Sermon Tone Analysis

Stories

I love stories!

I think that we all do and that is why we enjoy reading books, movies, Netflix, etc.

We enjoy getting wrapped up in a good story.

We also enjoy telling stories.

Stories are a part of us as people, because it helps us relate, but also it helps us remember and hopefully learn from our stories or from the stories and characters within those stories.

Now, in every good story there are 5 Elements that are needed for a story to make sense and to be complete.

These 5 elements are:

Characters

Setting

Plot

Conflict

Resolution

I’m going to show you some clips or read to you a little bit about movies or stories and want to see if you can get the title based on this.

Characters

We’re gong to take a look tonight at a real story about the people of Israel and how God helped restore their faith, identity, and purpose.

Like any story there are characters involved and they play a crucial role in us understanding what is going on.

Let’s Read

Here are the Characters that we see in Haggai:

Darius, the King

He was the Persian King who ruled from 522-486 BC.

He was the third king of the Persian Empire.

He came into power under difficult situations as a rival for the throne contested Darius.

This rival, Cambyses was the son of the empire’s founder mysteriously died in 522 B.C. Then there was another rival, Bardiya who had claimed the throne in Persia but Darius and his crew defeated Bardiya.

Darius consolidated his control of the entire empire (from Egypt to the borders of modern India).

Haggai, the Prophet

We don’t know much about Haggai other than he was a prophet.

His name means “Festal” and is associated with festivals.

Zerubbabel, the Governor of Judah

He was the grandson of Johoiachin and his dad is Shealtiel.

The most imporant thing about him is that he is heir to the Davidic throne.

We can see Zerubbabel in the Davidic line in .

(Focus mainly on verses 6 and 12).

Because the Persian Empire was so large, there was a system in place to break down the empire into smaller regions where they had supervisors called “satraps” and these supervisor’s oversaw governors who oversaw small communities.

Interesting is that an heir to the throne was put in an administrative role over the community which showed no signs of concerns of rebellion.

Imagine being the heir to the throne of David, but due to the exile and the rule of Babylon and now the Persians your role is diminished to that of a governor who is oversaw by a supervisor and is not close to the kingship.

We can see Zerubbabel in the Davidic line in .

(Focus mainly on verses 6 and 12).

Joshua, the High Priest

He is the High Priest and he is the son of Jehozadok.

Here is the lineage of Joshua in .

Joshua grandfather wa Seraiah, who was the high priest at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem.

Seraiah was executed by Nebuchadnezzar and Joshua’s Dad was taken into exile and so Joshua was born in captavity.

There was the expectation that he would function as the high priest if the temple was to be rebuilt.

LORD, the covenant God of Israel

The most important character is the LORD which when it is capital means the Jehovah or Yahweh which is the covenantal God of Israel.

Setting

Now, let’s talk a little bit about the setting, but I want to help us understand this more and what it would’ve been like to experience this.

Who here has ever moved before?

Who has moved from another state and lived somewhere else?

When I was a junior in college at Huntington University as a part of my major I was required to do a 6 month internship at a church or ministry in my field of study.

The purpose of this was to get you outside your comfort zone and into a new place.

I went to Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The only time I had experienced moving to a new place was when my family moved from Fort Wayne to Columbia City.

I remember driving the 3 1/2 hour trip to Ann Arbor and as we got closer feeling this pit in my stomach.

I got to the place I was staying and knew it wasn’t really my home, but would serve as my home for the next 6 months.

As I got unpacked and my family left I felt more anxious and was questioning everything.

As the fall kicked in at school I realized that a lot of my friends were at school and that I was in another state trying to figure out what life was going to be like.

It didn’t feel right, but this was where I was.

Those of you who have experienced a move can relate to everything you once knew was now different and you had to figure out what this new life was going to be like.

Imagine now, that you were not relocated because of school or your parents job, but because a powerful group has taken over your home and community and has forced you to leave and live somewhere else?

That is what happened to God’s people.

The Babylonian exile began in 597 B.C. Exile is the deportation of God’s people from Jerusalem.

Imagine being forced from your land and if you were one of the most influential you were taken first and given a new name and were indoctrinated in the culture of Babylon and eventually the majority of Judah would either be killed or would be deported as well.

The only one’s left in Jersualem were the poor and the weak and were not a threat to the Babylonian empire.

Persia took over the babylonians and the people of Judah were allowed to go back to Jerusalem in 539 B.C.

The setting of what is going on is that it is three weeks after the anniversary of the destruction of the temple.

The temple was destroyed in 586 B.C.

If you remember the temple symbolized the presence of God to his people.

In Ezekiel the LORD’s glory has left the temple and then it was destroyed.

Imagine the hopelessness felt by the people at this time.

Now, last week Brian talked about the people going back to Jerusalem in 539 BC and they have built the altar for sacrifices and have laid down the foundation of the temple.

The work of the temple stopped from 536-520 B.C. because of opposition of others and because of their apathy.

Read .

Zerubbabel, Joshua, and Haggai never knew Jerusalem before the exile because they were all born during the exile.

All they knew of what Jerusalem and the temple were was what they had been told from their families.

Questions

Plot

Read .

The people had stopped working on the temple and had thought that now is not the right time to do that.

They instead focused on their own houses and their own pursuits and wondered why their work and ambitions left them with emptiness and frustration.

God is calling them out and is frustrating their plans and wanting them to see the error of their ways.

Read .

The obedience to God is contagious.

It starts with Zerubbabel (the governor and heir of David) and Jeshua the high priest and then spreads to the whole remnant.

We need to look at this word remnant because it is used several times in this book.

Remnant has to do with the community of God that is left and they are the ones who will bridge the gap between the previous generations who had disobeyed God which led to their destruction and exile and the future generations who will be a community that will await and participate in the mission of the Messiah (the anointed one) who is Jesus.

They saw themselves as the true people of God who committed themselves to scripture and living out God’s purposes for them.

This is pretty relevant in our culture today as we are in need of the true people of God the true remnant to commit to scripture and living out God’s mission in the world.

Read .

Here is the temple in it’s former splendor and I’m sure it didn’t even look close to it as they were working on it and they knew at its completion it wasn’t going to be half as spectacular.

There may have been questions whether God’s presence was going to be with them because of the state of his temple.

God affirms them and says that he is with them.

Questions

Conflict

Read .

Haggai asks these questions on behalf of God and is getting at the point that sin has defiled the community.

Sin has consequences and infects us at every level.

It infects our thinking, our actions, our wills and desires, it infects our relationships.

He is showing the devastating affect of sin and why they have been frustrated and what has caused it.