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Haggai :: Living With Kingdom Perspective • Sermon • Submitted
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Haggai 2:10-19
Haggai 2:10-19
Sermon Series: The Book of Haggai :: Living With Kingdom Perspective
Sermon Title: From Suffering To Blessing
Sermon Passage: Haggai 2:10-19
Main Idea: Religion cannot save, even when it is the true religion.
INTRO:
conditional reasoning
if this, then that
for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction
I’m not a scientist… but what I do know… is that “what God says goes”
and in Deuteronomy 28 (turn there … i want you to see something)
headings: Blessings For Obedience.... Curses For Disobedience
“if you obey my commands… I will bless you”
obey = bless
“if you disobey my commands… I will curse you”
disobey = curse
Ian Duguid (dyoo-gid) said, “God created the world to be a place where holiness and happiness went hand in hand so it’s no surprise that unholiness and unhappiness are often found together”
blessings for obedience were
agriculture
military
curses for disobedience were
agriculture
military
that’s where we find the people of Israel when we started in the book of Haggai a couple of weeks ago.
Babylonians had wiped out the city and taken them captive
and since the remnant has returned:
- sowing more than they were reaping
- famine in the land
all because of their disobedience
BUT.... after hearing God’s Word from His prophet, Haggai, the people repented, feared God, and OBEYED him
10 On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet,
I. Narrative introduction and set-up (v. 10)
3 months since the work began
the foundation has been finished
God wants to use this milestone as a teachable moment for his people
II. God instructs His people at a milestone with a teachable moment (v. 11-14)
a. Q & A #1 (v. 11-12)
b. Q & A #2 (v. 13)
c. God’s lesson for His people (v. 14)
11 “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Ask the priests about the law: 12 ‘If someone carries holy meat in the fold of his garment and touches with his fold bread or stew or wine or oil or any kind of food, does it become holy?’ ” The priests answered and said, “No.” 13 Then Haggai said, “If someone who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean?” The priests answered and said, “It does become unclean.” 14 Then Haggai answered and said, “So is it with this people, and with this nation before me, declares the Lord, and so with every work of their hands. And what they offer there is unclean.
II. God instructs His people at a milestone with a teachable moment (v. 11-14)
a. Q & A #1 (v. 11-12)
b. Q & A #2 (v. 13)
c. God’s lesson for His people (v. 14)
God’s two questions:
what’s God talking about here? holy meat in someone’s pocket?
Leviticus 7:11–21 (ESV)
11 “And this is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings that one may offer to the Lord. .....
15 And the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving shall be eaten on the day of his offering. He shall not leave any of it until the morning. 16 But if the sacrifice of his offering is a vow offering or a freewill offering, it shall be eaten on the day that he offers his sacrifice, and on the next day what remains of it shall be eaten. 17 But what remains of the flesh of the sacrifice on the third day shall be burned up with fire. .....
so they could take the flesh (the meat) portion of their sacrifice home but it had to be consumed by the end of the 2nd day.
here’s God’s point:
holiness is not contagious, but unholiness is
the ruined temple was like a dead corpse in their midst infecting every part of their lives
because the people were unclean or defiled in God’s sight, everything they offered on the Lord’s altar was also unclean and unacceptable to God.
their status before God had to change or they were just wasting their time with their sacrifices.
Just like in Haggai’s day, holiness is not transmitted to us by contact.
i don’t care if you grew up in a christian home
or attend a great church
these things will not make you a Christian anymore than spending time in the ocean will make you a shark!
religion cannot save you… even true religion… because we ourselves our unclean… defiled
so even our good work offerings cannot be accepted by a holy God
Jesus to the Pharisees who were great at practicing good works...
27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
[explain this verse]
our motives are unclean...
3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
[explain this verse]
every single one of us has been stained by the sin of Adam… we were born unclean
we can’t choose to turn to God on our own even if we wanted to… it must come from outside of us… from God’s free gift of grace.... that is the only thing that will clean us!
it’s the only thing that would clean the israelites
GOD had to step in and do something
III. God promises to bless His people by turning disaster into abundance (v. 15-19)
a. Look back and remember the result of your disobedience (v. 15-17)
b. Look forward and anticipate the result of your obedience (v. 18-19)
15 Now then, consider from this day onward. Before stone was placed upon stone in the temple of the Lord, 16 how did you fare? When one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were but ten. When one came to the wine vat to draw fifty measures, there were but twenty. 17 I struck you and all the products of your toil with blight and with mildew and with hail, yet you did not turn to me, declares the Lord. 18 Consider from this day onward, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month. Since the day that the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid, consider: 19 Is the seed yet in the barn? Indeed, the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have yielded nothing. But from this day on I will bless you.”
III. God promises to bless His people by turning disaster into abundance (v. 15-19)
a. Look back and remember the result of your disobedience (v. 15-17)
b. Look forward and anticipate the result of your obedience (v. 18-19)
even though the people were experiencing God’s judgment, the curses for disobedience… they didn’t change!
“you did not TURN to me”
[***spanked braxton and he smiled…]
God was disciplining them… they were suffering the curses of disobedience because they had not rebuilt His temple.... yet there was no repentance
you might think, “what was wrong with these people?” they knew why they were suffering but they didn’t do the one thing that could turn things around
but don’t be so quick to judge the Israelites, because we see this all the time in ourselves and those around us don’t we?
trials, chaos, war, unrest… whatever it is does not necessarily lead us to “consider our ways”
even if we do try to step back and examine what’s going on.... we stop short of repenting and turning back to God
we’d like a solution to our pain and suffering but not to the sin problem that lies behind it!
sometimes people will turn to religion in difficult times… the day after the attacks on 911 churches in New York were filled with people looking for answers....
and the people of Israel, while suffering the consequences of their disobedience, would bring sacrifices to the temple ruins hoping God would have favor on them.
they were trying to appeal to the one, true God, at HIS TEMPLE… … but they had not repented, turned back to God and obeyed
so they continued to suffer the consequences of disobedience
throughout the short book of Haggai, we see God telling his people to consider....
consider your ways.... consider what has happened..... take inventory
church family, I think God would tell us the same thing… consider your life....consider your ways.... take inventory of your actions and more importantly.... your motives
what is it that might be keeping you from experiencing God’s full blessing?
it’s relationship, not religion that saves… true repentance… a turning back to God with every aspect of your life
that’s the main point of our passage today, “Religion cannot save, even when it is the true religion.”
III. God promises to bless His people by turning disaster into abundance (v. 15-19)
a. Look back and remember the result of your disobedience (v. 15-17)
b. Look forward and anticipate the result of your obedience (v. 18-19)
so God wants them to look back and remember the result of their disobedience
but now they had turned back to him… they had obeyed.... and on this milestone day… when the foundation was finished....
he wants them also to look forward and anticipate the result of their obedience!
18 Consider from this day onward, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month. Since the day that the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid, consider: 19 Is the seed yet in the barn? Indeed, the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have yielded nothing. But from this day on I will bless you.”
“from this day on I will bless you”
in (v. 15-17) God reminds the people again that it was He who struck them with drought, crop failure, and inflation due to their disobedience.
Oh, but look out! The people have turned to the Lord and obeyed.
The temple foundation is now rebuilt and what does God ask?
“Is the seed yet in the barn?” The answer is no! The seed has been planted. The seed is now in the ground, but it’s not harvest time yet.
The fruitfulness of their labor is still unknown.
“But from this day on I will bless you,” says the Lord!
This is God’s way of promising a reversal of the crop failure, drought, and inflation.
God is promising a bumper harvest in response to the people’s obedience to prioritize the rebuilding of the temple.
God announces his plan of salvation… it does not come through some sort of slow process of figuring out how to perfect religion....
it comes from God’s decision to give them peace through dwelling, residing, living with his people
this is what the temple symbolized and now that the work was formally underway with the foundation finished....
God had declared a change in status for his people… from unclean to clean
and because of that, he could once again reside in their midst and receive their offerings.
this is the kind of change we all need… a change in status before an almighty, holy God
our status needs to be changed from unclean to clean
before we come to God, everything we do is unclean or defiled in God’s sight
look at what it says in Isaiah 64:6
Isaiah 64:6 (ESV)
6 We have all become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment...
Because of our own defilement.... we cannot make the change we need by our own effort...
it has to be God
just as the rebuilding of the temple was the turning point for the Israelites, the coming of Jesus is the turning point from curse to blessing for the world!
Jesus is the TRUE TEMPLE OF GOD
the one in whom God dwells in us so that he can change us from unclean to clean
and restore us from suffering to blessing!
The holiness that enables us to stand before God as one of his adopted children does not come through contact with Christianity but through union with Christ.
and God reminds us in Ephesians 1:3 that....
“in Christ, I have blessed you with every spiritual blessing, and I will continue to bless you.”
Clean by Natalie Grant
There's nothing too dirty
That You can't make worthy
You wash me in mercy
I am clean
Washed in the blood of Your sacrifice
Your blood flowed red and made me white
My dirty rags are purified
I am clean
BAPTISM
both Kelly’s video & Faith
faith & richard
Pray for camp kids!!!