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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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
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