God's Great Plan For Your Life
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Haggai 1:1-15
Haggai 1:1-15
Sermon Series: The Book of Haggai :: Living With Kingdom Perspective
Sermon Title: God’s Great Plan For Your Life
Main Idea: People Must Glorify God
Sermon Passage: Haggai 1:1-15
*****JERRY****
4 days after surgery came home
no problems, no complications
everything went as well as you would want it to go
Jerry & Carol just wanted to say “thank you so much for your prayers”
[****Lord’s Supper**** did everyone get one?]
[*****make note of stuff in kids’ bags******]
ILLUSTRATION:
start something and not finish it
a diet
a running plan working toward a marathon
one of those 1000 piece puzzles
there’s just times where life doesn’t turn out like you planned
Life passing you by...
Plan “B” takes over… back to the status quo
that’s where we find God’s people the Israelites at the time of Haggai’s prophecy
BACKGROUND:
because of israel’s disobedience to God and their worship of other gods, In 586 BC the king of Babylon, king Nebuchadnezzar, came to Jerusalem and destroyed the walls, the temple, and the city.
Most of the people were taken into Babylonian captivity for decades
now eventually Persia defeated Babylon, and their king, king cyrus, issued a decree in 538 BC that allowed the exiled nations in Babylon to return to their homelands
about 43,000 Jews returned back to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem (Ezr 2:64-65).
[why the temple is important, dwelling presence of God, shows that God is with his people]
in their second year the people laid the foundation of the new temple (Ezr 3:8-10).
But this effort was stopped for the next sixteen years because the Samaritan people who lived north of Jerusalem frustrated these rebuilding efforts, plus they hired lawyers to persuade the Persian authorities to stop supporting the work on this temple (Ezr 4:1-5).
This led to a period of great discouragement. Apathy set in because many of the hopes of the Jewish people were unfulfilled. The walls of the city were not repaired, the temple was not rebuilt, there was a famine in the land (Hg 2:9-11), and the people were still under Persian control.
There seemed to be no way to move forward and rebuild the temple.
by the time of Haggai’s first prophecy, nearly 20 years after the exiles had returned and began the work on the temple, they had returned to an uncomfortable status quo, working their tails off for a very meager existence.
it was a difficult time… there was opposition to their original plan....
maybe they asked themselves, “why struggle to accomplish great things for the Lord when these are obviously not great days. better to just keep to yourself, try your best to improve your own family’s situation and wait for a better time.”
Throughout the Bible, there is a call and a reminder to place God first. The period following the return from exile was no exception.
Haggai’s call for the people to get their priorities in order and place God first by rebuilding his temple was of great importance. For the people to return to this task was a sign of their priorities.
i’ve titled this series “Living with Kingdom perspective”
Kingdom Perspective is actually one of our 6 core values here at Heritage
we define kingdom perspective as Influencing the unchurched by planting seeds of faith and using our time, abilities, and resources unselfishly
Key Question: Does what I'm doing advance the Kingdom of God?
so with kingdom perspective in mind, let’s dive in to the book of Haggai this morning. we will work our way through all of chapter one today
we will divide chapter 1 into three sections this morning…
in verses 1-6 we find The Lord’s Challenge
Haggai 1:1–6 (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 She-al-ti-el, 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.
STRUCTURE:
1. The Lord’s Challenge vs. 1-6 (read vs. 1-6)
the point is this… the people claimed there was no time or resources to restore God’s house, but they had put precisely that kind of time and resources into their own homes.
the rebuilding of the temple, God’s house, had stopped. but falling back into the status quo, or plan B for their lives, the Israelites turned their focused to their own homes and careers
i feel like God’s pretty patient… i mean it had been about 20 years since they had stopped the work on His house.
brooke and had a house built one time. i don’t think i would have waited 20 years to ask the builder, “hey you think it’s time to finish that house yet?”
this is a common problem during the difficult times in our lives as well. we find it easy to withdraw from serving God and others, saying that we need all the resources that we have just to take care of ourselves.
maybe we stop serving on sunday mornings or wednesday nights
maybe we stop giving our tithe
thinking we’ll get back to that when times are a little better for us
one author said, “the difficulty of life becomes an excuse for centering our existence on ourselves. We take the gifts and resources that we do have and hoard for ourselves the very things that might be used in the Lord’s service and in service of others.”
but how does that work out for us? how did it work out for the Israelites? Look at vs. 6… (read vs. 6)
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.
it wasn’t going so well for the people of God… they were not reaping in equal measure to how much they were sowing.
they had food but not enough to be full
they had drink but not enough for a party
they had clothes but not enough to keep out of the cold
it was like they were taking the money they made from their jobs and put it into bags with holes in them
they were not experiencing the fullness of God’s blessing, but rather an inadequate, unfulfilling life in which every pleasure proved to be disappointingly incomplete.
the call to christianity is not a call to some comfortable way of life
the call to christ is to come and die
to lay down our lives
to give up everything for the sake of his kingdom
not to build our own kingdom
but God’s people had forgotten that
and God tells them, “consider your ways” — you see the problem didn’t lay with God and His inability to bless them, the problem laid with the people
they had put their own interests ahead of the Lord’s and now they were reaping the consequences of those priorities.
have you ever felt like life was just racing by? every year a faster pace, but never quite reaching your goals. never feeling quite as fulfilled with life as you think you should?
this is what happens when we pursue our goals instead of the Lord’s. This is living with kingdom perspective but it’s our kingdom we’re trying to build.... not the Lord’s.
and when we live our life with these mixed up priorities, with us in 1st place and God in 2nd place, we end up with a life that is without God’s full and abundant blessing.
that’s where the people of Israel were at this time… that’s where some of us are today.... and the answer for them back then is the same answer for us today...
it’s time to lay down our excuses about why we aren’t serving the Lord with our lives and reorder our priorities....
That is the Lord’s challenge
next we read about the Lord’s command… look at vs. 7
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.”
2. The Lord’s Command vs. 7-11 (read vs. 7-11)
God says, “the reason that you are struggling, is because I have turned off the faucet of blessing”
God gives the command, get up, get what you need, and get back to building my house.... why?....
“that I may be glorified”
whatever command comes from God, no matter where we are in history, no matter what stage of life you’re in… the outcome of obedience to God is that HE is glorified.
we don’t obey god so that we can be blessed....
we obey god so that HE can be glorified!
God’s not even apologizing for being the one that wants the glory… HE”S GOD! he’s the only one that deserves the glory.
God says, I’m the one who withheld the dew… i’m the one who called for the drought...
why? because your priorities are all jacked up!
until their priorities were reordered and God’s house was rebuilt, the people could not expect to see more blessing in their own lives and land.
church family… if you’re not living a life full of blessing, there’s a good chance it’s because the blesser is withholding those blessings because you’ve put something else in 1st place in your order of priorities
i’m not talking about some sort of prosperity gospel… “you’re not a millionaire because you haven’t given enough to Jesus...”
i’m talking about John 10:10 stuff
10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
TO THE FULL!!!
THAT, is the life that Jesus gives! a life of covenant relationship with God.. a life full of blessing from him!
that kind of life comes when we obey his commands
his commands are commands that help to build his kingdom
when we obey God’s commands:
we are living with Kingdom Perspective
AND
we receive his full blessing!
now we turn to....
3. The People’s Response & The Lord’s Blessing vs. 12-15 (read vs. 12-15)
Haggai 1:12–15 (ESV)
12 Then Zerubbabel the son of She-al-ti-el, 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 She-al-ti-el, 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.
i love this! their response is immediate obedience...
so many times in the old testament the people of God did not listen to God’s prophet… but here the people listened and obeyed.
This is how it should always happen when we hear from the Lord. as we listen carefully to the scriptures and consider our ways… we will always find places in our heart that don’t line up perfectly with God’s holy standard.
isn’t that true? can anyone here this morning honestly say that they have always sought first the kingdom of God and chased after His righteousness with their whole heart?
of course not.
we need God’s Word.
We need to read God’s Word.
We need to allow God’s word to convict us of the sin that is in our lives
and we need to obey God’s word so that we become more and more conformed to the image of God’s Son, Jesus
do you read God’s word like that?
every day when you finish your Bible reading you should ask yourself some questions. but one of the most important questions you should ask yourself is, “based on what I just read, what changes or commitments do I need to make in my life?”
hear God’s Word and then obey God’s word
verse 12 says that the people, “feared the Lord”
they knew what happened when their relatives disobeyed God… they ended up exiles in a foreign land!
this is the remnant of the people who made it back to Jerusalem. this is the small group of people that survived God’s judgment in Babylon.
as this group heard God’s voice, they turned their hearts back to him and obeyed,
The Lord’s blessing is his reminder of his Promise.... “I am with you, declares the Lord”
the promise to Isaac
the promise to David
God is with His people!
God is not up in heaven searching the world, waiting for us to mess up so he can punish us with lightning bolts from the sky
no
God is a loving father who confronts us with our sin SO THAT he can forgive us and show us mercy when we repent and turn back toward him.
HE is the loving father waiting with outstretched arms for the prodigal child to come home!
our job is to repent and obey
it’s important that we don’t forget that last part… the obey part
it’s not enough for us to just feel bad about our sin…
about our rejection of God…
about our rebellion toward God…
yes, there should be sorrow over our sin, but that sorrow should lead us to turn back to him and obey his commands
that kind of life brings glory to God and blessing to us
APPLICATION:
People must glorify God
what does this look like on a daily basis?
i have a couple of pictures here to show you
religion as one aspect of my life vs. Christ in me affecting all aspects of my life
CHRIST IN ME!
God wants us to have a zeal for his house… for his kingdom
in the OT the temple was God’s dwelling place with his people
that’s why it was so important for them to rebuild it. it was that visual to everyone that God fulfills his promise.... i am with you
in the nt.... jesus is that fulfillment.... he is emmanuel.... god with us
and jesus had a zeal for God’s house
do you remember the story in John 2?
Jesus goes into the temple with a whip and clears out the moneychangers… gets rid of those trying to profit off of the sacrificial system
his disciples remembered the verse in psalms that said, “zeal for your house will consume me.”
it wasn’t that hard for jesus to go in a clean up the temple
it would however be a much harder task for jesus to clean up his people so that they could live in the house of the lord forever
that task would require God the father taking the whip and turning it on his own son, jesus
see, on the cross, jesus paid the price for our sin of putting ourselves and our house before God and his house.
on the cross, jesus took the judgment we deserved
and now… the zeal Jesus has for his father’s house.... the righteousness jesus lived on earth with.... we get that imputed to us
THAT is the miracle of the cross!
and that can never take 2nd place in our lives
COMMUNION
LORD’S SUPPER:
today… as a family… we are going celebrate communion or the Lord’s Supper.
Participating in the Lord’s supper is reserved for those who have chosen to follow Christ, those who are part of God’s family.
For those of us here today that have not yet made that decision to follow Christ, be baptized and join God’s family… the Church, I would ask you, “what is it that keeps you from making that decision?”
If that’s you, you certainly don’t have to leave or anything like that, but we invite you to watch during this very special time.
The Scriptures encourage us to “look” in a number of directions as we share in the Lord’s Supper.
First, we are to look back with gratitude to Jesus and his death at the cross
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.”
Next, we are to look around at the body of believers with whom we share the Supper. It is something we do as we come together.
It is significant that we share this meal as a community. Sharing the one bread together is a sign of our fundamental unity.
17 Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.
Paul tells us to look inward, to examine ourselves...
28 Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.
You see, it is possible to come to the Table without repenting of sin (especially those sins impacting relationships within the church), and so to participate “unworthily.”
so.... looking inwardly, we examine ourselves, repent of our sins, because we know that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins—and cleanse us from all unrighteousness
We also look up to heaven, where the risen and ascended Christ intercedes for us as our great High Priest
14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Finally, we look forward to the day when Jesus will return
26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
The celebration of the Supper serves as a proclamation of Jesus’ death which anticipates his return.
so now… take out your “covid-free, pre-packaged elements”
if you’re having a hard time opening the bread on top, just find a teenager close by and they’ll figure it out for you!
23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when 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 also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
PRAY
