Haggai Week 4-September 23, 2021

Introduction

Let’s begin reading the whole first chapter of Haggai.

What makes effective preaching? What makes a God honoring sermon?

What do you think about this description of preaching?

Opening Up Haggai Effective Preaching

A sermon has been described as being something that is ‘thirty minutes to wake the dead’

Should a preacher be confident or very conscious of his ineffectiveness?

Exodus 4:10 ESV

10 But Moses said to the Lord, “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.”

Jeremiah 1:6 ESV

6 Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.”

2 Corinthians 2:16 ESV

16 to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?

It is daunting to think of sharing God’s word with someone else. It doesn’t matter whether you are preaching from a pulpit or texting a verse to a friend. Yet, we have confidence because of who God has made us to be.

2 Corinthians 3:5–6 ESV

5 Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

How might these verses give us confidence?

Godly Fear

Why did the people accept Haggai’s message in this section? What does the text say?

Do we fear God?

Isaiah 6:1–3 ESV

1 In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”

Opening Up Haggai Godly Fear

To fear God like that is to recognize the limitations of our humanity in the face of life’s challenges, and our dependence upon him to overcome them. For the life of modern people is full of other fears—the fear of war, of redundancy, of losing one’s pension, of old age and illness, of violence on the streets, of suicide bombers and of death. Job was so right therefore: ‘The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom’ (Job 28:28). If we feared God more, we would be wise enough to fear everything else less.

Zeal

What does it mean to have “Zeal” for something?

Does that describe what happened in Hag. 1:13-15?

What do you think about this quote?

Opening Up Haggai The Stirring of the Spirit

A Christian may be excused many things—a lack of intellectual ability, the lack of a great gift, the lack of fluency in speaking, or the lack of talent. But no Christian can be excused the lack of zeal for the cause of God, for that depends upon oneself.

How can we apply the passage today?