This is your daily reminder. God has not run
out of mercy, not for you, not today. Welcome
to the New Mercies Podcast. Welcome to Today
Friday, February 20th. My reading today brings
me to Haggai 1 again. I know we've already read
this text once this week, but I want to focus
on just another verse today, one verse in particular.
I don't want to give away the Sunday message
too much, but I just want to read verse number
8 today out of Haggai 1. Go read the whole chapter,
read it all in context. If you have already read
it, maybe you read it earlier this week, maybe
you've already read it today before you picked
up and listen to the podcast, but today I want
to look at just verse number eight and give you
a principle in here that I think we need to understand.
A little bit of context and background in case
this is the first episode you're listening to.
Maybe you haven't heard Haggai already. This
scene is happening. There's a remnant that has
gone back to Jerusalem. When they got there,
there was a call to rebuild the temple. But as
we've seen in Haggai 1, they didn't start rebuilding
the temple. They started rebuilding their own
houses. So now I want to give a little bit of
ease to some people's minds and hearts. Some
people read the Old Testament and think, man,
the Israelites were just terrible. They were
awful. Why would they not pay attention to the
Lord? Why would they not do what he says? This
doesn't make any sense. It's so easy. We do the
exact same thing. I want you to imagine the people
that went back, the remnant that went back after
they were in captivity, they had to travel and
they didn't have the luxuries we have. It was
a difficult journey. They had to get there and
set up their home site. It was not easy. They
needed to prepare places. Where are they going
to cook? Where are they going to share meals?
Where are they going to find shelter? Any of
those things. We give them a really hard time,
but if we put ourselves back in that situation,
you would do the same thing, probably. I would
probably do the same thing. Now, I wish and I
hope that I could say that I would listen to
the Lord and do what He called us to do first.
That's what I wish I could say. But it would
be difficult. It would be difficult. So I don't
want to give them too hard a time to know that...
They had to travel back. They had to do a lot
of work, and they built their own houses. Now,
the problem was once they started building their
own houses, they got kind of consumed with it,
and so they kept building, kept making it nicer
and nicer and nicer. They were upgrading their
homes before they even built the temple. The
temple lay in ruins, and God was not happy about
it. He says in this first part of this chapter,
he says, you know, You said it's not time to
build a temple yet, but was it time to live in
lavish homes? Was it time to make sure and upgrade
your home over and over and over again? Let me
just ask you this question. Let me remind you,
the reason you have a drought is because you've
forgotten me. You've misplaced your priorities.
And so I want to read just verse number 8 today
in Haggai chapter 1. I hope and pray again. You
read the whole thing. It's really great. I don't
want to read Haggai 1, just verse number 8. It
says this, You know, that is a very beautiful
verse of Scripture. It's also a very challenging
verse of Scripture because we all fall into this...
trap sometimes, that if the Lord wants to do
it, he will provide something miraculous and
it will be done. And here's what I have learned.
Sometimes God says, go cut the wood, come bring
it down and build the house. That's not a, I'm
going to stir up a storm. It's going to blow
the trees down. They're going to roll down the
mountain right to the foot of the temple. That's
sometimes what we want to see happen. Sometimes
we're waiting on the multimillionaire to show
up and donate a big check so that we can get
something done. Sometimes God just says, roll
up your sleeves and get to work, and I will provide
the rest. One of the things I am encouraged by
today, one of the things I'm challenged by today,
as I'm looking at this scripture over and over
again, is the thought that we have to do what
we can. So that God can do what we can't. Let
me say that again. We've got to do what we can
so that God can do what we can't. We get so caught
up sometimes in waiting on some miraculous thing
that God wants us to do. And that waiting on
that miraculous thing is disobedience. Sometimes
God just says, hey, here's a shovel. It's like,
well, I need to make this happen. I need to make
this happen. I tell this story sometimes. of
a mission trip, I went on to Haiti. And when
I was there with a team from our church, there
was a dozen of us that went. And when we were
there, there was a school that needed to be built.
There was an orphanage that we were at, and we
were building some bunk beds for the orphanage
for the kids to sleep on beds. And they wanted
a school built. Well, the problem was where the
school was going to be built, there was a little
hillside, a little mountainside. And they needed
the mountainside moved. And so in order to make
a flat area so they could build the little school
that they were going to have. And it was absolutely
wild that we got there. And would you believe
it? They gave us a—we had to go buy it. We had
to buy shovels and wheelbarrows. That's what
we had. I will tell you this. After the first
day of shoveling a mountain away, I began to
pray for a bulldozer to show up. I did. I'm not
going to lie. I was like, how much would it cost
to rent a bulldozer and bring it in here? And
the Haitians were like, well, that's not happening
around here anywhere. And so, I mean, we're even
looking up like, how can we fly one in, right?
This is way too much work. We can get it done
way faster if we just rent a big machine. Let's
just throw money at it, right? The problem was
God didn't say, I want you to throw money at
this. He didn't say, I want you to hire a contracting
company, send down there, go pull all the resources.
He said, I want you to go and take a shovel and
dig. That's what I want you to do. My whole life
has been affected by that mission trip that I
was on for that short week. Now I will say this,
after a couple of weeks, we got to keep in contact
with them. We saw a school get built down there.
It was amazing. And it was a bunch of people
with shovels. That's how it started. That was
it. God tells the people of Israel, go up to
the mountain. Go up the hillside. It's a hike.
It's not going to be easy. I want you to go up
there, and I want you to bring wood down. I want
you to go up the hillside. I want you to chop
down trees. I want you to make sure that they're
laid out right, planed out right. I want you
to bring them down here then to the temple where
the temple is going to be placed, and I want
you to build the house. I want you to build my
house. Now, again, Lord, well, if you just bring
us the resources, the resources are up there.
Go get them. Stop being lazy. Lazy Christians
are not what God's looking for. He's looking
for people that are willing to say, I'm going
to grab a hammer, I'm going to grab a chainsaw
or an axe, or I'm going to grab a shovel, and
I'm going to go to the mountainside. I'm going
to get it done because God says, I want you to
go do this. It's not going to be easy work. It's
not going to be simple. But here's what God says.
If you go do this, build the house so that I
can take pleasure in it, then I can be glorified,
says the Lord. Here's what's absolutely wild.
If we do what we can, God will do what we can't.
I have said before, as a pastor of a church,
this is so strange to even say this, but I am
not asking you to save people, right? You can't.
I can't. All I'm saying is invite them to church.
That's it. That's it. Well, what I'm going to
do is I'm going to pray, and then if the opportunity
arises, go to the hillside and just make the
invite. It is not going to hurt anybody if you
say, hey, would you come and worship with me?
God's doing something in my life right now. I
don't know what it's all about yet, but I'm experiencing
hope. I'm experiencing joy. I'm experiencing
peace for the first time in a long time. Would
you just come and sit with me in church and see
if there's something to this? I think there's
something to this. That is not a hard invite.
I'm not giving you an ax and saying, go to the
mountain, cut down a tree, and drag it down here,
and then we're going to build a house together.
That's not what I'm asking you to do. I'm saying
put in a little bit of effort. Put in a little
bit of work. God says, I want you to consider
your ways. Here's what I want you to do. You've
spent all this time building your life and building
your brand and building all this stuff for you.
Now I'm just saying, go make the hike, cut down
the tree, come and build the house. Let's put
in some work. Today, I'm going to ask you to
put in the work. That's all I'm going to ask
you to do. We've got listeners now popping up
kind of all over. I think former listeners to
the New Mercies podcast that have maybe found
us back again. You may be in a different state,
a different country. Wherever you go to worship,
bring somebody with you this week. Bring somebody
with you. Say, hey, God's doing something in
my life. I know this may sound awkward. This
may sound strange. It may not be a conversation
we usually have, but I've experienced some peace
and some joy for the first time. Do you want
to come and just worship with me this week? Just
come and listen and experience maybe a little
bit of what I'm experiencing. Just come and join
with me as I'm experiencing this stuff. Just
do that. Do that this week. Go to the mountain.
Take the axe, take the sword. I'll say take the
sword. There you go. Little Bible thought there.
Take the sword with you and just go do the work.
Do the work. Do what you can do so that God can
do what you can't do. You cannot draw a heart.
You cannot soften a heart. You can't tell somebody
that they need to have, you can't. have somebody
accept Jesus. You can't make them do that. But
what you can do is you can invite them to be
around the word. You can invite them to be in
the word with you. You can say, listen, God's
been doing something in my life. Would you just
read some scripture with me every day? My pastor
does this podcast and like he shares some scripture
every day. We've got a text message that goes
out. We've got a little journal thing that we
do as a church that like walks to a reading plan.
We just read some scripture with me. It's that
easy. Just do the work. Just do the work. I want
to read it one more time. 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. You want the Lord glorified? Go
put in some work.