A Housing Crisis of Biblical Proportions

Every day of your life, you exchange it for something. Picture a machine that dispenses and coin for you each day to use. You can’t see inside it to see how many you have, but each day you get this coin to use as you wish, and you may not get one the next day. You take your day’s coin and spend it on things like work, school, spending time with family or friends, doctor appointments, or just relaxing and doing nothings. At the end of the day, you have nothing left of that coin because it has been spent on various things.

Every day, we have 24 hours to use at our discretion. We don’t know if we will get another 24 hours the next day or not, but we have this 24 hours right now. Many of us live by a calendar. We plan, we schedule, we look ahead to the week, the next week, the month, and some of us even look ahead in the year.

The question we must all face is, “How do we really spend that 24 hours we are given?” This morning I want to challenge each of you to look at a typical day in your life (because it is different for each of us) and see how you spend those hours. Where do you spend the majority of you time? Do you spend it tending to issues for other people, sleeping, watching TV, or just simply nothing? The next question I want to pose to you is, “Where does God fit in all of that?”

We all have priorities in our lives, but the ultimate realization we all must come to at some point is, “do we spend more time tending to our own personal needs and desires as opposed to what God has put us here for?”

We live in a generation that carves out time for everything that is important to them, yet many of them do not see the importance of God in their lives. While we cannot make others see the importance of God in their lives, we can each learn where God stands in our own lives personally, and that is precisely what God called the nation if Israel to do in the book of Haggai.

The Historical Setting:

The book of Haggai takes place after the exile to Babylon. Basically what happened was, God created everything, and His creation disobeyed, and God started to unfold a plan that would take His chosen people into slavery in Egypt. God delivered them from that bondage and led them to the land He had promised them. Due to their disobedience, they wandered around for forty years and then were able to enter the promised land.

Once they entered the promised land, they were directed by God to occupy the land and were given specific instruction on how to take that land over. Again, they disobeyed and became corrupted with the beliefs of the other pagan nations that occupied the land, and they would fall into a cycle of sin that caused God to raise up Judges to deliver the people from the outside oppression. Once the era of the judges ended, the people cried out for kings like the other nations.

God granted their request for kings, and during that time, the kingdom split into two different kingdoms (the northern kingdom consisted of 10 tribes of Israel and the southern kingdom that consisted of the remaining two tribes of Israel). During this time the northern kingdom became so disobedient that God used the Assyrians to completely obliterate the northern kingdom (effectually dissolving 10 tribes).

After Assyria lost prominence, and Babylon started to become a world power, the southern kingdom was eventually destroyed and the people were carried off into an exile situation in Babylon for the next 70 years. About 583 BC, King Cyrus of Persia made a proclamation that would allow the Israelites to return to their home with his blessing in order to rebuild their nation (cf. ). They are led by Zerubbabel and the high priest Joshua. This first groups was approximately 50,000 people that returned, and in about 536 BC, they start to rebuild their temple.

During the rebuilding process, they are faced with much opposition. They are attacked quite often, and eventually they start to lose heart in the rebuilding of the temple. Once indifference set in, they returned to working on their own homes and lives and abandon the rebuilding of the temple completely (cf. ).

16 years pass, and Haggai and Zechariah (both minor prophets) are commissioned by God to stir the people up to do two things: (1) get back to rebuilding then temple, and (2) get their spiritual priorities straight.

Canonical Setting:

Haggai, Zechariah, Ezra, and Nehemiah are all very closely related in time frame. Haggai and Zechariah take place in the first seven chapters of Ezra (during the first group of returners to Jerusalem). Ezra appears in chapter 7 of his own book and leads into Nehemiah (who was the governor working with him) who led the second group to return to Jerusalem, so Haggai and Zechariah are related Zerubbabel like Ezra is related to Nehemiah (prophets to governors).

Overview of Haggai:

Haggai is the second shortest book of the Old Testament behind Obadiah, and just two chapters in length, so if you read along as I give this short overview, you will have probably read it in the same amount of time (5 books down, 61 left to read).

In this book, Haggai preaches four separate sermons:

Sermons 1 (1.1-15)

The first sermon is directed to Zerubbabel and Joshua (Governor and high priest - the spiritual leadership). God is calling them to look at what is going on with them, and He diagnoses the situation they find themselves in and tells them how to fix it. The leadership then take that back to the people and everyone acts in obedience immediately.

Sermon 2 (2.1-9)

The second sermon s directed once again to the leadership and god adds the nation to this one, and He uses it give encouragement to finish the task at hand. God then asks a series of questions in 2.3: “Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes?” Then He gives them encouragement by saying directly to each recipient to “Be strong” and addresses Himself as the “Lord of Hosts” calling people’s attention to His sovereignty.

Sermon 3 (2.10-19)

Sermon three is directed back to the priests (the spiritual leadership) and calls them to examine their holiness and how it relates to the law. God basically tells them that their work had been defiled because they never cleansed themselves before they started their work and the works became defiled as well because it was not done with the proper motivation.

Sermon 4 (2.20-23)

In the closing verses of the book, Haggai delivers the fourth sermon in his series and it is and encouragement to the people. This sermon gives them hope in the Messiah to come that will redeem the people for good.

The sermons take place over the period of about three months with sermons three and four coming in the same day. Sermons one and three are very similar in content in that they are diagnoses, and sermons two and four are calls to be encouraged and persevere in God’s work.

Haggai 1:1–15 ESV

1 In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest: 2 “Thus says the Lord of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.” 3 Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, 4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins? 5 Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 6 You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes. 7 “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 8 Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord. 9 You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. 10 Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. 11 And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors.” 12 Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him. And the people feared the Lord. 13 Then Haggai, the messenger of the Lord, spoke to the people with the Lord’s message, “I am with you, declares the Lord.” 14 And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and worked on the house of the Lord of hosts, their God, 15 on the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.

Haggai 1.1-15

God’s Evaluation and Challenge (1.1-6)

The date of this prophecy is very specific. Scholars would agree by calendar calculations would be August 29, 520 BC. Notice the progression of the prophecy here. It goes from God to Haggai who is to pass it on to Zerubbabel who is the governor. This was how the prophets worked. They were given a message to specific people and the recipients were to do with it as God instructed. In the end, those messages were supposed to motivate the people, but this is a prophecy of diagnosis instead of a warning of impending judgment.

Here we notice that Haggai works with Zerubbabel in the same manner that Ezra worked with Nehemiah (who would be the governor to oversee the rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem). The date becomes important because we know that it too the people the better part of 20 years to rebuild the temple versus the 52 days it took the people to rebuild the walls under the supervision of Nehemiah which is a big contrast.

We see God’s diagnosis and challenge in verses two through six, and this is where Haggai’s prophecy differs from many of the other prophets. God diagnoses the issue with the people and the presents a challenge. The prophecy begins with the well-known phrase, “Thus says the Lord...” and God begins to diagnose the issue. God says in verse two by saying, “These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord” which tells us that He has notice they have shifted their focus. God notices where their priorities are and he lets them know where they should be.

God then asks them a rhetorical question that is designed to get them to internalize their priority shift in verse 4 by saying, “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?” and then He issues the challenge to them to “Consider your days.” This statement can be more specifically translated, “set to heart.” God is really challenging the people here to really think about what they are (or in this case aren’t) doing, and He closes out this section by calling to mind that they have done a lot of work and have very little to show for it. What they are experiencing is a shortage of resources. In spite of all of their “busyness” that they have been taking part of. God is calling them to understand why they have nothing to show for their labors because their priorities are misplaced.

God’s Command (1.7-11)

Verses seven and eight bring us to the thrust of this first sermon to the people. The phrase “consider your ways” is again used to call the people to take to heart what God is about to say to them, and then he follows it with a command:

Haggai 1:8 ESV

8 Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord.

God calls the people to get to work on the temple simply for the reason that God may be glorified in their work.

In verses nine through eleven, God calls them back to the problems they are facing. Everything that they had been working for had produced little, and God tells them exactly why in the last part of verse 9, “Because of my house that lies in ruins while each of you busies himself with his own house.”

The People Respond and the Lord Blesses Appropriately (1.12-15)

Pay attention to what happens in verse 12. All the people, “obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God sent them. And the people feared the Lord.” They immediately obeyed the word of the Lord, and went to work on rebuilding the temple, and look what happens next in verse 13: God promises to go with them because of their obedience.

What it all means:

God recognized misplaced priorities

This story revolves around the rebuilding of the temple. This is the same temple that had been destroyed just seventy years ago. Some of them probably remember the glory of the old temple (the glory days if you will) and seeing it flattened was perhaps a blow to the soul for these people. The temple for them was the place where they came to meet God. This is where the glory of the Lord dwelled with them. If there was no temple, then there was no presence of God. They were effectively lost. This is the place where all of their childhood stories of God revolved around from the tabernacle in the wilderness to Solomon’s temple, this was their history, so not having a temple, put a serious damper on the worship because there was no place for God to reside among them.

God saw they were spending more time focusing on their personal needs (their houses), and using their resources (time, money, etc.) for their personal needs rather than the pressing need of getting the temple back up and running and restoring worship to the people.

Misplaced priorities affected their entire lives

Because of their misplaced priorities, they found themselves lacking for many things. The list could be endless, but God points out several areas that are lacking in their lives in verse 6: sown much, harvested little; eat but never have enough; drink but never have your fill; clothe yourselves, but not warm; and earn wages but they have bags with holes in them. Basically God tells them, “you’re barely scraping by and here’s why...”

God then again revisits this idea in verses nine through eleven by explaining why they are scraping by. He explains that it is because they lost their focus on what truly matters (in this case worshipping God), and He withdrew His blessing from them. He tells them that their disobedience cause the shortage of necessities.

God calls the people to correct the situation

God then calls them to focus on the real priority at hand and that was to rebuild God’s house and shift the focus from their own personal preferences to what God desires from His people.

The people respond and God blesses

This wasn’t a delayed reaction from the people. They didn’t debate it in a committee. God basically tells them that if they want to rectify the situation, all they had to do was be obedient and focus on pleasing and glorifying God by rebuilding His house. That would, in effect, restore worship and fellowship with God, and they respond immediately and God says, “I am with you.” All God was asking for was simply obedience.

What’s the point?:

If we truly desire God’s presence as our greatest possession, then we should make our greatest priority obedience to His call.

Put it into practice:

Evaluate priorities in your life

Take a step back from your life for just a few moments and evaluate what is really important for you. What do you see as your most important and pressing priorities?

Matthew 6:25–33 ESV

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Let’s put this in a church-related context for just a few moments: it’s true we worry about finances and building issues, but are those really the focus we should be worrying about? We look at the building and the financial reports and throw our hands up in the air and say, “What are we doing wrong?” when the reality is we should be asking, “How can we become more obedient?”

Where are our real priorities when we respond to things by saying, “We really don’t have the money for that?” Are we rationalizing it as being good stewards when we cut off funding for things like outreach and worrying about paying the regular bills?

What about creature comforts? This passage demand that we address these issues. Are we so concerned about keeping things the was we are comfortable with that we are willing to sacrifice our obedience to making disciples and focusing on kingdom work?

Maybe we aren’t lacking for physical needs in our personal lives, but yet we demand that programs stay the same way they always have because we need to be “fed” when the reality is we should be feeding others in our lives, or reaching out to those that aren’t as spiritually mature as we are and helping those people grow into what God desires them to be.

Focus on obedience to God’s call

If we seek kingdom work first and foremost in our lives, everything else will fall into place. That is a scriptural promise. All the worries of how things will get taken care of will fall into place. God told the leaders of Israel that the reason they were barely making ends meet was because they lost focus and fell out of obedience to rebuilding the temple and restoring worship. God’s challenge was simple: Return to obedience and you will be blessed.

Some of us sitting here today can think back to the not-so-distant past and remember what this place looked like and the glory of God that it displayed and represented. Then, frustration, disheartenment, and complacency set in, and now we stand around scratching our heads asking, “what more can we do?” In fact, some sitting here today may be saying, “well, if we are struggling this bad, maybe we should just close the doors and walk away.”

I submit to you this morning, that is simply not the case, and the solution is a simple one: focus on being obedient to God. If we can do that God will go with us.

Matthew 28:18–20 ESV

18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

John 14:15–18 ESV

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. 18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

We are not alone in this world. we have the promise of the Holy Spirit that dwells in us, and we can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if we act in obedience to what God has called us to do, if we truly love God as much as we say we do, the everything else will fall into place.

Maintain obedience above everything else

Israel lost focus of what was truly important: glorifying God and worshipping Him. They had been hammered by outside forces and, over time, they became more worried about their own homes and left the house of God to go on unrepaired for years. They found themselves just barely scraping by in life, and were lacking in many areas (both physically and spiritually). They neglected to get to the root cause of the situation, and God called their attention to it. They started out obedient, then life happened, and the slowly neglected the work of God.

They started out obedient, then life happened, and the slowly neglected the work of God.

Perhaps you are sitting here today, and life has gotten the best of you and you worry about things falling apart around your ears in your life. Turn back to God. Worship Him from the very depths of your heart and soul. Glorify His name above everything else, and seek opportunities to be obedient to His call in you life, and He will be faithful and bless that. I’m not saying that life will get easy. It never does, and sometimes we suffer for our faith, but God will be faithful to meet our needs and go with us if we are obedient to His call.

Philippians 4:19 ESV

19 And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

God doesn’t want to withhold anything from us. He wants to bless us more that we could ever possible imagine, it doesn’t mean that we will have more than what we need or desire, but it does mean that we will be blessed and in the end it will all be for His glory alone:

Haggai 1:8 ESV

8 Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord.

The people had shifted their focus from God to their personal needs. They weren’t using their resources for God’s glory. They were using them for their personal comfort.

What can be changed in your life:

Make time for God and His purpose in our life

This is a common saying among pastors: “If you don’t control your calendar, someone else will.” we must take great care to carve out time for God and His purpose in our lives. So the question becomes, “How can we do that?”

Schedule time alone with God

Make it a point to put quiet time on your calendar. When you set your appointments, schedule an appointment with God.

Make an agenda of the things you want to accomplish spiritually.

Spend a few moments deciding on where you want to go in your life spiritually and set goals. I am a big advocate of journals. Keep a spiritual journal to track your progress. Set large goals and smaller goals that can be met along the way to track your progress.

Be intentional and dedicated in your time

Make it productive. Sit down each day and decide what you want to accomplish for the next day and so on. You will find that the smaller goals will be easier to accomplish in the journey to your larger goals, and you can learn to better implement them in your life. Be intention and dedicate yourself to reaching those goals.

Turn from selfish desires in God’s house and use your resources for God’s glory.

The challenge to each of us it to look around at our surroundings. Take the rose colored glasses off and determine what is really important. Do we have a personal preference of something in this church that has take priority over what God truly desires for this church? Where have we made excuses to not do things that we should have done in the past and now we find ourselves in the circle that we struggle to get out of?

The simple solution is to return to obedience to God’s call. Set aside all selfish desires the eventually become idols. Turn from the creature comforts and return to what God has called us to do for Him.

Conclusion:

Jesus spoke that the greatest commandment was to love God with everything that drives us (cf. ), Simply put, if we love Jesus as much as we say we do, the we will keep His command to love God with everything we have. Everything that drives us. Where have we really placed God in our lives? Have we focused so hard on keeping that status quo that we have lost sight of what it means to truly love God? Have we focused on staying comfortable in God’s house that we neglect what is going on around us and that has pulled us into disobedience and out of God’s blessing? Has something taken over in our personal lives that has flowed over into the corporate life of the church?

God promises that He will bless us if we simply act in obedience, and that is what He calls us to do today. Is there something in your life that has caused you to lose focus on God? Is there something in your church life that has caused you and others to focus on keeping your spiritual house paneled while the true house of God is lying in ruins and rubble? God calls us to return to Him and act in obedience to His call today.