How to Not Quit
Bobby McGraw, Teaching Pastor
bobby@sugarhillchurch.com
@bobbymcgraw
Haggai 2
Backstory:
• King Solomon built an amazing temple for God.
• After Solomon died, the people drifted from God.
• In 587 BC King Nebuchadnezzar took Israel captive and destroyed the temple.
• For 50 years the Israelites wanted freedom from Babylon and to rebuild the temple.
• 50,000 returned home. They stopped working on the temple after two years.
• They spent the next 14 years building their own houses while neglecting the house of God.
• God stirred them up and they started working on the temple again.
• They stopped again after only 30 days.
“Then Haggai, the messenger of the LORD, spoke to the people with the LORD’s message, ‘I am with you, declares the LORD.’ And the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and worked on the house of the LORD of hosts, their God…” (Haggai 1:13-14 ESV)
They got started. Then they quit.
Before you quit…
1. SPOT THE FIGHT
Identify the thing that is causing you to want to quit. The is power when we face up to it and declare what it is.
“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?” (Haggai 2:3 ESV)
A. Comparison
Comparison is when you judge your life or your worth against some standard that God never intended for you to judge it by. For them, they were comparing their current progress with Solomon’s completed progress. It just didn’t compare.
B. A Lack of Progress
They weren’t making progress quickly enough. It had been less than a month – of course there was little progress.
Anything that’s meaningful takes time!
Don’t compare your beginning with somebody else’s ending.
This life is not about competing; it’s about completing the Will of God.
2. STAY FAITHFUL
God is really practical.
“‘…Is it nothing in your eyes? 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…” (Haggai 2:4 ESV)
What do you do when you feel like quitting?
What do you do when you’re discouraged?
God says, “Be strong and do the work.”
Be Strong + Do the Work
Extraordinary people do consistently what normal people do occasionally.
Show back up and do the work. Put down another stone.
The problem is we often quit too early. There are unfinished dreams. There are unreached people. There are ministries that need to be started. There’s a hole in destiny because we haven’t been strong and we haven’t done the work.
Keep showing up. Keep laying the bricks. Keep doing the work.
3. SURRENDER YOUR FUTURE
“The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, say the Lord of hosts…” (Haggai 2:9a)
Behind God’s call to “Be Strong” is his promise that He is with us. Not only is he “with us”, he is in us!
You don’t have to rebuild a temple or go to a temple – you are a temple!
“What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God…” (2 Corinthians 6:16 ESV)
________
“Consider now, for the LORD has chosen you to build a house for the sanctuary; be strong, and do it.… Be strong and of good courage, and do it; do not fear nor be dismayed, for the LORD God—my God—will be with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you, until you have finished all the work for the service of the house of the LORD” (1 Chr. 28:10, 20).
“Thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘Let your hands be strong, you who have been hearing in these days these words by the mouth of the prophets” (Zech. 8:9).
“…Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts. Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain. And he shall bring forward the top stone amid shouts of ‘Grace, grace to it!'” (Zech. 4:6-7)
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