So I heard my first 'lady-exhort' on Sunday at Mt Colah meeting in Sydney...Jenni Pogson gave a brilliant talk and I enjoyed it so much that I asked her if i could share some of her thoughts with you! I hope you find as many gems as I did :) Hurrah! :)
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Now Haggai is an interesting book, it kind of doesn’t get much attention, it’s hidden away with all the other minor prophets, and it can be sometimes hard to find any encouragement or message from those guys up the back of the Old Testament, let alone trying to pronounce their names right. I’ve always said Haggai, some people say HaggAi, but I think I’ll just stick to what I am used to.
So Haggai was a prophet at a time where the people were back from exile in Babylon and had been living in Jerusalem for some years. These people had been through a lot, they had been living in a completely different country for decades in a foreign culture, a lot of them would know no other life really. I would have taken awhile to get back on their feet, get used to their country again, establish roots and find some normality in their lives. But it had been quite a few years since they had been back, probably about 16 years in fact, and everyone was settled in, had built some very nice houses for themselves. But while they were living these nice lives, God’s house, the Temple, was still lying in ruins. The foundation had actually been laid just after they arrived back in Jerusalem, but never finished, and so it just sat there, neglected and basically in ruins for years and years.
It says in Haggai that the people kept putting it off – “The time has not yet come for the Lord’s house to be built”, they said. They were waiting for the perfect time, a time when they felt it was right to be built. They had to be ready, the conditions had to be right, before they could really make an effort to build God’s house. But God would have none of that. “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your panelled houses, while this house remains in ruins?” he says through Haggai. The people were so caught up in their own lives, so intent on making a comfortable live for themselves, on focussing on their own concerns and comforts first, that they really had no time to be thinking about God. It was them first, God second. They did not make God a priority in their lives.
Sounds familiar hey. I know it’s so easy to get caught up in our lives, to be concerned about getting our own lives in order, getting a nice house, focusing on doing well at our jobs so we can move up the ladder and do well for ourselves and our family, that God is kind of pushed to the side a little. I mean, we come to church on Sunday, but how much of a sacrifice is that? God’s not interested in playing second, third or fourth fiddle to everything else going on in our lives. He wants to be our whole lives, for us to be so consumed with passion for Him that in permeates every aspect of our every day.
And it’s so easy to think that it really has to be the right time before we can do God’s work. We have to wait for the right moment to really commit ourselves to building God’s house, to build his church, to allow ourselves to do his work here on earth, to put Him first before anything else. But while we wait for the right time, God’s house is lying in ruins. There are people in our community who need us. There are people who are so lonely that just one visit a week from a few friendly people would mean the world to them. There are people who are not able to perform tasks such as mowing their lawn or changing a light bulb, because of a disability or some sort of limitation. And there are people who have everything but feel some sort of emptiness inside and are searching for more, but don’t know where to look. The community needs us, and God needs us to build his house here in Mt Colah.
I know sometimes we’ll do a preaching effort and spend a day really trying to do good and spread the word of God. Sometimes we feel like we have “planted much, but harvested little”. That’s what the people of Haggai’s day felt. They felt they had done some pretty good stuff, but they weren’t seeing the benefits of it. It can sometimes feel like that, can’t it. We do a big preaching day and then are surprised and disappointed that no one responds. Oh well, we say, we tried. We tried to build God’s house, we spent a whole day trying to do it, but no one cared. I guess they are just not interested. Or we do something nice for someone, a good deed, and feel really good about ourselves. I don’t really think this is building God’s house. It may be laying the foundation, but then there’s no follow-up. It takes more than one day to build a house. It takes commitment and it takes care and consistency. It needs to be ongoing, we need to take an interest in people’s lives, rather than just a blitzkrieg and then nothing. If we’re going to build God’s house it takes time and it takes effort.
Haggai said to the people, “go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and be honoured”. Going up a mountain takes effort. Going up a mountain and carrying massive trees back down, it’s not just an afternoon activity.
It all just seems like hard work doesn’t it? But it’s not about work, it’s about changing the way we live our lives to be more responsive to what God is leading us to do. It’s putting Him and His work first in our lives. And you know what? God is with us! God says to the people “I am with you”. He is behind us 100%, because it’s not our work we’re doing, it’s His! He’s got this weird way of working where he uses the weakest things you can imagine, us, to complete his will on earth.
So the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerrubabel, the governor of Judah, and Joshua the high priest, and the spirit of the whole remnant of the people, says in verse 14. And they began work on the house of the Lord Almightly, their God.
Do you sometimes feel stirred to do something? You get a sudden enthusiasm for a particular project or idea, and you get really excited, maybe after a conference, or after hearing something, and you just really want to do it! But then after a while things get in the way, and the excitement dies, and then you pretty much forget about it. It happens to me all the time. Did you ever think that maybe God is stirring us to do something? But if that’s true, what happens when we just ignore it and do nothing?
At a recent women’s conference one of the speakers was the founder of the A21 project, an organisation that seeks to end trafficking of women and children around the world and rescue them from sexual slavery. The speaker said on a recent trip to the shelter they have for these women in Greece there was a woman, originally from somewhere in Eastern Europe, who had only been saved from sexual slavery for about two days. She was understandably angry and bitter and still untrusting of the organisation that had helped rescue her. In her broken English she asked the speaker why they had come and why they were doing this work. The speaker said they were Christians and they felt they were doing God’s work in freeing women from bondage and abuse. She felt good she could explain to this woman how great God was that he could free her and others from such horrific circumstances.
Suddenly the woman burst out, “Then why didn’t you come sooner?” The speaker was taken aback, as this was not the response she was expecting. “There are thousands of women who have been in slavery for years, why are you only coming now? Why has God only heard our cries for help now?” the woman asked angrily.
The speaker paused, then said to her: “Honey, God has always heard your cry, it just took me this long to hear it”.
God always hears cries for help. He is not deaf or busy doing something else, he hears the cries from our lips and the cries from our hearts. “When he cries out to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate,” says the Lord in Exodus 22:27.
“The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles,” David writes in Psalm 34:17.
However, the way God works in the world, the way he chooses to do his will and outwork his plan for the earth, is most extraordinary. He uses us. Us, the weak and broken people we are. He uses us to spread his message of love, justice, peace and salvation to the world. He uses the weak things of this world to shame the strong, 1 Corinthians says.
We are Christ's ambassadors, Paul says. Jesus was sent here on the earth to show us that we can become the righteousness of God.
Why does God, all throughout the Bible, urge us to “defend the cause of the weak and the fatherless” (Psalm 82:3), “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute,” (Prov 31:8), “to look after orphans and widows in their distress” (James 1:27). Why doesn’t just God do it himself? Because God works through us for his own purpose, if we allow ourselves to be his instruments. We are the answers to the millions of prayers that rise to God every day, we are the answer to the cries of help from those who are lonely, who need a friend, who need encouragement. But God will not interfere with our free will. He wants us as willing servants. He may want us to be an answer to someone’s prayer, but it is up to us whether we are willing. He may stir us to so something, but it is still up to us whether we do it.
How many answers to prayers have been delayed because we couldn’t be bothered listening to that call in our heart to reach out to someone in need? How many prayers are still waiting to be answered? We are how God defends the cause of the weak and fatherless, we are how God looks after orphans and widows in their distress. But we need to be willing participants in God’s work. The harvest is plenty but the workers are few, Jesus said. Why does God allow suffering and loneliness and injustice in the world? Because we allow it.
So next time we have an urge to call someone we haven’t spoken to in awhile, to help that elderly neighbour do some housework, to send a card, to donate money, to start a project at here at Mt Colah or your church, maybe we shouldn’t ignore it. We may just be the answer to a prayer. It may be God desperately trying to get us to help him do his work. “For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose” (Philippians 2:13).
We need to respond. We need to build God’s house, we need to get to work! For too long God’s house has remained a ruin while we live comfortably in ours. God is with us! He has asked us to be part of this exciting adventure we call life. If we let him God can take us on an amazing journey, where we can meet amazing people and allow God to touch lives through us, and let him touch our lives as well. We should be honoured that God lets us be a part of his plans. It’s not meant to be a chore, or work, it’s meant to be our life. So let’s live it the way God wants us to, not because that’s what God told us to do, but because our will and his will align so closely together. Let us begin work on the house of the Lord Almighty, our God.
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