Are You All In? - Haggai Part 2 — Francis Chan

You know, we had such a great weekend last week. I just thought, man, it was just such a special weekend, you know, what the Lord did. I don't know, you know, every weekend we have baptisms. Every weekend people give their lives to the Lord, they get baptized, but I get the privilege of being back there and hearing people's stories and where they came from, and it just seems like every service, someone just blows my mind with the road that they've gone down in life, and yet God's got a hold of them now, and they wanna turn it all over, and they wanna start living for Him.

And, you know, even this week, I just think, you know, just a few in my head of just in the last few services. You know, one guy just on drugs last 10 years, you know, lost everything and just, but now found the Lord and just turned everything around.

One of my favorite was last weekend. Last weekend at the 10 o 'clock service, there was this guy who got up to get baptized, and he asked, he goes, hey, can I say something? I'm like, sure, you know, I give him the mic, and then I knew him a little bit.

You know, just started coming to the church and just gave his life to the Lord, and he gets on the mic, and he goes, he goes, what do I say? He goes, I'm a 55-year-old Jew from New York, and I'm about to get baptized, you know?

And then he quotes something from Gambler's Anonymous that he learned, you know, and it was just so cool, you know, and then I was talking to him after the service, and I go, Bob, you get that this isn't just a part of your life now, it's like what I said, he's the priority, he's everything.

Like, you don't just tack Christianity onto your life or add it in like a little hobby, and he looks at me, and he goes, no. He looks me right in the eye, he goes, Francis, I get it. To use terms I understand, I'm all in.

Wholehearted Commitment to Christ

I thought, ah, that's so perfect, you know? You know, and when he said that, and for those who don't play poker, which is all of you, you know, you just know from TV, right? You know, but the whole, that whole illustration is, you know, in playing poker, if you have a hand that you're so sure of, and you're just saying, you know what, here's all of my chips, here's everything I've got, I'm putting it all in, everything, so if I lose this, I'm done, I'm over, I've lost everything, there's no other hand after this.

And I just thought, what a great picture of the Christian life, you know? What a perfect illustration of just saying, you know, this is it, that's the way the Bible describes Christianity. That's the way the apostle Paul spoke about his life.

He goes, listen, in 1 Corinthians 15, he goes, if there's no life after death, he goes, do you understand, if all there is is what we see here on this earth, he goes, then I am literally the stupidest person on this earth.

He says, because I've sacrificed everything believing that there's a life to come. He goes, I've been tortured, I've gone through so many hardships, I've given everything I own, everything is going because I believe there's life after this one.

So he says, if there's no resurrection from the dead, he goes, I'm above all men, the most to be pitied on this earth. He goes, do you understand, I am all in on this. I have bet everything, so if I am wrong, if I am wrong about this Jesus, that he really did rise from the grave, then I've just wasted my whole life.

That's Christianity, it's not something you tack on to your life. Jesus described it in Matthew 13, he says that the kingdom of heaven is like a man who found this treasure buried in this field, and he found this treasure so great, it says that with joy, he went and he sold every single thing he owned so that he could buy that field.

You see, it's about this idea of finding a treasure that is so wonderful that it's not, well, I'll give you half, I'll give you a few, I'll throw a few chips, no, no, no. It's about selling everything and saying, you know what, I'm putting everything into this because I so believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God, he died on that cross for me, and he rose from the grave, and he promises me that whatever I sacrifice on this life, I'll get a hundredfold in heaven, and that's what I'm living for.

And so if that doesn't really come true, I've just wasted my whole life, but I'm completely sold out on this thing. And that phrase that he used last week just never left me alone, it's like, wow, what a great phrase, and I gotta ask you this morning, honestly, think through your life, are you all in?

I mean, have you just laid it all out on the table and said, I'm betting it all on this resurrection? I'm not living for this life, I'm not playing it safe and going, well, I'll give a little bit to God, and you know, and so even at the end, if this doesn't come true, at least I had a fun life, and I didn't really invest that much anyways.

No, or did you put it all on the line and say, no, this is about me, this is my whole life? Would others who know you, would they say by your lifestyle that you're all in, would they describe you that way?

Not by what you say, but would they look at your life and say, gosh, the amount that person sacrificed, her morality, his morality, the amount of time they spend serving this God they believe in, this is like all that matters to them, is that you.

Hey, how many of you guys were in church last weekend? Just by a show of hands, okay, most of you. It's a good weekend, huh? Good message, I did pretty good, huh? Yeah, that's one of my better messages.

No, I left here, and I thought, no, I didn't mean to make you clap. Although, no, but I left here going, gosh, you know, I don't know if I can preach any better than that. So if you guys were visiting last week, you got lucky, don't expect it every week.

Hearing the Word Must Lead to Action

But I went home going, man, I just laid it out, that is just everything, I just put it all out there, and I even went home going, wow, I was really pleased with everything that was said, and whatever else, and everyone started saying, wow, that was a good message, that's one of the best messages I've ever heard you give, you know, and so here, let me ask another question.

How many of you can think of something this week that you did because of last week's message? Okay, good, good, maybe 10%. You know, I used to, I remember when I first started speaking I used to love when people came up to me and told me it was a good message.

Man, I lived for that, it was like, you know, you preach, and then you have the people come forward, go, oh, man, that was a great message, shake your hand, and the more people, the better, to me, it's like, yeah, yeah, and then I go home, man, yeah, it was a good message, you know, everyone was telling me it was a great message, and emails, great message, great message, and it used to mean so much to me.

I used to get excited over that, and honestly, the last few years, I just go, you know what, I don't really care. You know what gets me excited is every once in a while someone will email me and say, hey, you said this, you showed us this verse, and because of it, here's what I did, here's something I did this week.

I read that and I go, yeah, that is so cool for someone to come up and say, well, because of that, I heard the message of Haggai, and so here's what I did, and I get so pumped up, you know, but this whole idea of, hey, good message, good message, oh, man, you kept me awake through the whole thing, I paid attention through the whole message, or whatever it was, you know, it's just like, wow, you're so motivated, you got me so fired up, I just go, okay, great, thanks, thanks, but the Bible says, don't just be hearers of the word, and so deceive yourselves, do what it says, and that whole idea of deception, about fooling ourselves into thinking that, wow, we heard it, we liked it, we're fired up about it, so we did it, that's what we were after, right?

You know, no, no, it's the action, what did we do, what did we apply, name something concrete that happened in your life as a result of hearing the word of God. You see, things like that, they haunt me, in a sense, I mean, I read passages like in Revelation 3, there's a church in Revelation 3, verse one, the church in Sardis, and God, Jesus writes a letter to this church, and he says to them, he says, these are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars, he says, I know your deeds, you have a reputation of being alive, but you're dead.

I mean, what a great statement, he says to this church, he goes, man, you've really built a reputation for yourselves, man, you've got this reputation that you're just so fired up, you're so alive, he goes, but I know what you actually do, and you're dead.

The God of the universe looked at that church and says, everyone else thinks you're so great, you're so alive, great reputation, he goes, I look at you and I say, you're dead, and that's the truth. I look at your actions and I say, you're dead.

And I look at a passage like that and I go, gosh, I don't want that to be us. You know, we hear messages, and I get excited just that you come back after some of the things I say, you know, and you show up again, like, oh, that's good, that's good, that means they like the word of God and they don't mind, you know, having it thrown right in their face and go, no, that's what we want, that's what we want, but at the same time, I don't wanna kid ourselves, because if we don't do anything then it really wasn't a good message.

And so we were gonna move on to Haggai chapter two this week, you know, but I decided to put that off. The title of my message this week is do something with last week's message. Because I just thought, this is silly, what am I gonna do, go Haggai two, okay, here's another one, and all right, what are we gonna do next week, you know, and just give another sermon.

And there's a side of me that's just kinda tired of, you know, preaching or giving sermons and giving more knowledge or entertaining, whatever it may be, because the truth is, is I honestly believe it is better to not hear a message than to hear a message and do nothing about it.

I really believe that, I really believe that, because, you see, if you never heard the message, then you're not accountable for it. You can go, I don't know, you know, right? But once you know the truth, and you know what God said and God has spoken, and then you say no or you don't do anything about it, that's a concerning thing.

And that's why I go, well, it's not really good to teach new truths unless we've applied the old ones, and the more I prayed about it, I thought, God, that doesn't honor you. You know, I got all the study, got all the notes for Haggai chapter two, I can preach through it today, but I just go, that's not honoring to him.

What did we do with last week's message? Does the word of God bug you sometimes? I mean, like, just, it's like, it nags you. It bugs me, it bugs me. You know, after I preached last weekend, literally the next five nights, you know, I couldn't sleep.

I couldn't sleep, and I slept one night, and then last night, right back to not being able to sleep because I keep waking up thinking about the words that I said, and it haunts me, it bugs me. I think about the words of Haggai one, and it keeps me up, I wake up, I'm up at like one o 'clock till four o 'clock to five o 'clock just praying, going, God, I know, you know, my wheels start spinning, and I just start thinking, no, things aren't right, things aren't right in my own life, things aren't right in the church, there's more, there's more, help me, help me understand it, I gotta get this right.

Man, because the word of God, it bugs me, it doesn't leave me alone, I don't just preach it and go, oh, yeah, that's what he says to do, you know, and then move on to something else. If it hasn't been applied in here, if I haven't done something about it, it bothers me.

It convicts me. The words of Haggai one, we're gonna go back to Haggai one this week, Haggai chapter one, verse two. This bothered me this week. Haggai chapter one, remember the story? Haggai chapter one is about the Jews coming back into their land, the Persian Empire allows them to come back and inhabit the land, the holy land once again, and I didn't really share all of this last week just for brevity of time, but you know, when the Jews came back into their land after the exile by the Babylonians, they come back in under the Persian Empire, and they do actually build the foundation to the temple.

Okay, the people build the foundation because they want to rebuild the temple of God that was destroyed by the Babylonians. They put the foundation down, but then somehow they just get discouraged and they quit, and so for 16 years, about 16 years, that foundation just lies there, and they stop building God's temple.

Meanwhile, during that time, they start building their own houses, really nice houses, and so God sends the prophet Haggai and says, hey, you guys are saying it's not time to build, but your houses sure look pretty nice, it sure was time to build those, you know, and he goes, what's up with God's house, why aren't you doing that, and that's what the story was, but the words, you know, in verse two, when it says this is what the Lord Almighty says, these people say the time has not yet come for the Lord's house to be built.

That phrase, it bugged me. They say it's not time for the Lord's house to be built, and maybe that phrase, I know why that phrase bothered me more than all the rest. It's because it sounds so much like what I've been saying the last couple of years.

It's just not time for us to build yet. It's not time for us to, you know, do the whole building thing, and then we gotta raise money, and it's just not, it's really not time for that yet, and I would say things like, well, God's gonna give us a deal.

He's gonna give us a deal on land, okay? You know, we're children of God, so we shouldn't have to pay full price like someone else. He's gonna give us a deal somewhere, and so when that deal happens, you know, I know, it's the Chinese thing.

I want two for one, you know, I wanna, you know, at least 25 off. I want something, you know, give me a deal. You know, I got a coupon for land. You know, I want something to happen. I want someone to come in with millions of dollars or someone with acres of land and go, here it is, okay, build a church, and waiting, waiting, waiting, so it's just not time.

Let's wait for the Lord. He'll give us a deal, and things like, you know what? The real estate market's climbing. Let's wait for it to settle down. It'll go back down, and let's just wait. It's just not time yet.

You know, the church is healthy. Cornerstone's getting healthy. It's getting healthier all the time. We're getting more discipleship in. People are growing. They're starting to develop. There's more relationships going on.

Things are happening, so you know what? The church is healthy. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? It's not time, it's not time, it's not time. I don't wanna talk about money. Don't wanna do a building thing.

It's not time, not yet. Meanwhile, you know, at our 10 o 'clock service, people are getting turned away. You know, not only is this room completely packed, but the satellite room gets completely full, and then people are walking around the hallways, you know, just trying to peer in, catch a little bit of the service, and people are leaving.

And if you come here any time around the holidays, it's just nuts. You'll see just streams of people leaving the church because there's nowhere to sit. And when I see that, I think, gosh, those are people.

And what's going on in each person's life that's walking away? Every soul that leaves is just as valuable as mine. And I think about that. And I go, gosh, that person walking down the street is just as valuable as me.

And what if that were me? And you know, and then you start, you know, someone's just telling me, you know, Saturday night, you know, she was just in the nursery Saturday night working two or three-year-olds, and she's going, man, it was just completely packed.

We had to turn people away. And then this lady said, oh, it's my first time, you know, I had a bad experience. I had to sit in that satellite room, you know, and she's like, please just come back. Please come back.

Come earlier, you'll get a seat. You know, this and that. And you just start going, okay, is it really not broken? You know, and then think about this. If we began to build something today, let's say today we found some land and started building, at least two years, you know, by the time you get through the city, for them to permit something for a nonprofit organization, you know, and then to build it, I mean, it's gonna be at least two years.

Imagine, how many people do you think will be turned away from our church within the next two years? Just in two years. Try to figure out that number of how many people will leave the church in the next two years because of space.

And so I start thinking, it's not time to build. It's not time to build. It's not time to build. It's not broke. It's not broke. It's not broke. And it's like, oh, okay, you know what? I was just very convicted by that phrase because I go, you know what?

Maybe I've held some things back. I couldn't sleep because the next phrase in verse four, when he says, when he asked that question, is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses while this house remains a ruin?

Laying there on my bed, my nice house, and going, man, is that it? Should I be comfortable or should I be uncomfortable because there's a work to be done? And I looked at that, and here's what really started bugging me was I began to just run some numbers in my head because God's confrontation to those people is like, wow, your houses sure are nice.

You know, and I started thinking, okay, well, what do we have? What are our assets as individuals? And so I began to just run some numbers in my mind, okay? I started thinking, okay, there's about, average weekend, there's about 3 ,000 adults that attend on an average weekend, and not everyone comes every weekend.

I think it's very safe to say that 4 ,000 adults would call Cornerstone their home church, say this is home, 4 ,000 adults. You know, average weekend, somewhere around 3 ,000, a little more than that, and so I go, okay, we probably have about 4 ,000 that come regularly, and that's probably a low estimate.

So I thought, okay, how many of those 4 ,000, would you say, are homeowners? Let's say everyone's married, which isn't true, but let's just say that'd be 2 ,000 families. Let's say half of those, only half of them own homes, and the rest are renting or something.

Then I go, okay, let's say there's 1 ,000 homeowners. Again, let's just go low, let's just go conservative. Let's say just we have 1 ,000 homes within our church. Then I thought, what's the average price of a home in Simi Valley?

And I'll go really low, let's say 500 ,000, which is, I know, you're laughing at that. I just had my house appraised. My house is at 1 ,008 square feet. I think it's the smallest house you can buy in this town, and it was appraised at over $500 ,000.

Okay, it's nuts, okay? So that's a conservative number, right? 500 ,000, we're safe with that, 1 ,000. And so I thought, okay, so how much money is that all together? Asians, help me out. 500 million dollars, right?

Half a billion dollars. And that, again, I just go, okay, that's what we have. That's what we own for ourselves. That's pretty conservative. And then I thought, okay, how much is our land or our property as a church worth?

And this is worth about nine million. And so these numbers are flying through my head in the middle of the night, just trying to figure out, okay, we're probably about here, right? And the reality is we're probably closer to a billion than we are to 500 million.

But let's just go conservative and say, 500 million for us, nine for you. And I just go, this isn't right. It's not about a deal, right? I mean, do we need a deal? No, it's not about what we can afford.

It's about what we're willing to afford for God's house. And so these numbers, you can go ahead and turn that off, just running through my mind and me going, well, you know what, the money's not there.

I don't wanna ask for this and that and we can't really afford it. The more I prayed about it, the more I thought about it, I go, you know, we can afford anything in the city, really. I mean, with the number of people that come here, the number of assets that we have for ourselves, we've done pretty well for ourselves, I go, we really can do anything.

And then I look at verse 14. In verse 14, it talks about how the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, who was the governor, and he stirred up the spirit of Joshua, who was the high priest. And it says, he stirred up the spirit of the whole remnant of the people and they came and began to work on the house of the Lord Almighty, their God.

The People Respond by Rebuilding God's House

And I thought, man, wouldn't that have been fun? Okay, just put yourself back thousands of years ago and imagine, wow, you know, God led us back to our land, you know, and after this exile for all these years, now you're back in the land that God promised you and you get a little lazy and you forget about what he's done and you go and you just build your own homes and everything else and then suddenly you hear this message that God's saying, hey, what are you guys doing?

And imagine if you're in a crowd where all of the people, the whole remnant, all of them go, he's right, let's go. And then you just start climbing up the mountain, you start chopping down trees and you see other people melting gold and doing all this stuff and everyone's working together and everyone just drops whatever they're doing and they're going, okay, forget my house for a little bit, let's all together build God's house.

I thought, that would have been such a rush to be a part of that, you know? Have you ever been in a part of a, just a team effort where everyone's pitching in, everyone's doing it, everyone's making it happen and I'm looking at that and there was just a sense of jealousy, like, gosh, that would have been a blast.

You know, but it's such a beautiful picture because like I said last week, when the people repented, God said those words, I'm with you and I thought, wow, now you've got the voice of God saying I'm with you and I'm reading on, studying on and after they start building, after about two months of building, then the Lord says to them in chapter two, verse 19, which we'll study in a couple weeks, Haggai two, verse 19, God says to them, from this day on, I will bless you.

Isn't that a great thing to hear from God? Imagine that, if you could hear God say to you, from this day on, from this moment on, this Sunday, I'm gonna bless you, especially after what he had done to those people.

Remember the drought? You know, he's going, man, you guys have been in a drought, guess why? Because I'm in charge of the rain. You guys were trying to harvest all this stuff but you don't have any, guess why?

I blew it all away, because I'm in charge, I'm in control, I'm holding the remote, this is me, everything's in my control. He goes, but then everyone repents and he goes, you know what? From this day on, okay, mark this day and we'll study that, it's exciting because he goes, remember what's gone on up until this moment and now watch what happens from this day on.

I'm gonna bless you. I believe, you know, man, we'll talk about it in a couple weeks but it's, I'll tell you guys, I didn't tell anyone else, but don't tell them. But you know, it's interesting because they're celebrating at that time this feast where they're supposed to gather all of these crops, you know, in the beginning of chapter two and they didn't have any crops and so they're all depressed, they're looking at the temple, looking at the foundation going,.