Wake up

Brethren, turn with me to the book of Haggai, Chapter 1. It is in the Old Testament nearing the end, after Zephaniah and before Zechariah. It's there between those two, between Zephaniah and Zacharias. Haggai, Chapter 1. I am going to read some verses from here, this is very interesting because this passage came to me today after a conversation I had with a person, after I spoke with this person, I felt in my heart to go and pray for a while, and I was saying, Lord, I need you to speak to me, based on that conversation, for me it was such a revealing conversation, that I said, Lord, I need you to speak to my spirit, to confirm something. Not only for my personal life, but also for what you are doing in us as a church. For me it has become a burden, but a good burden. Being able to be so, so in tune with the spirit of God, particularly on Wednesdays, my brethren, because I believe in my heart, that there is something that God is going to do with these midweek services. I believe it and I confess that supernatural visitations are going to take place here. I know that we are going to be hearing testimonies from people who are going to be transformed by the power of God, who have already been, but that it will also continue to happen, that you are going to arrive here on a Wednesday night, and It's going to be, wow, wait, today is Wednesday, today is Sunday, what is this? A new day in the week or something.

And my burden has become that, my burden has become the sense of being able to pray intensely asking the Lord for that visitation, my brothers. Please, at no time do I make this disclaimer, at no time that God forbid, to think that Wednesday nights are Pastor Omar's show, or Pastor Omar's service, God forbid to say that. What's more, may the Lord rebuke a thought like that. Because this has nothing to do with Pastor Omar, I know that I am a resource, I have made myself available to God, just as all of us make ourselves available to God. But this is a church service and it is a moment where we meet God, it is a moment where we come, we separate him, we have him there consecrated to him to fill us, to affirm us, to be able to continue with our daily lives, and look , to expose ourselves to the word of God that has so much to offer our lives.

This is charging the batteries in the middle of the week. Give it a handle there. Haggai, beginning in verse 2, says:

“…Thus has spoken the Lord of Hosts saying: 'This people say… - and in fact I let you know, this word may sound a little strong but it is important, so keep that in mind -…'this people say: they have not the time has yet come for the house of the LORD to be rebuilt'…. - Look where this begins -….Then the word of Jehovah came through the prophet Haggai saying: “Perhaps it is time for you to live in your paneled houses, yet this house is deserted? Well, thus says the Lord of Hosts... -mark this sentence-... 'Meditate on your ways'..."

Meditate on your ways, meditate on your walk, meditate on your conduct, meditate on your thinking, meditate on your way of proceeding, your way of speaking, your way of connecting with God, your way of seeing life, meditate on your way whether we see the glass half full or half empty. Meditate on your ways. Look how verse 6 says:

“… you sow a lot and gather little, you eat and you are not satisfied, you drink and you are not satisfied, you dress and you do not get warm, and the one who works for a salary receives his salary like a broken sack. Thus has the Lord of Hosts said to you... -what does he say?-... meditate on your ways. Go up to the mountain and bring wood and rebuild the house and I will put my will in it and I will be glorified, says the Lord. You search a lot and find little and you lock yourself at home and you know what? I'll blow it away, why? Says the Lord of Hosts, because my house is deserted and each of you runs to his own house..."

Skip to verse 12, it says:

"-...And Zerozabel heard... -who at that time was directing, ruling Judah-... the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua, the son of Jozadak, who was the high priest, and all the rest of the people, the voice of Jehovah, their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord God had sent him, and the people feared before the Lord. But then Haggai sent by God, spoke by command to the people saying: 'I am with you, says the Lord'..."

A very important affirmation in the midst of all this: 'I am with you'. And verse 14, this is where the punch line is, which I want to bring you:

“…And the LORD awoke, the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua, the son of Jozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the rest of the people, and they came and worked in the house of the LORD. of Hosts, their God. And God awakened the spirit of each one of them…”

Say with me: And God awakened the spirit of each one of them. Now tell the person next to you. And God awakened the spirit of each one of them. Tell yourself: and God awakened the spirit of my person.

Look, I think I'm going to take this book by Haggai and I'm going to review it with you on Wednesdays, because there's a lot of cloth to cut here, without a doubt. But there is something I want to do. I want to put a context so that we can all understand where this line of these words that the Lord is saying goes.

Let me give you a little history. How many like the story? Do you like the story? Sure, don't lie. How many of you studied history when you were in high school? Yes, but they did it reluctantly, right? They did it with the back teeth. You were the ones who sat there reading history at night. Wow, how interesting!

Let me give you a little history. This passage, my brothers, comes from the time when the people of Israel were returning to Jerusalem after their 70 years in exile in Babylon. During the exile in Babylon, who were the prophets who spoke to the people? It was Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel was like in that transition, at the end of the exile, and entering again at the time the people returned to Israel. Those were the most important prophets during the time of exile.

But once they were coming back, that's where God had to raise up other prophets to encourage and direct the people concerning what they had to do once more and be in Judah.

Now, I intentionally say that I had to encourage them, why? If I were to ask, why were God's people discouraged by the mere fact that they had returned home, returned to their promised land, returned to the place where God established and established them? Why was that town, as they say, with their spirits on the floor?

Let's explore some things. On the one hand, my brothers, I want us to consider this. On the one hand, after 70 years in exile, I imagine that a large part of this town had settled into exile. Like they made Babylon their home. Imagine, one here in the United States, after 3, 5 years it's like... I already lost my hope of returning to my country, well I'm going to stay here, I'm going to make the United States my exile, my Babylon, my home . I don't know how many of you feel this way, but I feel this way. Here is my house now. There are times I feel like I'm still on two bases, but no. I'm here.

A second reason may be that perhaps some of the people who were in exile, their businesses were doing very well. They were earning their good fortune, their good money, and returning to Israel meant having to leave all that effort, all those earnings, and having to face once again the challenges and risks of having to enter a city that was abandoned and destroyed. So, there was a very big sacrifice that perhaps not many were willing to make. Although it was the word of God, which reached them, but perhaps not many were willing to do that.

A third option that maybe I can give you is that many of them, you know what? Perhaps they were well focused on the word of the prophet Jeremiah. If you remember Jeremiah, Chapter 29, it is a word that we read a lot. Jeremiah 29, look how God spoke to the people of Israel in exile, during exile through Jeremiah and said:

"...Thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, to all those of the captivity that I have transported from Jerusalem to Babylon... - see how he tells them -... build houses and inhabit them, plant gardens and eat their fruit, marry yourselves and beget sons and daughters, give wives to your sons and give husbands to your daughters so that they may have sons and daughters and multiply there and not be diminished, and seek peace for the city to which I had them transported and pray to God for it because in his peace you will have peace…”

Who knows if some of those people received that word and were so and so attached to that word that they thought, like going back to Judah, no, but if God told us to stay here, to build houses, to get married, to make business, that we be fruitful, and all that, that was the word of God, so we are sticking to that word.

And look, you know what? They may be right. But was that what God wanted? Not necessarily. And look, a fourth option, I think that one of the biggest problems they had in their return to Judah was having to face the Samaritans and other ethnic groups that took over their land while they were in exile.

In other words, they had to reconfront the enemies that once fought against them, when they were in the process of conquering the Promised Land, are they following me where I am going? At least there I think there were 4 reasons that for many of them had to be very obvious, why they felt a bit like, oh, going back to all this again.

So if I summarize it, it would be on the one hand, there was an attitude of comfort with the present and settling for what they had in exile. Comfort and conformism. On the other hand, I believe there was also a sense of insensitivity to respond to God's heart's desire. And the desire of God's heart was to return his people to the place where he first planted them, engendered them. A third is to focus on a prophetic word, like no, this was the word of God and wow, it gets between his eyebrows and there is no one to get him out of there. When perhaps that word, my brothers, was intended to be effective for a specific and determined period of time.

What's more, when we read those words of Jeremiah, we can deduce that that was the intention of that word, that the intention of that word when God says, look, get married, build a house, do business, what God was saying was, I I need my people to multiply so that they can remain. My people in exile were, as they say, dwindling, dying for generations, and if the Jews had only stayed among the Jews and had not mixed with others, their chances of survival would have been minimal.

So for a reason God is saying, hey, get connected, get married, go, make live, that is, multiply because once again the desire of my heart is that you can return to the place where I took you from, because that is where I wanna. Ok Pastor Omar, how does all of this connect to us?

That is the question that I always ask myself, believe me when I am seeing the word. What is the relevance that this has to our lives? I understand that God is in a process of awakening his people. God wants to wake you up. God wants to awaken your spirit. God wants to awaken your heart.

And what do I mean by the word wake up? In the intention of that word here in this text, it wants to insinuate the meaning of raising, exciting, inciting, provoking, opening someone's eyes. That is the purpose of that word there in the context of Haggai. There are many references, several references that might make sense, for example, let me tell you this: in Isaiah, so you can see that I'm not making this up. Isaiah, Chapter 50, look how he says in verse 4, he says:

“…The Lord the Lord gave me the tongue of the wise to know how to speak words to the weary, he will wake up morning after morning, he will wake up my ear so that I can hear like the wise…”

Look at that, Isaiah himself is saying, Lord, you are the one who wakes me up so that I pay attention to what you want me to know. A little bit later in Isaiah 52, verse 1, what does it say?

"... wake up, wake up, put on power, O Zion, put on your beautiful clothes, O Jerusalem, holy city, for the uncircumcised or unclean will never come to you again..."

Once again God is stirring up the spirit of his people. Wake up, wake up! Another reference that I can also mark here is in Chapter 60 of Isaiah, when he says:

"... Rise and shine because your light has come and the glory of Jehovah has risen upon you..."

That sense of getting up means that, hey, wake up, wake up, smell the rose. I mean, in this case it would be smell the presence of God. Smell the presence of God from how it is moving in your life. Do you know why this call to wake up people? God was very careful with his sons and daughters, because he knew that once his children returned home, they were going to find all this crux of things, which he knew would discourage them. Throughout all of Scripture at various times, God is always encouraging his chosen ones, calling them to strive, calling them to take courage, calling them to see things as he sees them and not as they see them.

Joshua told him, strive and be brave, do not fear or dismay because Jehovah, your God, will be with you wherever you go. To Gideon, what did he say? Gideon was there hiding like a mouse, saying, who am I to be able to do something like that? But nevertheless he says to him, man, man, valiant force, thus says Jehovah to you. Don't see yourself with your eyes, wake up. It is not the reality that you are seeing, it is the reality that God is seeing.

And you know what? My brothers, we have to open our eyes, we have to open, awaken our hearts to be able to see and discern what God longs for and wants to do in the midst of our lives today more than ever. Have you noticed that I am repeating that phrase a lot in these last days? Today more than ever the Lord wants to awaken our hearts. The Lord wants to wake up his people, because there is something he wants to reveal.

And you know what? My brothers, I say amen to this word. Because easily each one of us, if I were to enumerate the different circumstances that we experience day after day, those circumstances can easily blind our understanding, they can easily distract us from what God truly wants to do. Or is it more, it may be that things are going so and so and so well that you are accommodating very, very, very much to all those things that you are experiencing now, when perhaps the desire of God's heart is… flip your life around, and head in another direction. But no, the Lord has me in a tremendous church. This is the best church in all of Boston. Why would God want to take me out of here? Ah, the house where I live, I have the…. And I go there in front of the 57” television, the car that I drive, oh the clothes that I wear, cache, Dolce & Gabbana, like Che Guevara. No, or Dolce & Gabbana, you have to say it with the French accent. I don't know if that's French, maybe that's my doodle.

But do you understand what I'm saying, my brothers? This can go in many directions. And I understand that Dad wants to awaken something in us. There is something that the Lord is calling our attention to, my brothers, and we cannot let the circumstances around us, the anxieties and concerns as well as our achievements and conformity, cloud us from truly being able to be in tune with what God wants to do.

Look, I don't know how many of us perhaps identify with those words that Haggai said, sow and reap little. There are times when one is... look, they sow a lot and gather little, they eat and are not satisfied, they drink and are satisfied, they dress and do not get warm, and the one who works wages is as if they live from the plate to the mouth, it is like someone He says, you get your check today and tomorrow it's like, ooops, I missed the check. What happened? Or they send you an email telling you that your bank account does not have enough funds.

Look, one sees all these things and look how God says, there are times when one thinks like, oh, my goodness, how lucky I am, look how all things are turning out for me. However, there are times when God himself says, look how he says in verse 9:

"... they look for a lot, they find little, they lock themselves in the house and I will dispel everything because my house is deserted and each one of you goes and runs to your own house..."

Do you know what that means? What God is saying is, to be able to establish priorities. This does not mean that one disregards his own things. It is not that, because it is not that you are going to throw your house, your family overboard. It's not that, but it's about being able to truly align those priorities and knowing how to recognize God in everything you do.

Here obviously was a case that was crass, an important case. And it was the fact that the temple was in ruins, the most important place and that was what God was calling. God was calling to restore the temple. And look, I invite you to study this, because there are times when we talk about Nehemiah, and there are times when we talk about Ezra and all that, but you know what? All of these characters ran more or less in the same time episode. Haggai and Zechariah were the speaking prophets during the time of Zerubbabel's reign, and Zerubbabel's call was to restore the temple.

After this came Ezra as another of the rulers of Judah, and through Ezra it is estimated that the prophet who spoke was Malachi during the time of Ezra. And through him what happened was a revival in the town to restore the experience of worship in the temple. And after Ezra came then who? Let's see if they know? Nehemiah. How many of us are fascinated by the story of Nehemiah, right?

But then Nehemiah came along and what was Nehemiah's purpose? Restore the walls that protected the city of Jerusalem. Those 3 episodes that we are talking about, which were almost like an average of 100 to 120 years or so, that happened there. What God was doing was restoring his people and he did it through three specific characters. And at all times God was inciting the people, God was provoking, God was causing anxiety in the people.

And look, I don't know about you, but lately my heart has been giving me this itch of longing to know what God has, to seek not only what are the purposes of God's intentions for my personal life, but to be able to seek to identify how God wants to use my life in light of the context of this church. Or in light of the context of the church with a capital I, around the world of what God wants me to be able to do, how God wants me to be able to contribute with how much or how little God has put in my hands.

You know what? When he says, meditate on your ways, God what he's saying, don't focus too much on your own things, broaden your perspectives, broaden your horizons. And he begins to see things as I see them. It does not mean that God will not provide for your personal needs, we will read that a little later, but it does mean that God's desire is that we can be more open and willing, available, rather, to be able to understand and discern what God wants to do, what God wants to do in these times.

Look, Ephesians, Chapter 5, verse 14 says, it is a very interesting verse because it says:

"... Wake up you who sleep and Christ will light you up..."

Let me read it because it's cool. Ephesians Chapter 5, verse 14, look how verse 14 says:

“…Therefore, he says, wake up you who sleep and rise from the dead and Christ will give you light. Take heed then, this is where the thing is, take heed then how you walk... -once again, this connects with 'meditate on your ways'.

Hey, tell a secret to the person next to you, tell them, hey, meditate on your ways. You who are seeing me up there, focus here, meditate on your ways.

“…. Be careful then how you walk, not as fools but as wise, making good use of the time because the days are bad. Therefore, let us not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is..."

Hey, don't go around getting drunk with…..Miller light, with Heinken, with anything else that can be mentioned, but seek to get drunk with the one who can truly fill your life completely. Instead of drinking beer upside down out of a tube, drink the spirit of God as God intended one to drink things. Wake up, wake up, wake up, my brothers, we have to wake up. I believe so. We cannot conform to the everyday, to the ordinary, no, no, no, my brothers.

Look, last Saturday here at the soul revival activity with the young people they sang a hymn that is so uplifting to me. And this hymn said, that we will not settle for anything ordinary, we want you, God. It says, we won't be satisfied with anything ordinary, we won't be satisfied at all, we won't be satisfied with anything ordinary, all we want is you.

And I believe so, my brothers. Look, I'm going to close with this, I know I've gone on a bit, but I'm going to close with this. When you get here to the church, if there is a word that you can get from me as a pastor, when you get here to the church God forbid, indeed, God forbid us to come here with a sense of, oh, another service more, oh, my goodness. No, rebuke that thought, my brothers. God save us from coming up with such a thought. God free us from coming and sitting here and thinking, now Pastor Omar is going to say this, and this, and this, or now Pastor Roberto is going to pray this way and this way. And now it is that the preaching comes, and now it is that the offerings come and one is already like… next, next, next.

Look, no, if you come like this, you know what? You are going to ruin the party for God. Let us always come with a willing heart, with an awakened heart. Come there Lord, kind of look, I have my needs Dad, but I want to know what you have. Lord, look, my bank account is a little low, but Lord, I trust you, I know that you are the provider of all things and I come looking for you. Lord, maybe today I don't have the mood, I feel tired, I want to stay home sleeping. Sir, maybe the tire on the car blew on the way here or at the house, my tire blew and I can't get out.

Look, any reason, not to mention an excuse, that we can come up with, look, let's not go to these meetings, let's not go to these services to sit down like, ah, yes, here we are going to sing, Hallelujah! Glory to God. No, no, no, come with intention, come on purpose, come with the expectation, come like wow, Lord, what's up, what's new today, old man. Tell the Lord, watch out, watch out because you never know when God is going to surprise you.

What's more, maybe you're coming here, you're listening to me now, and you're like, Pastor, I just want to go, I want to go eat a ham and cheese sandwich with a little Quick pudding. I mean, quick milk and go to bed. Come on, pastor, it's 9:15, you missed it by 15 minutes.

Look, my brothers, no, let's wait, let's wait, there is something, there is something, there is something that God wants, my brothers, and don't ask me what it is because I don't know, I'm looking for it too. I want to know too. I may have an idea but I don't know everything. Who knows if God reveals a part to you, and another to you, and another part to you, then the whole set of everything is like, bing! That is what God wants to do.

But let's get there, let's get to the expectation. Let's get infected with it. Look, you know what? My brothers, this is something we have to learn. They know that my father was visiting me these days and I love my father, the Lord knows, but since he arrived, my father was connected to the news from Guapa Televisión, keeping up with how many people were being killed in Puerto Rico, what if mother of the child, that if that other one was murdered, and all the negative, negative, negative news. I think I could pick up the television and look at it like that from the side and blood would come out from all the negative things they were saying.

And I sat down to talk to my dad, and I was like, daddy, daddy, stop, stop, is there something positive that you can tell me about what is happening in Puerto Rico? Ah, yes, of course there are positive things. Give me one though. But it is that they killed so many and so many. And I, no, don't tell me that, tell me how good it is happening.

Look, my brothers, there are times when, tell me if it has happened or not? Omar, finish, finish. Oh, well I'm going, and I keep talking. Look, tell me if it happened to you or not? that when something bad happens, it spreads like wildfire, that's the bochinche, everyone talks about the bad. But if something good happens, they say, oh yeah, look how cool! And there he died. They don't say anything else. Hey, my brothers, we are going to wake up, we are going to awaken our spirit, open ourselves up, to say, Lord, you want us to see the glass half full, not half empty. You want us to be able to see our lives literally in light of what you have for us. You don't want me to be thinking, like, wow, when I get out of here I'm going to want to smoke. Look, don't think that you will want to smoke, think that God will give you the strength not to smoke. You think maybe when you get home, you're going to have a husband, a grumpy wife there, and she's like, wow, now I have to face…

Look, no, think positively. If something happens, Lord, you are going to give me the peace to be calm, calm and to be able to proceed in the way that you want me to do. Ah, look, my mom and dad are waiting for me at home, with a leash in hand. Well, you know what? If they have a leash, ah… put on a pillow just in case.

But, my brothers, we have to wake up. I'm going to shut my mouth. Look, my brothers, I want to see, I want, I yearn and desire to see what God has, and these things that I have mentioned, those 4 points, look, in some way or another I see myself in that mirror. There are times that I see that I am satisfied with things. Well, this is my routine, so I continue, but who knows if what God wants is to point me in another direction.

There are times when I say to myself, well, this is going well, why jump into the adventure of doing something new? Or maybe I don't dare to consider the risks of doing something new, and how that can affect my life. But you know what? Let us trust in the Lord.

I believe that therein lies the adventure of our faith. Like I went ahead. Therein lies the adventure of our faith, my brothers, in the mere fact that faith cannot be measured because we have already written everything we had. It's not boring. Faith is measured because there is something new, there is an adventure. Look, believe that you are in an Indiana Jones movie with God, that there is always an adventure, there is always a new treasure to look for.

We are going to stand up and we are going to pray. I'm going to shut my mouth now. Father, today I am hyper. Look, reach out to the person next to you, put your hand there on the person's shoulder. Oh, thank you, Lord Jesus, Father we adore you, we bless you. Thank you for your word, Lord, your word is so rich, it is so sweet, Lord, to be able to listen, read this word, listen to it, Lord, internalize it, digest it, Father. And I ask that this word, Lord, remain in our hearts, Lord.

Oh, my God, I want and just like I know that many of my brothers and sisters want to wake up, we want to open our eyes, Lord, we want to respond to that way that you are provoking us, my God, to be able to respond to your voice , to your call in our lives, my God. And Lord, if there is someone in us who is cold, who is rigid, who is barren, Lord, and who perhaps does not perceive that incitement from you of your spirit, my God, right now I declare that those hearts can begin to open up, my God, I ask you, that those minds begin to open up, Father, that any thought of rebellion, any thought of indifference, any thought of whatever, my God, that this falls completely and that it is you bringing revelation, clear revelation, my God, a revelation that is so tangible that we can say, like, yes, Lord, this is what you want. This is where you want us to walk.

But Father, that we do not focus so much on these things but that we can always be looking at you above all else, my God. We're kind of part of this church now, but you know, you just know where you're going to put us next. So, my God, for this interim of time, for this season of our lives, for this season that we are living in, Lord, we ask you to please, help us to live wisely, not like fools, help us, my God , to be able to have that initiative to seek your presence to know how, my God, to know how to know your will in the midst of us, of our personal lives, of our families, of our workplaces, of our neighborhood, where we live, of the church where we congregate, the cell we participate in, the ministry where we are involved. Lord, in all places, even where we shop, where we pump gasoline, Father, where we buy clothes, anywhere, help us to know your purpose and your will.

We want to see your hand, Lord, working with power in our midst. So, Father, have your way, take your place, Lord, take your way of knowing how to speak to our lives and that we have the courage to be able to say as Isaiah said, here I am, send me. Use me, transform me, equip me, Lord, so that I can be a good collaborator with you in the establishment and expansion of your kingdom here in this world in which you have put us to live.

We give glory and honor to you alone, bless us my God, as we prepare to go home. Take us well, take us with your protection, Lord, that the joy that you give us can remain with us and Lord, that tonight, you give us a peaceful, restful, pleasant sleep, Father, that we can sleep in your hand and that tomorrow if you allow it, we can get up with new strength, new energy, Lord, and fulfill what you call us for. Bless your sons and daughters, we ask it in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Hallelujah! Greet each other.