God asks a question

Brother Zeke Rivera taught Haggai 2:1-9 as part of the midweek services that Pastor Devon Ortiz had handed to the church's assistant pastors for two months. He recapped the previous week: God sent the prophet Haggai to a people who had grown distracted and stopped building the temple, they obeyed (Haggai 1:12-15), and God stirred their spirits to work. By chapter 2, about seven weeks into the work, their attitude had changed. In chapter 1 they were called the remnant, and in chapter 2 they are called the residue, the same people but with a different spirit.

God then asks, "who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now?" Brother Rivera noted that God knows everything, so the question is not for information but is an interrogation of their attitude. Solomon's temple, described in 2 Chronicles 3:3-10, was overlaid with gold and decorated with cherubim. The new temple was built from wood the people carried down from the mountain (Haggai 1:8). The people were comparing what they had seen with what they now held, and they were disappointed.

Three ways to deal with disappointment

Just because you are disappointed does not mean God is disappointed. In Ezra 3:8-13 the foundation of the wooden temple is laid. The priests and Levites praise God with trumpets and cymbals, and the people shout for joy. But the old men who had seen the first temple wept so loudly that the noise of the joy and the weeping could not be told apart. They compared what they did not have with what they once had. Brother Rivera said perfectionism does this to us, making us so focused on what is lacking that we stop worshiping and praising God when we should. He told of a friend on a college bus ministry who was happy on high-attendance days and sad on low ones, like a man watching a stock price, and he asked: why not realize it is the Lord's day, and therefore a good day? If you worked hard and did your best, it is a good day. He added that the temple is also our body, including the mind and what we feed it, and that stories about how good things were back in the day, however true, should not sour our attitude toward what God has us doing now.

Do not let disappointment stop the work. In Haggai 2:4-5 God calls on the governor Zerubbabel, the high priest Joshua, and all the people, and tells each to be strong and work, "for I am with you." Brother Rivera noticed the kindness of this: God names the civil leader, the religious leader, and then everyone so that no one is missed. He tied it to Joshua 1:3-9, where God gives Joshua the same charge, "be strong and of a good courage," with the promise of His presence wherever he goes. God gives the command first and the blessing follows obedience, which tests faith, because if the blessing came first, obeying would be easy. In Haggai 1 God had withdrawn the harvest and the rain to get the people's attention. So he asked: are you obeying God? Disappointment should not stop the walk with God, or the work on the temple that He has given us.

In disappointment, look to God above your situation. In verses 6 to 9 the phrase "saith the Lord of hosts" is repeated again and again, and Brother Rivera pointed out that "hosts" means armies. God is the Lord of all the armies, and He says He will shake the heavens, the earth, the sea, and the dry land. Nobody can shake something bigger than their own hand, he said, so how big is the hand that can shake the earth? When the people are disappointed with wood, God reminds them in verse 8 that the silver and the gold are His. He is not poor, and He could have built the temple from gold. He chose wood, so they would look at what disappointed them, change, and be blessed.

Verse 9 says the glory of this latter house will be greater than the former, and Brother Rivera pointed out how that was fulfilled: years later a baby, Jesus Christ, was brought into that very temple, something Solomon's gold temple never had. Our scope is so small, he said, that we often see only our disappointment. Looking to God above the situation means working in faith, with no reason to fear or fret, because God never fails even when it feels like He did.

Closing

He closed in prayer, asking God to keep believers from getting so disappointed in their circumstances that they stop looking to Him. Pastor Ortiz then added that disappointments often keep us from stepping into a new change because we keep comparing it with how things were before, but what God gives is fresh and new, and it will be missed if we keep looking backward.