Haggai: What Really Matters To You?

Haggai: What Really Matters To You?

Introduction:

Have you ever felt that uneasy feeling that all of your work and everything you put your hand to amounts to nothing more than just spinning your wheels? Its frustrating, like no matter what you do, your just getting by with mediocrity from 9 to 5- because it’s secure and that’s all- and then when you get home you face a pile of never ending, mounting, overdue bills. It costs more to heat the house, fuel the car, and feed the stomach but your wages aren’t keeping up. The meaning of life has been reduced to being a means of production and a source of consumption. It’s like filling a bag with holes. You sow, but someone else reaps; you store and save, but then when go to use what you’ve put away, its not worth much. I think we’ve all felt a bit of that and some of us, maybe some are feeling it right now!

Haggai offers a suggestion in his short book: he suggests that if your life is full of angst- if you’re feeling anxiety or paralysis about your ability to survive and thrive, than maybe what you need to do is not get a new job, create a new budget, file bankruptcy, get a second mortgage, another source of income… maybe what you need to do is to reorder your spiritual priorities. Read chapter 1.

Background:
· Haggai prophesied after the captivity during the 2nd year of Darius –c. 520 BC (may have lived through it and saw the former temple).
· His name means ‘festal one’ –suggesting he may have been born during a religious feast.
· The Jews had returned to Israel some 18 years earlier and, due to opposition, left the Temple pretty much in ruins.
· God used Haggai to stir up the people to complete the rebuilding of the Temple, which was finished 4 years later and stood until AD 70 when it was destroyed again by the Romans and lies in ruins to this day (the age of the Gentiles).
· In 2:23 Haggai makes an obscure but profound messianic prophesy when he says to Zerubbabel, “‘I will take you, …and will make you like a signet ring; for I have chosen you,’ says the Lord of hosts.” This is interesting because I know of no other way that this was fulfilled except that when you read the divergent genealogies of Jesus in Luke and Matthew, they converge at Zerubbabel- indicating that the Joseph and Mary were cousins 10-generations separated.

The Apathy of the People
Haggai is like a good doctor, the first thing he does is to diagnose the people’s illness. This is the difficult but essential task of every good preacher- to bruise and to heal; to exhort and to comfort.

1. The first symptom that Haggai diagnoses is that the people were making up false excuses for not building the Temple. He writes (v. 2), “This people says, ‘The time has not come, the time that the Lord’s house should be built.’”

It’s like the fool in Proverbs who refuses to go and work because their might be a lion in the street. I can relate to that excuse, because every Spring I struggle with when I should begin riding my bike to the office. I come up with excuses like “it’s too cold”; “it’s too early”; “it’s too late”; “what if there’s a street race or a gang war or a pit bull swarming”….
That’s what these Jews were doing. When they first made the attempt, they met with a little opposition and gave up. Now it was a matter of eschatology- messiah has to come first (or something)… what ever.

Funny! Because a lot of Christians are like that- they call in sick and sit on the front lawn waiting for the rapture and arguing from the newspaper headlines how the world geopolitical situation is setting us up for the one world government and the revealing of the anti-Christ, but they do nothing about the one clearly taught thing in scripture that will bring about Jesus’ return, which is to preach the gospel to all nations. They won’t even preach it to their own nation. Somebody else can do that!

Do you make excuses for why you cannot serve God and obey His calling?

2. The second symptom that Haggai diagnoses is that the people were living for themselves and not thinking of restoring worship. In fact, they actually had a form of worship, just not right worship. Their was the religion of the Garden- the one which so easily enticed Eve when she saw that the fruit of the tree which belonged to God was beautiful to the eye and pleasing to make one into a god.

3. These Jews, rather than clothing the one thing in their midst that glorified God were clothing themselves in order to bring glory to themselves. They built tabernacles for themselves: “you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?” The word for ‘ruins’ in Hebrew has the implication of a stale piece of bread. Try swallowing that!

But their own houses were nicely paneled to shield them from the elements. You adorn what you worship! They worshipped themselves and gave lip service to God. Does that sound like you? Let your conscience reveal it to you if its true- that’s the Holy Spirit (I’m not going to ask for a show of hands).

One of the things I noticed about the Karen refugee camp was that the most beautiful building in the camp was the church. I felt a sense of God’s presence and peace in that building –even though all it was was a straw hut!

Their paneled homes contrasted with ruined temple brings to mind a picture of our Lord Jesus on the cross- in ruins, a dried up piece of bread, drenched in his own blood, unrecognizable from the swelling and bruising. And at that same time the religious leaders sitting in luxury and prestige and power and clothed in the finest apparel of the Roman Empire. Who were they really worshipping? How about you?

Application
1. In v. 5 God gives the application. Notice he goes right to the heart; no beating around the bush, no therapeutic analysis of repressed childhood trauma, no blame shifting- He goes right for the behaviour: “Consider your ways”. This is actually an idiomatic expression, he literally says “Put your heart to your path!” Think with all your heart about your journey!

You sow much and harvest little- there is no prosperity in all your labour! They had diminishing returns on their labour and investments.

You eat but you never have enough- they lacked satisfaction! They were always accumulating but never coming to satisfaction as if the things they accumulated only served to fuel their insatiable appetite.

I think that they also lacked thankfulness for what they had. Sometimes when we pray and say grace to God for the food God gives us instead of giving thanks, we ought to ask God to give us thankful hearts for what He has provided, because I think we have become so accustomed to God’s provision that we take it for granted; we assume that it’s always going to be there for us, we worked for it, we clipped the coupons and stood in the line at Costco to buy- it’s our right- and we become thankless.

In Verse 7 God repeats Himself: “Consider your ways!” This is your path. Do you feel a little frustrated? Do you feel a little angst? Are you filling a bag with holes? Here’s what you gotta do: v. 8 go up to the hill and get wood and finish the temple! In other words, no more talk, Change your Path! This is the journey you ought to be on: put God first- do it now!

Rebuild the temple so that you can make much of God and in that much making of God, He will have pleasure. (pleased to dwell in the praises of his people.). This is the solution to your vanity and anxiety and angst and lack of fruitfulness in your labours- the restoration of worship! Putting God first in your labours; putting Him first in your ventures; putting Him first in your enjoyment of things!

That’s worship- it begins with the way you use your money. Are you giving to God?

Are you praying for the church as much as you are finding fault with it?

Are you serving the church as much as you are serving your own needs and wants and comforts? That may be too much to ask anyone in this self absorbed culture. But how about just a percentage then- like 10?

This is what God will do in return: v. 9 God will give you the increase and satisfy you with all his provisions:
“Because of My house that is in ruins, while every one of you runs to his own house. 10 Therefore the heavens above you withhold the dew, and the earth withholds its fruit. 11 For I called for a drought on the land and the mountains, on the grain and the new wine and the oil, on whatever the ground brings forth, on men and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands.”

If it’s in God’s power to stall your prosperity, its also in His power to cause it to flow again. God sits in heaven, how much more can he also open the windows of heaven to give you blessings and satisfaction and thankfulness?

So here’s how you can respond to Haggai:
1. You could get angry and offended and never come back;
2. You could get theological –“that’s prosperity teaching” it’s a heresy! I got books that refute that.
3. You could be apathetic. “Hey, great sermon pastor. Where you going for lunch? See ya next week.”

Israel could have responded that way too. BUT here’s how the Jews responded: Read vv. 12-14.

God gave them obedience. If God has been working on your conscience this morning- I know He’s been working on mine – then it’s because God is giving you ears to obey just like he did Israel. What are you going do? After church we could all head up to mount Seymour and get wood.

Actually I think the way we respond is unique to each one here. For some of us its matter of getting rid of some of the clutter in our lives that’s keeping us from God. For others it means getting more involved in church. And for others it may mean making a commitment to worshipping God with our finances and giving to the work of his Kingdom. Maybe it means you need to answer God’s call to missions, to evangelism, to serving the poor and visiting orphans and the homeless. If that’s what God is asking from you, than you are only robbing yourself of blessing by not giving it.

And they feared God with a reverence and awe as well as righteous behaviour- beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, which they did not have up until this point (they were on the foolish path)

Read 2:19. When our behaviour changes, so does God’s- he brings blessing. He takes away that feeling of unease, he releases your finances and removes the confusion and angst and anxiety that has been robbing you of joy and comfort.