Pastor Matt Hagee – “We’ve Got Work To Do”

Discover “We’ve Got Work to Do” – a compelling exploration into God’s unshakable kingdom, set in the framework of prophetic visions and historical narratives. Dive deep into Daniel’s dream interpretations, Haggai’s call to action, and the powerful proclamations of King Cyrus, illustrating the sovereignty of God through every rise and fall of empires. This message illuminates the relevance of Scripture today, weaving insights from Psalm 2:6, Psalm 2:9, and Haggai 2:4 into our modern struggles for control and hope. Pastor Matt Hagee challenges readers to recognize the eternal truths behind shifting powers, reminding us that no system or coalition can overthrow the Kingdom of God. Rooted in timeless promises, the message reflects Jeremiah 29:10 and Isaiah 40:8, guiding believers to be strong and work diligently. It reassures that the same God who stirred Cyrus’s heart still works through unexpected circumstances, reminding us that our redemption draws near, and His promises endure forever.

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when you read the Bible you need to

understand that predicated on the

chapter and verse you’re looking at it’s

a piece of a puzzle that connects to a

bigger

picture when people say to me that

they’ve read the Bible through from

cover to cover I appreciate apprciate

and can be impressed by the effort but I

also am concerned because there are

pieces and parts of the Bible that if

you read it from page one all the way to

page 1287 or however many pages you’ve

got in

yours from Genesis to

Maps you’ve looked at different parts of

the puzzle at different times and might

not have a very clear picture so when

you open a book like

haggi he’s just too chapters and you

read those two chapters and you wonder

to yourself what is this doing here it’s

a piece that doesn’t fit but what you

need to understand is that every piece

of God’s puzzle fits perfectly together

with God’s plan because he’s the one

that wants us to get the big

picture Hagi is just a piece of the

puzzle what do we connect him with we

should connect him with the book of

Ezra because

Ezra is a priest and a

scribe who during the Babylonian

captivity wrote down the history of what

was

happening so that he would have a job to

do in the land of a foreign

King I say well what do you mean

well Ezra was a

priest over here in

Jerusalem Ezra is a scribe he’s a priest

unto the

Lord Nebuchadnezzar comes and he takes

Ezra and he takes Daniel and their young

men their teenage men and they go all

the way from Jerusalem over here to

Babylon and when they get to

Babylon the Babylonians ask Ezra what do

you do he says I’m a priest to the god

of Abraham Isaac and Jacob he says those

positions are filled we don’t need

any now when you’re not needing in a new

kingdom guess what

happens you get the

axe and we’re not talking about let go

from HR we’re talking about a literal

axe so Ezra tells the

Babylonians what I mean is I’m a

historian I write down important details

so please allow me to serve in your

kingdom writing down

history so Ezra in Jerusalem is a priest

but Ezra in Babylon is is a

historian and Ezra starts writing down

some facts that help us paint the big

picture of this puzzle of

Hagi one for example he tells us who

Hagi is talking to he’s talking to

zerubabel and Joshua zerubabel is the

head of the government he was given

Authority by King Cyrus to go into the

land of Israel back to Jerusalem and

rebuild the

Temple Joshua he was the priest who was

over the proper process in which the

temple was going to be

made we read these verses in Ezra

starting in the first chapter the first

verse and the second verse there we read

now in the first year of Cyrus King of

Persia the word of the Lord might be

fulfilled that stirred up the spirit of

Cyrus so that he made

a

proclamation what was the

Proclamation read verse two in verse two

it says thus says Cyrus King of

Persia all the kingdoms of the Earth the

Lord God Of Heaven has given me and he

has commanded me to build him a house at

Jerusalem which is in

Judah Cyrus is a pagan Godless man

Cyrus is a killer Cyrus is not a nice

person Cyrus is a

threat to

Babylonians not democracies but

Babylonians and yet God uses this evil

person with such a Godless

heart

why because it doesn’t matter if you’re

in Jerusalem

M it doesn’t

matter if you’re in

Babylon it doesn’t matter if you’re

someplace in between God is still God

because he is higher than the highest

and he is greater than the greatest and

he can do above and beyond anything you

can ask think or

imagine so after 70 years the children

of Israel under Cyrus are allowed to

return to Jerusalem and zerubabel is

going to head up the Coalition and

Joshua is going to head up the religious

aspect of it and they go back to

Jerusalem and the Bible tells us that

while they were there when they first

get back they lay the foundation of the

temple Ezra 2 and 2 says the people who

went back to rebuild the house of the

Lord were zerubabel Joshua and Nehemiah

we’ve heard of them Ezra 3 and10 it says

and they laid the foundation of the

temple and then in Hagi chapter

1 Hagi comes to Joshua and

zerubabel and he gives them a word of

warning Hagi 1 and verse 5 he says

consider your

ways and then in verses 6 seven and 8 he

makes sure that they understand what

their ways are doing and then he repeats

himself he says consider your ways he’s

a prophet of God and and he’s waking up

God’s people God didn’t send his word to

the unrighteous he sent his word to the

righteous so many times we want God to

send a word to people that we know need

the

word oh I wish they were here to hear

what was said in church

today how many of you know somebody you

would never think this way because y’all

aren’t these type of

people but you know somebody that

whenever they hear something they go oh

that’s so good I wish they were here

that is for them you know somebody who

knows that everything’s for somebody

else

anybody guess

what God didn’t send his word to them he

sent his word to

you and Hagi comes to them in Hagi

chapter 1 and he says consider your ways

he said you’ve built your house but you

haven’t built God’s house

he says is it a proper thing for your

house to be arrayed in fine linen and

God’s house lays in ruin consider your

ways he says you’ve sown much but you’ve

gathered

little put it in modern terms you’re

working 70 hours a week but it’s still

not

enough consider your ways you’ve eaten

the finest foods and you’ve drank but

you’re not full nor are you satisfied

consider your ways you’ve got the finest

clothes but you’re still not

warm and he’s telling them very clearly

the reason that you do not enjoy the

life you live is not because you don’t

have material possessions it’s not

because you don’t have subscriptions and

the latest downloads it’s not because

you don’t have 500 opportunities to

watch every football game on every

device you have in every house you live

in it’s not because of the stuff you

lack it’s because you’re doing your

thing and not God’s

thing God didn’t see send those people

back to build their house he sent them

back to build his

house and this isn’t just isolated with

Joshua and zerubabel when Jesus came to

the Earth what did he tell his disciples

at the temple on or at The Sermon on the

Mount he said seek ye first what the

kingdom and his righteousness and then

all of these things shall be added unto

you you see life is not only built upon

personal responsibility but life is

built upon proper priority and whenever

you have a priority that is higher than

the kingdom that is going to be the

kingdom that you serve but when your

priority is the king above Kings and the

Lord above Lords he promises you that

you’re not only going to live in the

good of the land but your children and

your grandchildren are going to be

blessed and that his hand is going to be

upon you his angels are going to go

before you no weapon formed against you

shall prosper when you have a need he’s

going to supply it above and beyond your

ability to contain it it’ll be pressed

down it’ll be shaken together it’ll be

running over when they come against you

in One Direction they’re going to flee

from you in seven directions because if

the Lord thy God is with you no weapon

form shall

prosper a crisis can change everything

in an instant but in that moment a

familiar word comes to mind one you’ve

read so many times that it’s now etched

in your memory this is why it’s so

important to be intentional about

strengthening your faith by reading the

word regularly and spending time with

fellow Believers you equip yourself to

face adversity when it comes this month

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done send your best gift Now by calling

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wonders but so often we want to claim

the promise without doing what the

provider has

asked and Joshua and zerubabel they

started building but they

stopped 16 years later Hagi comes and

says why did you

quit and they’ve got some very good

reasons why they

quit there were some zoning ordinances

that they didn’t know about before they

began the zoning

ordinances are found in Ezra

4 children of Israel under Cyrus one of

the kings of Persia are sent to

Jerusalem they start to

build the people who had been here for

70

years from Nebuchadnezzar’s Kingdom and

now the Persian Kingdom recognize that

when Jews start building a

temple it’s

controversial people watch CNN today and

they’re like what’s the big deal it’s

been a big deal for a long time folks

and so they start writing

letters and if you really want to get

down to it they they they they kind of

use misinformation in these

letters you might call it fake

news it could be considered

gaslighting or

racist

bias they say things like these

right-wing

nationalists and if you can’t find that

in your Bible it’s in my Bible in Ezra

4:6 it says that they write a letter to

King AR ex

Xerxes and here’s what they say Jews

have come to

Jerusalem and it says and they’re

building a rebellious and evil city

notice how they snuck their opinion into

the work that was actually being

done and then it says if they finish the

walls well why would they start a

building unless they’re going to finish

the

walls and they repair the

foundations We Believe now they’re

putting more than just their opinion on

it they’re trying to shape the

perspective of the king that whenever

they do this they’re going to make

trouble for you and so we suggest that

you tell them they should

stop now here’s the truth if these local

bureaucrats down here could have made

zerubabel and Joshua stop they would

have stopped St them all by themselves

but because they don’t have the strength

to do what they wanted to do they wanted

to send an emergency order back to

headquarters and tell the king here’s a

bunch of stuff that’s really not going

on but we think if you don’t stop it it

could get bad for us and so the king

reads the letter and the king’s name is

Art EX Xerxes and art exer these rights

back to them in Ezra 4:21 and 22 he says

make these men cease this city will not

be built until the command is given by

me make sure you do not fail me in this

now when the king says ‘do not fail me

in this guess what you’ve got a cease

and desist order on your building

project but Hagi comes to Joshua and

zerubabel and he says why’d you

quit and Joshua and zerubabel say well

we quit because the king said that we

shouldn’t do

it and Hagi tells them and hagy two and

four be

strong and

work it doesn’t matter who’s against

you it doesn’t matter what they’ve said

about you it doesn’t matter how they

threaten you if what you’re doing is

what God has called you to do do it

anyway you see Joshua and zerubabel had

allowed the opinion of others to cause

them to forget what God sent them out to

do Joshua and zerubabel had decided that

it would be better to go along and get

along and build their house instead of

build God’s house and when they forgot

this the quality of their life started

to go down why because the Bible clearly

says when you forget God you’re turned

into hell Psalms 9 And1 17 the nation

that forgets God shall be turned into

hell hell is a place that is absent of

the existence of God and when your life

is absent of his existence you have hell

on

Earth do you see the parallel that we’re

walking in this nation in this world

today Joshua and zerubabel forgot God’s

plan and they started to do their plan

and their world was getting turned

upside down they worked a lot and they

enjoyed very little here on this planet

in this Earth in our lives we’ve

forgotten God we’ve forgotten that it

was his Mercy that spared us we’ve

forgotten that it was his Grace that was

shed upon us we’ve forgotten that it’s

his blessings that bring us our

abundance we’ve forgotten his word we’ve

band it more than we’ve obeyed

it now what you need to know is that

this word wasn’t sent to the

world this word was sent to

you if my

people who are called by my

name will humble themselves and

pray humble yourself have the strength

to admit you don’t have it all figured

out and then pray ask the God who

actually does have it figured

out and see if he will not hear from

heaven and heal their

land don’t listen to a message like this

and say oh that’s good pastor I wish

everybody got to hear it everybody ain’t

here you

are be strong and work why

because while you don’t have the big

picture God

does God sends haggi to zerubabel and

Joshua and says guys it’s time to quit

making excuses it’s time to start going

back to work and they

do and guess what

happens the same people that hated them

before they still hate

them and they write the same nasty

letter and they send the same nasty

letter back to headquarters

and the same nasty letter that they send

back to headquarters it doesn’t come to

King Xerxes it comes to another King by

the name of Darius Darius the

me remember the MEO Persian Empire and

the

statue well Darius is in charge of this

arm and he’s the one who gets this

letter and the thing that’s interesting

about Darius is that Darius is the

individual ual who took over in Babylon

after Nebuchadnezzar’s Empire fell there

and if you remember from last week there

was a 17-year-old boy 70 years prior who

left Jerusalem and went

all the way to Babylon and his name was

what Daniel thank God this sermon was

going to get a lot longer if y’all got

that name

wrong and Daniel shows up here when he’s

17 and he serves Nebuchadnezzar and he

serves Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson named

Bazar and then he serves he serves

Darius King of

Persia and the letter that is written

about the rebuilding of the temple 70

years later comes to King Cyrus and now

87 year old

Daniel say how do you know he’s 87 well

if he’s 17 when he got here in 70 do the

simple math

right so the dude’s pushing 90

let me say something to you don’t you

ever think that you’re too old for God

to

use if you’re breathing there’s a

reason Daniel is

87 and he and Darius are

friends and if you read the book of

Daniel there’s a plot against Daniel

because people don’t like

him they don’t like him because he’s

close to the king and everything that

the king likes to talk about Daniel

likes to talk about and so they come up

with a plan that says if you pray to

anybody other than the gods of Persia

then you’re going to be thrown into the

what lions oh y’all just shorten the

sermon even

better and we know all about this story

when we read that part of the puzzle in

the Book of Daniel

part of the puzzle goes like this Daniel

prays to the god of Abraham Isaac and

Jacob he gets thrown in the Lion’s Den

King Darius is very worried about his

friend Daniel he goes back to check on

Daniel the next morning and he asks the

question was God able to deliver you and

87-year-old Daniel goes God was able to

deliver me Hallelujah about that time a

letter comes from Jerusalem the home

city of

Daniel and King Darius picks it up and

it says these troublemaking right-wing

religion

Fanatics are trying to build a sanctuary

and when they build the sanctuary

they’re going to rebel against you and

they are expecting to get a letter back

that says make them stop or I’ll kill

them and here’s what Darius sends back

because Darius has just had a

supernatural experience with Daniel in

all Lion’s

Den that those guys over there didn’t

know anything about if they knew who his

friend was they might not have sent him

the

letter Darius writes back

I am so glad that you have volunteered

to support the rebuilding of this

Temple I want you to take the money out

of my bank account I want you to take

the timber out of your Forest I want to

send back the gold and the silver and

all of the things that were taken from

Nebuchadnezzar and I want you to help

them set it up and I don’t want you to

charge them a thing for it oh and by the

way if you don’t do what I say I’m going

to going to take a tall Spike and I’m

going to put you on top of

it

wow you see they had no

idea no idea what God was going to

do but as long as they were making

excuses and not doing the work God

couldn’t do

it why because faith without what work

is De

de say it another way God couldn’t bless

it until they started building

it what were they commanded to do be

strong and work and build the house of

the Lord when they stopped building God

stopped blessing because God can’t bless

What You Won’t

build oh but it’ll never be as good as

the first one God said all the gold is

mine all the silver is mine God proved

it when he showed him how he got Daniel

out of a l Lion’s Den and got all of the

gold back to

Jerusalem they said it’ll never be like

the first one God said the latter glory

is going to be greater than the former

glory I don’t care what you heard about

the first temple this next one’s going

to be something like you ain’t never

seen and he proved it whenever he

snatched Daniel out of a lion’s den and

stirred the heart of Darius to say to

all of these people you make it better

than it’s ever been because if you don’t

I’m coming to visit you myself

now what’s the point of all of these

puzzle pieces and all of this story and

all of these things the point is simply

this we have work to

do we don’t know how God’s going to use

the work we do we’re just a small piece

of this big

picture but if we don’t do the work God

can’t pour out his blessings if we don’t

build the home God can’t bless those who

labor in it if we don’t build build the

family God can’t favor us if we don’t

build the nation God can’t protect us if

all we do is whine about what we used to

be instead of being who God called us to

be then all we’re going to remember is

the past and never enjoy our present or

our future so child of God quit worrying

about what you don’t have and recognize

that what you don’t have God does stop

worrying about what you cannot do and

start to declare I can do all things

through Christ who gives me strength

stop worrying about what you don’t know

and where it’s going to come from and

start talking about who you do know

because you know the one whose word will

not return void you know the one whose

promises will endure you know the one

who parted a Red Sea for others he can

part one for you you know the one who

brought down the giant for David he’ll

bring down a giant for you you know the

one who makes a way where there seems to

be no way and if he did it for them then

child of God he’ll do do it for

you because what did he tell zerubabel I

say this in

closing be

strong what did he tell

Joshua be

strong what did he tell the

people be

strong and then read the last part of

the

verse because

I

am with

[Applause]

you same God who was over here is the

same God who was over there and all

places in

between that God God who was with them

he’s the god who’s with

you and he sent me here with two very

simple things for you to

do you

ready be strong and work can we

[Applause]

stand God what a mighty God you

are what a wonderful

savior what an everpresent help in a

time of

trouble help us to remember today that

your word does not return void help us

to remember

today that if you said it you will do

it and even if we have to wait if we

work while we wait you’ll bless what we

build so God everything that we’ve heard

today let us apply it to our lives not

worrying about what we cannot do but

doing what we can and knowing that

everything that is UN

imaginable you’ve already made possible

we ask these things in Jesus name and

all of God’s children said praise the

Lord would you give the Lord a hand clap

of

[Applause]

[Music]

Praise what a mighty God we serve that

we can be such a small part of the

puzzle and yet fit into his divine plan

thank you for joining us today I pray

that you feel the presence of the Lord

no matter where you’re watching from and

you know that he who be began a good

work in you will be faithful to complete

it even unto the day of Christ Jesus I

want to encourage you to go to jhm.org

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