Getting to the Lord’s Work

INTRODUCTION

Read Passage

Story #1: New Jersey woman who risked life to save baseball tickets

Story #2: Woman in 2006 who didn't want to damage care to save heat-stroked son

What's the commonality between these stories? Misplaced priorities!

We hear stories like these and marvel at how anyone could get to the point where their priorities would influence them to make these kinds of decisions.

But priorities can present themselves in subtle ways

They form over months and years, not days

They must be continually fed by desires and passions

And when they're fully formed, the justification for the priority has become as logical to the person as breathing air.

God knows this tendency...it's a tendency in all of us, and so we open up the Bible and are confronted everywhere with challenges to reconsider our priorities.

And that's what we see in the book of Haggai.

PROPOSITION: We see here a prophet sent by God to confront his spiritually apathetic people to get busy doing the Lord's work.

So let's take a look at this book and see how it confronts us to consider our own priorities and evaluate our own spiritual apathy.

Setting:

· Year: 520 B.C. - 2nd yr of Darius the king

· Day: August 29 - 1st day of 6th month

· Zerubabbel- Persian-appointed governor of Judah & Davidic descendant

· Joshua- high priest and direct descendant of Aaron

1. A COMPLACENT PEOPLE (1:2-4)

Verse 2

· "This people" - sense of hostility - not "My people" - something's not right

· "Time has not come..." - implies an acknowledge of duty toward the temple

· WHY???

· 586 B.C.- Judah had seen Jerusalem destroyed and Solomon's temple burned to ground

· They had witnessed their people massacred or carted off to Babylon

· They had spent 70 years in captivity under the authority of Gentile rulers

· 538 B.C.- Cyrus issued decree for Judah to return home

· 537 B.C.- Altar rebuilt

· 536 B.C.- Temple foundation laid accompanied by joy/tears

· 536-520 B.C. - construction halted - offered assistance/open hostility/deceitful letter

· 16 years w/ no attempt to recommence construction

· EXCUSE:"the timing isn't right..."

Verse 3-4

· Haggai exposes real reason for the delay

· "Is it time for you. yourselves..." - turns their excuse around at them

· "to dwell in paneled houses" - here we learn the real reason

· As it turns out, the people had been busy...building their own houses

· "Paneled" houses suggests a certain level of comfort and luxery (1 Kgs 6-7/Jer 22)

· What began as a legitimate delay in construction had morphed into a state of spiritual apathy

· Their zeal to reestablish their spiritual identity as the people of God had transformed into an individual pursuit of personal comfort and priorities

Temple's Significance

· Israel's purpose: be a light and blessing to the nations

· Attract the nations to God and to the law and bring salvation and blessings to the world

· Temple was central to that purpose

· God promised to dwell among them

· Only then could they function as a kingdom of priests mediating between God and the world?

How far Israel had come!

· Ps 132:1-5- "Remember, O Lord, on David's behalf, all his affliction; how he swore to the Lord and vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob, "Surely I will not enter my house, nor lie in my bed; I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, until I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob."

· Israel's sentiments couldn't be further from David's!

· 16 years earlier, the younger generations shouted for joy as the foundations were laid, while the older generations wept as they remembered the glories of Solomon's temple

· Now all they seemed concerned about is their own lives, their own things, their own comforts, their own priorities

· When would the temple be completed?

· "THE TIME HAD NOT YET COME..."

ILLUSTRATION: Incomplete shoe shelf...

· "this house lies desolate" - while Israel lived in their comfortable homes and pursued their own affairs, God's temple—the place where he dwelt among his people—remained in the same condition it had been when it was destroyed

APPLICATION

· What we see here is a portrait of what it looks like when God's people become spiritually apathetic:

o We begin to lose sight of who we are where we came from

o We begin to forget why we're here and what God has called us to

o We begin to shift our eyes off of Christ & his kingdom and begin to care more about the things and affairs of this world

o BE BECOME DISTRACTED BY OTHER PRIORITIES

o Our time, our resources, our thoughts, become consumed with ourselves and the cares of the world

o The church becomes a place where we come to be served, not a place where we come to serve

o We come to expect the few to take care of the many

o Our resources—time, talents, treasure—are locked up in things that bring us satisfaction but do little or nothing for the church, its mission, or its people

o Our excuse: "it's not the right time!"

2. A HARSH REALITY (1:5-7)

Verse 5

· "Consider your ways" - lit. "Set your heart on your ways"...think about what you're doing!

· A severe disconnect between thought & action—doctrine & devotion

· They should have known & recognized that things were not right...

· HOW?

Verse 6

· Begins to connect the dots of their everyday life hardships

Verse 7

· "Consider your ways" - repeats for emphasis

· Pointing them to their circumstances as a reason for their actions

· This is classic cause & effect

· Deut 28:38-40- "You shall bring out much seed to the field but you will gather in little, for the locust will consume it. You shall plant and cultivate vineyards, but you will neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worm will devour them. You shall have olic trees throughout your territory but you will not anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives will drop off."

· Leviticus 26:20- "Your strength will be spent uselessly, for your land will not yield its produce and the trees of the land will not yield their fruit."

APPLICATION

· Cold, hard reality is setting in as the people are forced to connect the dots between their spiritual complacency and their difficulty circumstances.

· Covenant curses unique to Old Covenant

· Reaping/Sowing principle still operative (Gal 6:7)

· Fruit of spiritual apathy/misplaced priorities

o Loss of joy

o Increased patterns of sin

o Lack of effectiveness

o Sense of purposelessness

o Frustrations over life's futility

3. A STERN COMMAND (1:8-11)

Verse 8

· Presents the divine instruction

· "Go up...bring wood" - Judean hill country where timber was plentiful

· "rebuild the temple" - reset your priorities

· "that I may be pleased with it" - God's displeasure towards his people could be reversed

· "that I may be glorified" - the ultimate purpose of God's command—to be glorified by dwelling among his covenant people

Verse 9

· Issues a warning

· "You look" - realistic expectations of harvest resulted in lack of productivity

· "You bring in...I blow it away" - revelation of how God was behind their struggles

Verse 10

· "Sky withholds dew" - crucial to protect crops f/ wilting during hotter months

· "earth has withheld its produce" - all nature collaborating w/ God to withhold its bounties

Verse 11

· "I called for a drought..." - divine sovereignty...God has caused this!

· Deut 28:23- "The heaven which is over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you, iron."

· Leviticus 26:19-20- "I will also break down your pride of power; I will also make your sky like iron and your earth like bronze. Your strength will be spend uselessly, for your land will not yield its produce and the trees of the land will not yield their fruit."

WHY?

Verse 9

· "Because of my house, which lies desolate, while each of you runs to his own house"

4. A FAITHFUL RESPONSE (1:12-15)

· Zerubbabel...Joshua- civil/religious leaders

· "all the remnant of the people" - everyone participated

· "obeyed - the most beautiful words you can read about God's people

· "the voice of the Lord their God" - recognized that God was speaking to them, not just a man

· WHAT WAS BEHIND THEIR RESPONSE?

Fear (1:12)

· "people showed reverence" - lit. "feared the Lord"

· It was a right emotion—they had been awaken from a spiritual slumber and they suddenly realized how much they had messed up

· Deut 10:12 - "Now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require from you, but to fear the Lord your God..."

· This was a very appropriate response and understandable on a human level

Encouragement (1:13)

· Haggai offers a word of encouragement

· "I am with you..." - endorsement of the people's resolve

· Reminding them that God had not abandoned them though they had abandoned him

Divine Quickening (1:14)

· "So the Lord stirred up..." - summarizing statement of the people's response...uncovers what made it all happen

· "Stirred up" - used frequently of waking up

· The leaders and the people had been awakened by God himself

· Through the ministry of the Word of God, the Spirit of God quickened the hearts of the people to respond in repentance and obey God

· "They came and worked on the house of the Lord..." - completed the construction

Date

· 24th day of 6th month - 23 days after Haggai prophesied his message