Haggai
Major Lessons From the Minor Prophets • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 4 viewsHaggai Synopsis: Haggai is set after the return of the Jewish exiles from Babylon. The prophet urges the people to prioritize rebuilding the temple, which had been neglected while they focused on their own homes. God promises blessings and His presence if they obey. Key Teaching Point: Prioritize God’s work and His kingdom in your life. When we put God first, He blesses and provides for our needs.
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Haggai
Communion Sunday: Give careful thought to your ways
Synopsis: Haggai is set after the return of the Jewish exiles from Babylon. The prophet urges the people to prioritize rebuilding the temple, which had been neglected while they focused on their own homes. God promises blessings and His presence if they obey.
Key Teaching Point: Prioritize God’s work and His kingdom in your life. When we put God first, He blesses and provides for our needs.
Haggai is the second shortest book in the OT (Obadiah is shorter) and is quoted by the NT once (cf. Heb. 12:26).
The Israelites had been back home for sixteen years, and they’d not rebuilt the temple that the Babylonians destroyed many years earlier. That was a significant decision because it suggested that it wasn’t important to have God in their midst; after all, the sanctuary was to be the place of his manifest presence. Not rebuilding the temple was an indicator that they hadn’t returned to God. Building it would indicate they had.
7 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways.
1 In the second year of King Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest:
2 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “These people say, ‘The time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord’s house.’ ”
“I never knew a man who was good at making excuses who was good at anything else.” - Benjamin Franklin
Not time to build my house? But time to build your house?
3 Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: 4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?”
God is not saying not to build your house after the exile He is saying look your house is up and running but now you are putting on additions while my house is not done.
They had built their houses with cedar and expensive wood and decorated them with carvings, while the plainest buildings would have sufficed.
27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? 28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
5 Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways.
Give careful thought to your ways
Because the people had not given God first place in their lives, their work was not fruitful or productive, and their material possessions did not satisfy.
6 You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.” 7 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways.
Give careful thought to your ways
When you Mom had to tell you a second time.
Lord Almighty
5 Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle.
Going to Costco without a list is dangerous.
8 Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the Lord.
It does not matter whom we please if God is not pleased, or who gets honor from what we give, if God is not glorified as a result. – Charles Spurgeon
9 “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?” declares the Lord Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house. 10 Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops.
while each of you is busy with your own house
busy: greek word to run with enthusiasm
15 “ ‘Now give careful thought to this from this day on—consider how things were before one stone was laid on another in the Lord’s temple.
give careful thought - from this day on
18 ‘From this day on, from this twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, give careful thought to the day when the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid. Give careful thought:
give careful thought
19 Is there yet any seed left in the barn? Until now, the vine and the fig tree, the pomegranate and the olive tree have not borne fruit. “ ‘From this day on I will bless you.’ ”
9 Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; 10 then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine.
When God speaks to us by His Word, there’s only one acceptable response, and that’s obedience. We don’t weigh the options, we don’t examine the alternatives, and we don’t negotiate the terms. We simply do what God tells us to do and leave the rest with Him.
23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. 27 So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup.