. And you may add to them. You have many workmen: stonecutters, masons and carpenters, as well as men skilled in every kind of work in gold and silver, bronze and iron - craftsmen beyond number. Now begin the work, and the Lord be with you."
If you look at the footnotes in your Bible you'll discover that the amount of gold is 3,450 metric tons and 34,500 metric tons of silver. In today's dollars that is worth about 147.7 billion dollars for the gold and silver alone. Compare that to the Burj Khalifa, in the United Arab Emirates, the highest building in the world, which cost about 1.5 billion dollars to construct. Building the original temple was one serious construction project. How much money did the returned exiles have in Haggai's day? We can read in Ezra 2:69: "According to their ability they gave to the treasury for this work 61,000 drachmas of gold, 5,000 minas of silver and 100 priestly garments." If you look down at the footnotes that's about 500 kilograms of gold and 2.9 tons of silver. In today's dollars that would be worth about 32.6 million dollars. That's still a fair amount of money, but compared to what Solomon had to work with, it is a pittance. Solomon had over 450 times more money to invest in the construction.
We can read about the actual construction process in 2 Chronicles 2-4. Solomon's workforce is listed in 2 Chronicles 2:2: "He conscripted seventy thousand men as carriers and eighty thousand as stonecutters in the hills and thirty-six hundred as foremen over them." And not only that but Solomon sent away for special logs of cedar, pine and algum wood to be ferried in from Lebanon by the men of Tyre. And in addition to this would be all of the skilled craftsmen who carved wood and who worked the gold, silver, bronze and iron. Even with this army of a workforce it still took Solomon seven years to complete the temple. This is in comparison to the people in Haggai's time. The returned exiles numbered less than 50,000 people and that would have included everyone, men, women and children.
Is it any wonder that the older people who had seen the original temple wept? What they were building seemed like nothing compared to the former temple. But when we are caught in the unhealthy practice of comparison it cripples us. There are three reasons I can think of that makes comparison so dangerous.
First comparison sets unrealistic expectations. That was certainly true for the Israelites in Haggai's time. If they were hoping to build a structure on the same scale of splendour as the first temple they would be sadly disappointed. They didn't have the resources, the manpower or the skill to do that. Solomon was the richest king of the whole earth and possibly of all time. How could the returned exiles expect to build a temple that was of the same extravagance of that first temple?
When we compare ourselves to others we set for ourselves unrealistic expectations. And when that happens we set ourselves up for failure. When I tried to measure up to my brother Phil, I just couldn't do it. My brother would routinely win the science fair at our primary school. One year he made a robot that painted pictures. But I never came close to winning. I was never as inventive as my brother. I never came up with an original idea.
But that just didn't happen to me as a child. I remember at the first full time position I had in a church, I was responsible for outreach. Many people in the congregation talked about the founding pastor, Thorold Marsaw, who built the church by going door to door and sharing the gospel and inviting people to the church. From the stories I heard, Pastor Marsaw was tireless in visiting everyone in the neighbourhood. He went around the church and he recorded the addresses of homes with "for sale" signs up. When they came down, he went to visit the new families. I felt so inadequate trying to follow in his footsteps. I did a little bit of door to door visiting, but it just about killed me to do it. Going door to door just wasn't me.
When we compare ourselves to others we will almost always end up failing and being discouraged. When people point to others often it's not a real picture they are pointing to. They often highlight the high points but often gloss over the areas the other person was weak in. And when people remember the past often it's better than it really was. The good old days aren't attainable because really those days weren't that good. We just forget about all of the problems and struggles during those times.
A second problem of comparison is it conforms us to copy others. When we choose to compare ourselves with another person, then we are forced to try to follow in their footsteps. We lose the ability to be ourselves, to take a different path. If the Israelites tried to copy what Solomon did, they would ultimately fail. They didn't have the gold or the silver. They didn't have the skilled craftsmen to make all of the carved wood panelling and work the intricate gold and silver furnishings. When you read the description of the first temple in 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles the exquisite detail of the interior is truly impressive. The temple that the people of Haggai's time rebuilt isn't described in any sort of detail in the Bible. We don't even know what it looked like, but we can be sure it wasn't the same as the original.
Comparison forces us on the path of copying the person we are comparing ourselves to. That happened to me when I compared myself to my brother. He graduated from high school and went to the University of Waterloo for mechanical engineering. He did very well in it achieving high marks and getting good engineering jobs as work placements. So I tried to follow in his footsteps. I didn't get accepted at Waterloo, but I got into Queen's for mechanical engineering. But unlike my brother I hated it. I barely scraped by in marks and I never got an engineering job for the summer. That just wasn't me.
But that doesn't just happen in our personal lives, that can happen in a church as well. We compare ourselves to another church in town that seems to be doing very well. It's growing and God seems to be working there. So we see what they're doing and we try to copy their worship service, or we follow their programming, or we adopt their ministry model. But it never works. I heard someone say before that God is an artist and He doesn't make copies. Whenever we try to copy someone else, when we depend on a strategy or a program, then God will not work. Oh, maybe we can get more people to meetings, maybe we can raise more money, but nothing of eternal significance will happen.
Whenever we depend on anything other than God, then we have failed already. The Lord wants us to look to Him, to pray and wait until we hear His voice. God does have a plan for this church, but you can be sure that it will be unique from any other church.
Third, comparison minimizes God's work in us. When we compare ourselves to others we think how much God has blessed that other person, but we lose sight on how God has blessed us and is working in us. When the Israelites compared the present pile of rubble against Solomon's temple, I'm sure they thought about how great it must have been when the original temple was still standing. There was a king on the throne and Israel was a world power among the nations. When they looked at their situation, living in the ruins, barely scraping by to stay alive, I'm sure they felt they were living in the worst of times.
But this comparison blinded their eyes to how God was working in their lives right at that moment. The Lord had worked a great miracle in fulfillment of prophecy in bringing the exiles back. Jeremiah had prophesied that the Jews would be in captivity for 70 years and then the Lord would bring back the remnant. And the Lord had brought that to pass. In fact, God had to arrange for the fall of kingdoms before that could happen. Instead of longing for the days of long ago, the Israelites should have recognized what a blessing it was to be back in the promised land, back in Jerusalem where they longed for and given a mission by God to do something to bless His heart. Remember what God said to them in Haggai 1:8: "'Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honoured,' says the Lord." Building the temple would give God pleasure and honour Him. What more could a person ask for in having a purpose for life?
In the same way we need to stop comparing ourselves against others and thank God for how He has blessed us. For so many years growing up I compared myself against my brother, but I didn't think about all of the gifts He had given me. I may not have gotten as high marks in school or been successful in business like my brother, but God has blessed me in so many other ways. One thing, I've always been the better looking of us two. But seriously, the biggest blessing is that I came to the Lord many years before my brother. I think part of reason why was that I wasn't as successful as Phil was, and that caused me to see quicker my need to a Saviour. And today I don't bother comparing myself any more. It's true that Phil still has a bigger house, nicer cars, a cottage up in Blue Mountain and he probably makes more money in one year than I make in four or five. But I don't begrudge him for it. I think of all of the blessings God has given me and I'm just so thankful for a wonderful family, for a meaningful ministry and most of all for the knowledge that my relationship with God is the most important thing in the world.
We can have the same problems in the church. We compare ourselves to another church that seems to be doing so well but we forget about how God is working in our midst. I'm so excited about the people being baptized this afternoon. Are you coming? I hope you are and hear how God has worked in people's lives. And it's not just in visible things like baptisms or people coming on a Sunday morning, but I believe that God is working in our midst in hearing comments from people about decisions they are making, about people hearing the Word of God and obeying. God is working here. Let's not minimize it.
Well we looked at the problem of comparison. Now I want to look at God's response. First I want to look at the commands of God. Next week I want to look at the encouragements of God. The commands of God can be found in verses 4 to 5 (read verses). There are three commands here. God commands the Israelites to be strong, to work and to not fear. Let's look quickly at each of these commands.
Be strong. God actually gives this command three times in verse 4. He commands Zerubbabel to be strong, and He commands Joshua to be strong and finally He commands all the people to be strong. God gives this command three times to address three groups of people, but I also think He says it three times to stress the importance of the command. Now I think it's important to notice that God commands this of the people. He commands them to be strong. That means that it is a conscious choice that the people must decide to make. Obviously God's command to be strong isn't a command to be physically strong. You can't tell a 90 pound girl to go to weight bench and bench press 250 pounds and tell her "Be strong!" That just doesn't work.
This command isn't about physical strength, but it is about the strength of perseverance and being resolute in our determination to accomplish the goal. That is a choice we can make. We can choose to finish the job, to complete the goal, to cross the finish line no matter what. You see the Israelites had started well working of the temple, God had stirred their hearts, but now they were coming up to a month and the excitement of a new project would be wearing off. Add comparison to the mix and the Israelites could easily give up. The command is clear to be strong, to endure and finish the task.
I remember the first marathon I ran. I began too quickly and when I hit 30 km I started feeling a sensation in my legs that I had never felt before. They started aching with pain. My pace slowed down and at times I had to stop and stretch. I'll tell you I wanted to give up, but I wasn't going to do it. I had invested too much. The entry fee alone was $85. And I had spent months training for it. I put in hundreds of kilometers and hours and hours of running. And besides all that I had told everyone I was running and my family was there cheering me on. I just couldn't give up. So I pushed on through the pain and I hobbled one kilometer at a time until I finally crossed that finish line. I chose to be strong and finish that race.
In our own lives we have to make a choice. We must focus on the mission and finish it no matter what. Being strong is a choice. We decide to endure, to keep pushing on, never letting our eyes wander off of our goal.
Comparison takes our eyes off the goal. The Israelites had a very clear goal from God. They were given the task to rebuild the temple. Now they weren't called to make of copy of Solomon's temple. That would have been an impossible task for them. The Israelites thought that they had to measure up to Solomon's achievement to be successful. But that just wasn't true.
The Lord doesn't look at success the same way the world does. In fact, look at what God says in Haggai 2:8-9 (read verses). The Lord wasn't impressed with the gold and silver that covered the original temple. How could that impress God? He owns all of the silver and gold already. In fact, God says that the glory of the present temple would surpass that of the former temple. Now how could that be? How could this new structure compare in glory to Solomon's magnificent construction? Well the glory God is talking about isn't the glory of architecture or the glory of valuable gems, gold and silver. The glory God is talking about is the glory that comes from the presence of God. If you read about when Solomon's temple was first built and dedicated, the presence of the Lord descended in a very visible way. 1 Kings 8:10-11 says: "When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of the Lord. And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled his temple."
That's the glory that God is speaking about in Haggai. We read later in Ezekiel that because of the sin of the Israelites, the glory of the Lord departed the temple. Ezekiel 10:18 says: "Then the glory of the Lord departed from over the threshold of the temple and stopped above the cherubim." The present temple would be greater than Solomon's temple because the glory of the Lord would be there. It didn't matter how beautiful or majestic the old temple was. Without the presence of God, it was just an empty shell.
When we compare ourselves to others, often we look at all of the wrong things. We think we should copy that person because they are so successful in their career or they seem to have it all, a big house, fancy cars, a cottage in the Muskokas. But we should be asking, how are they at loving God and loving others? Are they filled with the fruit of the Spirit. Without the presence of God, the most successful looking person is a failure in God's sight.
We can do exactly the same thing in spiritual circles. We can look at a church that seems to be doing so well. They are growing and have added another service and are embarking on an ambitious building project. The lead pastor is well known and the services are broadcast all over the world. But the biggest megachurch is nothing in God's sight if it doesn't have the presence of God. And if you read the news, so many megachurch pastors have had public moral failures and have left their churches, I've lost count. We have to be careful what we compare ourselves to.
God had given the Israelites in Haggai's time a mission. And though it may have seemed small and insignificant in the world's eyes, the Lord was going to bring Himself honour and pleasure through it. God has given us a mission. It is not a mission to be just like someone else or to copy another church. God's mission for us is unique. You are unique and so is BTBC. We need to find God's call for us and follow His plan, not copy someone else. And if we fulfill the goal that God has given us, though it may seem small in the world's eyes, it will bring God honour and glory. Never let comparison take your eyes off the goal. Be strong.
The second command God gives is also found in verse 4. God tells the Israelites to work. This seems like an obvious command, but often we need to be reminded to actually do something. I remember when I was in Ukarumpa, our mission centre in Papua New Guinea, there was this one really buff guy who built a gym on centre. He told me what the two keys to exercising regularly were. The first key is this: Show up. If we want to get into shape, then we have to actually go to the gym. When I run I have to wake up early, put my running shoes on and get out the door. If I do that then about 50% of the job is done. That's the first key: Show up. But there is a second key. After we show up this is the next key: Do something. When you get to the gym you need to start lifting weights or start using the elliptical or join a cardio class. When I get out the door, I have to start running and then keep on running and put on the kilometers.
Once we follow the command to be strong, to resolutely fix our eyes on the goal, then we have to actually do the work. For the Israelites that meant they had to show up every day at the temple constructions site, go up into the mountains, cut down trees and drag down the timber. They had to clear out the rubble and go through the stones and wood and pick out what could be reused.
Hard manual labour can do wonders for our soul. You may have heard of the saying, "Idle hands are the devil's workshop." I think there is some truth to that. The desert fathers were Christians who in the third century began living out in the Egyptian desert to get away from the temptations of the world and to be alone with God. They discovered that there were unique temptations that hermits and monks were especially prone to. One was acedia, the sin of spiritual sloth or apathy. It's when we feel like we don't care anymore and have no motivation to pray or read the Bible or do any other spiritual exercises. The desert fathers found the cure for acedia was good old manual labour. That's why in monasteries today they will typically produce some goods to sell. They will bake bread or make wine or weave baskets. Manual labour is part of the monks' daily life.
To fight the battle of comparison we need to work. I know for me that it does my soul good to cut the grass or wash the toilets. In fact, the more humble the job the better it is for me. You see when I only concern myself with the small things of life, I don't focus on comparison. When I am concerned with just doing the work God has placed in front of me and doing it well, I don't dream of what I could be and I don't envy others for the positions that they have.
For you that might mean doing your best in the book report and instead of skimming it or looking on line for notes, you read the whole book. It might mean changing diapers and caring for small children. It might mean doing the mundane job of filling out expense reports. It might mean praying and reading the Bible, even when we don't feel like it, or sharing the gospel with our friends and coworkers even though we are scared, and showing up to church even though we may be tired. It means to we do what we need to do to be the people God wants us to be. If we are busy doing the work God has called us to do, then we won't have time to compare ourselves against others.
The third command God gives is found in verse 5. The Lord tells the Israelites: "Do not fear." What did the Israelites have to be afraid of? They could fear the surrounding people who opposed them in the past. They could be afraid of providing for their needs. Since they were committed to rebuilding the temple then they might not have enough time to plant their crops to feed themselves. They could be afraid of failure.
What are some of the things that we can be afraid of? We can be afraid that following God will lead us into places we don't know. One thing about copying someone else, we have a pretty good idea what we are getting into. When we follow God often He will lead us into the unknown. It takes little faith to copy someone else. It takes lots of faith to follow God step by step down a path we don't know.
Think with me for a minute, in the Bible, when did God ever lead someone is the same way He led someone else. Think about Noah. How many other people did God tell to build an ark? Or think about God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac as a burnt offering. How many other people did God tell to sacrifice their sons? Or think about Moses. How many other people did God tell to call down ten plagues on a country so God could lead out His people? Or think about Joshua. How many other people did God tell to march around a walled city for seven days until God brought the walls down? We could go on, but you get the idea. God leads individuals in new and unique ways. And because that is true, it can be scary. We can fear because God is asking us to go into the unknown. But when we do, that's when God surprises us and shows His power and glory. That's what happened with Noah, with Abraham, with Moses and with Joshua.
What has God called you to do? Whatever it is, don't compare yourself to others because comparison cripples. Instead be strong, work and do not fear.
