Haggai Week 3: December 24th, 2006

Have one person turn to Jeremiah 22:24, and one to Zechariah 1:1-8

Before Haggai gave his third and final prophecy that we know of today, Zechariah delivered his first in November or December:

1 In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berekiah, the son of Iddo: 2 "The LORD was very angry with your forefathers. 3 Therefore tell the people: This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'Return to me,' declares the LORD Almighty, 'and I will return to you,' says the LORD Almighty. 4 Do not be like your forefathers, to whom the earlier prophets proclaimed: This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'Turn from your evil ways and your evil practices.' But they would not listen or pay attention to me, declares the LORD. 5 Where are your forefathers now? And the prophets, do they live forever? 6 But did not my words and my decrees, which I commanded my servants the prophets, overtake your forefathers? "Then they repented and said, 'The LORD Almighty has done to us what our ways and practices deserve, just as he determined to do.'"

(After building the altar 16 years before) In their neglect of the temple, the people had evidently concluded that their attendance at the altar and the presentation of their sacrifices were good enough, and that their action demanded that they should be accepted by Him.

Haggai’s third message is a forceful reminder to the people, three months after their first response to Haggai of faithfulness and getting down to the work on the temple, that this lazy approach to God wasn’t good enough. Questioning the priests, whose job description included answering questions on the specific interpretation of the law, Haggai drew out the truth that uncleanness is more contagious than holiness. A garment carrying holy meat will not sanctify the things it touches, while people defiled by contact with a dead body will contaminate the things they touch if they do not take the proper steps to cleanse themselves from that contact. Now we don’t need to have a vast and deep knowledge of the Jewish law to grasp this concept; quite simply, the people and the sacrifices they had been offering were unclean because their hearts weren’t involved in it, and their actions and their lifestyle showed what was most important to them.

They had failed to lay the foundation of the temple, they had failed to be God-centered people, and had busied themselves with all the affairs of their own lives while ignoring the expectations of God or at the very least, making God play second fiddle to everything else…and because the people were unclean in their motives and actions, their offerings to God were unacceptable. Neglect of God’s work meant that their offerings were useless; and what was true of Judah 2,500 years ago is true today. We cannot persuade God to ignore our laziness by the gift of money or suggesting to others that we are faithful when in fact we are not. In that case, our offerings, whatever they might be, are worthless. And that might be hard teaching for us to deal with, but it’s Biblical truth, and we have to deal with it if we are disciples of Jesus.

(15-16) Now, give careful thought from this day on...

A reminder for the people again, “Don’t forget that God loves you so much that he will not allow you to remain in rebellion without either allowing you to suffer the consequences of your actions, or acting directly to bring ruin to you until your heart shifts and you follow Him.

In other words, recall how miserable and frustrated you were in your disobedience before you began to lay stone on stone in the temple. Surely you would be idiots to continue to desire and pursue these things above God, Haggai says to the people, because now you know exactly what happened!

So what does God require? Repentance, literally “return” was required (2:17)

(18) And again, give careful thought to remember the day you laid aside your piddly pursuits to lay the foundation of God’s temple…

(19) And the passage ends on a positive note because of their obedience, “From this day on I will bless you.” It was a critical time of year, with it being December in that area. If the rain now fell, the wheat harvest four months later might exceed their expectations and the fruit trees might produce fruit in abundance. So if the people had remained in their position of faithfulness before God, God’s discipline would turn into blessing.

And as many times as we hear the phrase, “Consider your ways, give careful thought to your lives,” it might do US well today to write that and put it up somewhere where we’ll see it often, because the reminder and our obedience very well might alter the course of our lives. Step back from the picture and look honestly at your life.

Maybe I’m sounding like a broken record here the last three weeks with what I see to be the central message here in Haggai, but I think it boils down to this: we do NOT exist in a rigid system where every mistake we make will immediately be followed by a direct judgment crashing down on our heads. Consistency is the key here. God is patient, and merciful, and knows we are flawed and broken and fall flat on our faces as his creation. He recognizes that. And I’m sure as Haggai was saying, “Give careful thought to your ways,” he was thinking…Gosh, I need this reminder just as much as everyone else. So we’re gonna make mistakes. We know this. But God’s action toward us is determined by our response to our mistakes, our willingness to listen, our willingness to repent, and our willingness to keep pursuing God. Our lives will be defined by our consistency in the pursuit of a God-centered life. Our Consistency in the pursuit of a God-centered life.

I think maybe what God is saying in this book of Haggai aimed at the community of the people of God is this: You have to work for faithfulness and holiness while unfaithfulness, laziness, and numbness is MUCH MUCH easier... in other words, you have made a right choice to be about the right things (I’ve disciplined you for your failure to pay attention to me, you’ve turned, and are listening now)... be careful, though... because the temptation for you is to get lazy.

I had a conversation with one of my friends dealing with this very issue the other day, and we found a parallel in both of our lives with how we’ve tended to approach our relationship with God.

1) The first parallel came when we both confessed to one another that often we are lazy, and that often if a video camera followed us around all day for a longer period of time, our lives might not look much different at all from our friends who haven’t said “Yes” to God: and THAT is a big problem for both of us. And

2) We shared a bit about some experiences we both have had where we felt very close to God: She had had a HUGE experience when she went on a missions trip to Mexico, and during Carnival (which is the Mexican version of Mardi Gras), she was stationed on the street with serving coffee to the taxi drivers at a little Café. She said she had a horrible attitude, because she couldn’t speak Spanish well, and was getting frustrated, and so she went inside to the prayer room for an hour, ended up being two hours, told God she was going to sit till she heard his voice, about twenty minutes later, her friend Sarah came in, and this started an INCREDIBLY intense time of prayer like she’s never experienced since, and they felt like they were supposed to keep praying for everyone out on the street with her missions team, went up on roof and prayed for another two hours. Every second, she felt impressed to pray for someone, then she would pray for another, and another. After awhile, things calmed down, and she went back into the building, and when the street team came back, they relayed that with SEVEN people, they had led 240 people to an initial commitment to follow Jesus in that night. An INCREDIBLE move of God that night. But do you know what happened after that? She didn’t go into that prayer room for the rest of Carnival.

I mentioned several experiences that I had had as well, in addition to the fact that one of the highlights of my week is when I have the opportunity to get together with three other guys around my age and talk about life, read the Bible some, read devotional books some, and talk and pray about how we can serve Christ more fully. I feel greatly refreshed after those times, BUT, I have found that it is either directly before or directly after those times that I am most tempted to fall flat on my face, and have done so at times. I could click off for you on my fingers tremendous experiences I’ve had in following Jesus that I have followed by extended times of great selfishness or ignorance of God.

And my friend and I thought about our actions by translating it into a human relationship, we’ll say a marriage, where the couple is sitting down and really connecting deeply with one another; they have an incredible night together, and in the middle of the husband sharing something heavy, the wife stands up and says, “It was nice spending time with you. Talk to you in three weeks.” Now does that make sense?

Or forget the marriage analogy. Your friend calls you, and their life has hit a real rough spot, so you go out to grab a coffee and talk about it. Your friend talks for awhile about the situation, then thanks you for listening to them, and just as they’re beginning to talk about deeper issues, you abruptly stand up and leave, and don’t call them for six days afterwards. Now does that make sense? Both of us MARVELED at how often we do this!!!

And if we’re honest, a lot of times, it doesn’t take a BIG experience like this for us to follow it up with falling flat on our faces…we can let ourselves just slide into the routine of life, never stopping to consider the deeper issues, and end up wasting our lives.

Kierkegaard: "Father in Heaven! What are we without You? All that we know is but a chipped fragment if we do not know you! What is all our striving but a half-finished work if we do not know you: you are the One!

So may you give to our minds wisdom to comprehend one thing, to our hearts the sincerity to receive understanding of this one thing, to our wills, purity to desire this one thing. In prosperity may you give us perseverence to will this one thing; amidst distractions, focus to will one thing, in suffering, patience to will one thing. May you at the dawn of each day give to the young the courage to will this one thing. As the day comes to a close, may you give to the old a renewed remembrance of their first commitment, that the first may be like their last, in possession of a life that willed one thing.

Something often comes in between. The separation of sin lies in between. Day after day something is being placed in between: delay, blockage, interruption, corruption. So in repentance may you give us the Courage once again to will one thing."

And that one thing Kierkegaard talks about is purity of heart in seeking God. If we desire God centrally for what He can give us, that is NOT purity of heart, if we say “Yes” to God out of fear of punishment, that is NOT purity of heart, if we desire God with a half-hearted commitment, that is NOT purity of heart. Utter abandon, absolute commitment to God is the requirement for willing one thing, for purity of heart. And the simple commitment on our parts to obey God and listen to God and pursue God no matter what is the heartbeat of what we have been created for. This simple commitment will keep us going through all the up and downs and struggles with sin and times of victory throughout our lives.

I am about to overthrow the thrones of kingdoms”. He focuses on the Davidic line, “I will take you, O Zerubbabel, my servant…and make you like a signet ring; for I have chosen you.” (23)

Contrast with Jeremiah 22:24 "As surely as I live," declares the LORD, "even if you, Jehoiachin ^[c] son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, were a signet ring on my right hand, I would still pull you off.”

Now, through Haggai, God offered a stunning reversal and hope to Zerubbabel, a descendent of Johoaichin, that the judgment was overturned by his mercy. When the Kingdom of God comes on earth, the Davidic ruler or “anointed” (we know him as the Messiah today) will be God’s chosen servant and lord over all the earth.

Haggai’s vision of the future went beyond the limits of the people of Judah desiring independence. It is conspicuous that he does not speak of the overthrow of Persia, which was the kingdom ruling over the Jews at that time. He speaks of the subjection of all nations to God. And God always keeps his promises. And so, when the Kingdom of God came among us in the person of Jesus Christ, of the house of David, and the beginning of the fulfillment of this word to Haggai, everything changed. He introduced God’s kingdom which has no end, which will overthrow every rule and authority and power, and he showed us how it would happen in the most unique way. He came not to be served but to serve, he came not lord himself over others, but instead chose to love. He came to destroy false and twisted religion, but did not force others to see things his way. He gave us in his life a perfect picture of the goal we should all set to pursue.

So in this situation where things were small, difficult, and discouraging, the temple was being restored slowly, the new structure was a shadow of the former, and Zerubbabel was only a Persian governor of a tiny community of people no bigger than the town of Harrisonburg,the point was this: God had a purpose through the whole situation. The Jews of Haggai's day could not see it all, and what they could see seemed so inconsequential and ridiculous. So God came to them with a word of promise: Take courage. You build more than you see. The heavens and the earth and sea and land and all treasures are mine. I will take the fruit of your little labor and make it glorious beyond measure, no matter how trivial or how unimportant it may seem to you now.

And is this not the message of Advent and Christmas? Just over 2,000 years ago give or take a decade or so, the angel Gabriel appeared to a likely teenage girl in Mary in the town of Nazareth and told her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.” He says this to a scared teenage girl!