Haggai

Many years ago, I was sitting across from my grandmother and she asked me what I wanted to do with my life. Having recently met Jesus and discerned a calling to ministry, I told her I wanted to go to Bible college to be a pastor. She asked me what was keeping me from doing that and I told her I was too broke for school at the time.

A few weeks later, I get a cheque in the mail - you see kids, a cheque was a way that older people sent money before the days of e-transfers. The cheque was from my grandmother who had given me enough to pay off my debts and pay for my first year of schooling.

My grandmother never professed Christ, but I like to believe that God was working in her to help me and that she obeyed him.

Well, now I am 20 years old or so with $20,000 in my bank account feeling on top of the world, struggling against my impulsive nature to make some bad decisions with the money.

As I shared the story with my pastor Terry and his wife, Donna, Donna said to me “Don’t forget to give God His share.” I was gutted. To tithe off of $20,000 was $2000, a fortune to a 20-year-old. And as I budgeted it out, after paying my debts, my tuition, residence costs, and books, I had about $2000 left over I was going to use to buy a computer.

Feeling the Holy Spirit move in me to give the money to God, I chose to obey. I donated the money to a bus fund that the youth group I was serving at had which allowed us to buy a bus for youth and church events. That bus was used for about 5 years of ministry that included food fights, deep conversations, and trips to life-changing events. Because I obeyed God, I was able to impact others in the kingdom.

Church, do you want to impact others for the kingdom of God? I think most of us do. The reason I chose to become a pastor was so that I could make a positive impact on others for Jesus. I met Jesus and he changed my life and I want to help others experience that transformation as well.

Today, we are looking at the book of Haggai as we continue our series Messengers: The Minor Prophets and the theme or the main message of Haggai is that God wants to use you to impact the world.

Haggai’s ministry occurs after the exile. In ancient Israel’s history, there are two defining events: The exodus where they left Egypt after being slaves for 400 years and the exile, where, under the Assyrians and the Babylonians, they were forcibly removed from their land. The Judahites, in particular, were exiled in 587 BC and forced to live in Babylon for 70 years.

Then the Persians take over the Babylonians and in about 538 BC, under Cyrus the Great, the displaced Jews were allowed to return to Israel and rebuild it. We see this happen in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.

When they returned, they started to lay the foundation for a new temple, since Solomon’s temple had been burned to the ground and was rubble at that point. But some locals stirred up trouble for the Jewish leaders and so temple construction was abandoned for almost 20 years.

And that’s when Haggai comes on the scene. The country is in a drought, people are hungry and the economics are a struggle. I’m not sure there is a line in all of scripture that I relate to more than when God says, “Your wages disappear as though you were putting them in pockets filled with holes! (Hag 1:6)

So Haggai makes a series of four oracles - or proclamations from God.

Oracle #1

In the first oracle, which we know happens on August 29, 520BC, speaks to the Israelite leadership team and challenges their priorities:

Haggai 1:3–4 NLT

3 Then the Lord sent this message through the prophet Haggai: 4 “Why are you living in luxurious houses while my house lies in ruins?

It’s not that God didn’t want them to build homes for themselves. It was they spent 20 years culturally focussed on themselves and their comfort and luxury, making lavish and opulent homes while the temple - God’s house- lay in ruins. So God, through Haggai, says that the reason that they are struggling agriculturally is because they don’t honour God. He is, again, using the circumstances of drought and scarcity to get their attention and draw them back to himself.

And, amazingly, the message got through to them. Within a month - under the leadership of Zerubbabel, who was the governor and Jeshua, the high priest - they started rebuilding the temple again and when they obeyed God’s message, Haggai says “I am with you, says the Lord.”

Now, you may be wondering why God was so adamant that his temple be built right away. It’s wasn’t because God needed the temple - He wasn’t tired and wanted somewhere to put his feet up. The temple was the symbol of God’s presence with his people. It was to be a beacon of hope - a place where people could meet and worship God, where anyone - Jew or Gentile alike- could find redemption, forgiveness, and holiness. Which is why Jesus declares that he is greater than the temple in Matthew 12:16 and he describes himself in temple language when he says “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up” in John 2:12. Jesus is the new temple where people meet and worship God and where anyone can find redemption, forgiveness and holiness. And then, because God gives the Holy Spirit to us when we put our faith in Jesus, the church becomes the temple - a place where people meet and worship God. That’s why the Apostle Paul says,

1 Corinthians 3:16 NLT

16 Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you?

We - the people of God - are his temple -

-the place where people will meet God as we reveal him through our love for him and each other

-the place where people will worship God because of our good deeds, how we help people

-the place where people will find redemption, forgiveness, and holiness.

So, for the people of Haggai’s time to abandon building the temple was tantamount to saying “God’s not that important to us” which was a form of idolatry - the idolatry of self. God doesn’t play second fiddle in our lives. He is to be our first priority. Haggai calls the Israelites out on this and praise God, they listened and got working on the temple so that they, and the rest of the world, could worship God and be the beacon of hope.

Oracle #2

In the second oracle, which happens on October 17 that same year, God, through Haggai, sends a message of encouragement to all the people. Although the majority of the exiles who would return to Israel did so after 70 years in Babylon, the first of those who returned came 20 years before that. They were the ones who started rebuilding the temple and then abandoned the project. Some of those people were old enough to remember Solomon’s temple and when they saw the new temple, they were sad and afraid because the temple was going to be considerably smaller than the previous temple.

So God says, “Take courage and get to work, for I am with you.” He didn’t want them languishing around, wishing for the good ol’ days. I’m convinced that we need to learn from our history, but we aren’t ever called to relive and recapture that history. Just like for every church today, for the Israelites it was time to move forward. And so God offers this amazing promise to them regarding the new temple:

Haggai 2:6–9 NLT

6 “For this is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: In just a little while I will again shake the heavens and the earth, the oceans and the dry land. 7 I will shake all the nations, and the treasures of all the nations will be brought to this Temple. I will fill this place with glory, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. 8 The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. 9 The future glory of this Temple will be greater than its past glory, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. And in this place I will bring peace. I, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, have spoken!”

The word for peace is “shalom” and it means more than not being at war. It’s a holistic type of peace, where there is abundance of resources, lack of war and of strife and you are at rest in God. It’s the fullness of salvation - it’s like how John describes life on earth after Jesus’ return and defeat of evil in the book of Revelation. To the Israelites of the time, their history is one of war and being exiled and, in Haggai’s time, experiencing deep drought and famine. So for God to offer peace via the temple would be a joyful encouragement and motivation.

Ultimately, there is a bit of what theologians call telescoping here. While the temple will stand as the place where God dwells for around 500 years or so until the Romans obliterate it in 70 AD, the fullness of peace is only found in the Prince of Peace - Jesus. He is God dwelling in man and when we put our faith in him, we experience a peace in our soul as we become at rest in God. And through our faith in him, we will experience the fullness of shalom when Jesus comes again to finish establishing his kingdom.

Oracle #3

We jump forward a couple months to December 18 and Haggai has a third oracle and this one is directed to the priests. For those who are familiar with the New Testament - you know how Jesus often asks the Pharisees questions meant to expose their bad theology, assumptions or practices? Well, he learned that from his father. Here in Haggai 2, God asks the priests two related questions in order to reveal to them a bad assumption they are making.

First he asks them…

Haggai 2:12 NLT

12 ‘If one of you is carrying some meat from a holy sacrifice in his robes and his robe happens to brush against some bread or stew, wine or olive oil, or any other kind of food, will it also become holy?’ ” The priests replied, “No.”

Then he asks them…

Haggai 2:13 NLT

13 Then Haggai asked, “If someone becomes ceremonially unclean by touching a dead person and then touches any of these foods, will the food be defiled?” And the priests answered, “Yes.”

And then he says that is what was going on with Israel before you started building the temple. Your sin was contaminating everything you did. Every bit of your worship was contaminated by your sin. And what was that sin? Well, for that, we look to the prophet Zechariah, whom we will study more in-depth next week.

Zechariah and Haggai were contemporaries. They spoke to the same group of people at the same time. So in Zechariah chapter 7,

Zechariah 7:9–11 NLT

9 “This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: Judge fairly, and show mercy and kindness to one another. 10 Do not oppress widows, orphans, foreigners, and the poor. And do not scheme against each other. 11 “Your ancestors refused to listen to this message. They stubbornly turned away and put their fingers in their ears to keep from hearing.

How we live matters. We can’t live in a way that dishonours God Monday to Saturday and then come in to worship him like everything is fine on Sunday. It doesn’t work like that. Their immorality contaminated their worship. But when Haggai preached to them, they repented and turned back to God, starting work on the temple. The beautiful thing about our God is that he makes a way for us to get right with him. Because the atonement for our sin was paid by Jesus, his perfect Son who was sinless, we can always come back to God through the discipline of repentance. Now, confession is a two-step process. First we confess our sin to God - we acknowledge what we did was wrong. Second, we begin to obey God. We change our behaviour. The Israelites had repented by realizing they had done wrong (both historically and by ignoring the work on the temple) and then they changed their behaviour - they started building it. And because they started to build the temple, because they obeyed God - God promised to bless them.

Oracle 4

Later that day, God gave Haggai a fourth oracle - this time to Zerubbabel. In it, God says…

Haggai 2:21–23 NLT

21 “Tell Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah, that I am about to shake the heavens and the earth. 22 I will overthrow royal thrones and destroy the power of foreign kingdoms. I will overturn their chariots and riders. The horses will fall, and their riders will kill each other. 23 “But when this happens, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, I will honor you, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, my servant. I will make you like a signet ring on my finger, says the Lord, for I have chosen you. I, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, have spoken!”

While this is a message specifically for Zerubbabel, it’s also a message of encouragement to everyone. The leadership of Israel was a delicate thing, because they were still under the Persian regime. Many feared that the line of David the king was permanently broken. But here God promises he’ll make Zerubbabel, who is a descendant of King David, like a signet ring, which is a symbol of royalty. So God is fulfilling is eternal promise to David when he said,

2 Chronicles 13:5 NLT

5 Don’t you realize that the Lord, the God of Israel, made a lasting covenant with David, giving him and his descendants the throne of Israel forever?

But the promise God makes to Zerubbabel in Haggai is carefully couched in terms that reveal that the ultimate purpose of this reinstatement is the rule of God on earth through Davidic rulers. We see this ultimately occurring through the reign of the Son of God, the Son of David - Jesus of Nazareth, who is himself a descendant of Zerubbabel.

So God’s purpose was to use Zerubbabel and his family line in order to birth Jesus the Messiah who will reign over everything forever. And the reason that God re-establishes the line with Zerubbabel? Because Zerubbabel feared the Lord and turned back to him. He humbled himself under God and so God lifted him up.

Last week, as we looked at the book of Zephaniah, we saw that the theme of the book was that God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. When Israel was proud and ignored God by not building the temple, he opposed them with the drought and famine. When they were humble and repented, God gave them grace and blessed them by restoring the land and the line of Kings that stretched from David to Jesus.

Conclusion

I think Haggai teaches us that God wants to use our obedience to build his kingdom.

The basis of true religion is obedience. - John Calvin

That’s the thing about our God. He doesn’t want our obedience to his commands just because he wants power and to hold us down - he wants our obedience so that he can use it to bring love and freedom to those enslaved to sin and to this world. He wants to offer freedom and he uses us to accomplish that through our preaching, our counter-cultural living, and through the love we show each other and those outside the church.

We, the church, are God’s chosen instrument for revealing Him to the world. Drawing from each of the four oracles in Haggai, if you want to make an impact for Jesus, here are four things to keep in mind:

1. If you want to make an impact for Jesus, you need to prioritize Jesus in your life. - Jesus isn’t an addition to your life - he is your life. Everything is to revolve around him.

Matthew 16:24 NLT

24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me.

2. If you want to make an impact for Jesus, look forward in anticipation, not backward in lament. - learn from History, but don’t resist the future because of your fear.

Philippians 3:13–14 NLT

13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.

3. If you want to make an impact for Jesus, live a life that honours God. - disobedience to God strips you of spiritual power.

1 John 2:3–5 NLT

3 And we can be sure that we know him if we obey his commandments. 4 If someone claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth. 5 But those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love him. That is how we know we are living in him.

4. If you want to make an impact for Jesus, remember that your obedience today will be felt by others in future generations. - We rarely get to see the fruit of what we plant right away. But with patience, time and continuing cultivation, we reap harvests. Look at the result of the obedience of A.B. Simpson, who founded the Alliance Canada.

2 Timothy 2:2 NLT

2 You have heard me teach things that have been confirmed by many reliable witnesses. Now teach these truths to other trustworthy people who will be able to pass them on to others.

Church, do you want to make an impact for Jesus? Because God wants to use your obedience to impact others. Will you heed that call?

Pray.