Haggai - The House That God Built

If you'd like to grab your bibles, we're gonna have our reading now. And we're in chapter 2 of Haggai. I'm gonna be reading from verse 1 to verse 9. In the second year of King Darias, on the 20 first day of the seventh month, the word of the lord came through the prophet Haggai. Speak to Zerubbabel, son of ShielTiel, Governor of Judah.

To Joshua, son of Josadak, the High Priest. And to the remnant of the people. Ask them. Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now?

Does it not seem to you like nothing? But now, be strong, sir Rubable, declares the Lord. Be strong, Joshua, son of Josidak. The high priest. Be strong.

All you people of the land declares the Lord and work. For I am with you declares the Lord Almighty. This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, and my spirit remains among you do not fear. This is what the Lord Almighty says. In a little while, I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land.

I will shake all nations and what is desired by all nations will come. And I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord Almighty. The silver is mine. And the gold is mine declares the lord almighty. The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house, says the lord almighty.

And in this place, I will grant peace declares the Lord almighty. Father is Tom, comes to speak to us now. Would you please speak through Him Would we hear these words that you, the Lord Almighty have spoken to us in Jesus' name? Our men. The dictionary would define discouragement as either a loss of confidence or a loss of enthusiasm.

So discouragement can either be a loss of confidence or a lack of trust or a feeling that something that you've started isn't working anymore. You're not going to make it. It's not gonna happen, so you may as well give up. You've lost confidence in the project. Or it could be a loss of enthusiasm In other words, we might succeed and we might not.

But either way, I personally have lost interest in the project. I don't care about it anymore. My heart isn't in it in the way that it once was. A loss of confidence or a loss of enthusiasm. That's what discouragement is.

And when it comes to the work of the Lord, That is what Satan wants for us. If he cannot distract us completely from the work of the Lord, He would want to discourage us in the work of the Lord. So that we either lose faith in his word or lose a passion for his work or both. So how about you? What is it that discourages you in the work of the lord?

Are you feeling discouraged at the moment? As you think about this great task of reaching the lost for the glory of Jesus, as you think about growing personally in your faith, As you think about your own affections for your brothers and sisters in the church, do you feel either a loss of confidence or a lack of enthusiasm in these aspects of the Lord's work. 2500 years ago, God's people were experiencing something like that. About 50000 of them had come back from exile under the governors are rubable. And they had a huge job ahead of them.

Their task was 1 of rebuilding. They were tasked with rebuilding their city and rebuilding their nation and rebuilding their temple and so really they had to rebuild their identity as the people of God. And at this point, they had made some progress The foundations of a new temple were in place. But Satan was out to stop the work. You remember what we saw last week in chapter 1 verse 4?

Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your panelled houses? While this house, my house remains a ruin. So you get the situation. The Lord, their God, Yahweh had brought them back from exile to live among them again. But God's people and it seems like God's leaders weren't up for it.

They had wrong priorities. They were basically saying in their hearts, Lord we are not ready for you to move back in with us at the moment. We wanna build our houses, luxury houses, And then when we're ready, not yet, but when we are, we'll invite you to move into our neighborhood again. And in effect they were really saying, Lord, we do not want the thing that makes us special. We do not want to be known as your people at the moment.

Satan had distracted them from the Lord's work. But as we also saw in chapter 1, there was some good news. When the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, when he began to preach to them and to explain to them their sin, the judgment they were under, and what they needed to do about it, there was a act of repentance. We saw that in chapter 1 verse 12. It's good news.

Then Zerubbabel, son of Shield Hill, Joshua son of Johozadak, the High Priest, a whole remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the lord their God and the message of the prophet Hagai because their lord their God had sent them. And the people feared the Lord. And then verse 14, what did they do? They came and began to work on the house of the Lord, Almighty, their God. And as we now come into chapter 2, we're about 1 month along from that first sermon.

Last week, it was the month of August. And this week, we're gonna be in the September, October kind of time in our calendar at least. But as we're gonna see today, with the new month came a new temptation. Satan had not given up. If he can't distract them from the work as he once did, he'll try to discourage them.

He'll now try to drain their confidence and to drain their enthusiasm like a leech he wants to sap onto them and suck the life out of them to get them off the job. Tactical have changed across the chapters, the desire is the same, to get them off the job. That is what we're dealing with. In the first part of chapter 2, discouragement, in the lord's work. And so first point then is this, reasons to despair.

These are the reasons to despair. The reasons that Satan wants to convince them to stop. On the on the thirtieth of July 19 66, my dad was was at Wimberley. And he was there, sat behind the goal, as Jeff hearst smashed in the final goal of extra time and secured England their first and only World Cup final victory. He was there.

And if you're an England fan, it doesn't get much better than that. They would rightly be described as the glory years. For England fans, 5 decades have passed since that moment. And I'm sure we would all agree that England have never come close to that former glory. I remember growing up watching England along with millions of other boys up and down the country, and every time that we would crash out of that cup or throw it away in this cup, My dad with his head in his hands would say, I don't know if I could watch England anymore.

I don't know if I can watch them again. How could anything rival that moment? 19 66 World Cup final in the stadium. Watching England in all their glory. Foot bill illustrations don't work for everyone.

Maybe you can think about a band you love. Maybe maybe years ago, decades ago, you saw your favorite band at a gig and they they were just electric. It was an incredible gig. It was an incredible moment to be there. And yeah, they're still touring today.

And maybe you've been once or twice, but Compared to those days, it's as nothing. It's just trying to recapture a former glory. That is something like what the mood of the people was in Haggai chapter 2. They are missing a former glory, hungering for a former glory. In the book of Hanger, the people are often described like this.

The remnant of the people. The remnant of the people. If you look out for that phrase, it comes up quite a lot. Chapter 2 verse 2, speak to Zerubbabel, son of Shields, governor of Judah to Joshua, son of Jehovah, the High Priest, and to the reminant of the people. It literally means the remainder or even sometimes the residue that that which is left over.

They are the remnant. It's discouraging, isn't it? To be described that way. Once you were a great nation. Once you were an end the envy of the world, but now you're identified as a residue.

You are not what you were. And then think about the temple verse 3. Who of you is left? Who saw this house in its former glory. How does it look to you now?

Does it not seem to you like nothing? There's an amazing scene in the book of Ezra. And it's the moment where the foundations of this temple are laid. And the people have gathered together to witness the completion of the foundations, and to give thanks that the rebuilding project has well and truly begun. Finally, they're getting somewhere.

But then we read this in chapter 3 verse 11. With praise and thanksgiving, they sang to the Lord. He is good, is love toward Israel in Jews forever. And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord. Because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.

But many of the older priests and levites and family heads who had seen the former temple wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid. While many others shouted for joy. No 1 could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping. Now what a strange situation that is. Imagine being in the middle of the crowd.

All around you, you've got some people who are thrilled. They had only heard the rumors and the stories of the temple when they were in exile. And now a new temple is being laid. It is exciting. The Lord is gonna come and live with us again.

There are tears of joy at what they're seeing. But other people, some of the older folks are thinking, is this it? Is this all it's gonna be? I can tell already even from the foundations that we and this are never going to return to the glory that we had at first, the glory that I saw with my own eyes and they weep tears. Of sadness.

That would be weird to be there, wouldn't it? People are crying but you can't work out who's happy and who's sad. There's tears all around you, some discouraged, some encouraged. And something of that mood is here in Haggai chapter 2 as well. The people have begun to work on the House of the Lord, praise God, but now it seems that they're thinking well, you know, look at us and look at this, what's the point?

Now, as we saw very helpful last week, we, as God's people living today, we don't we don't build temples like this. We don't need to do that. The the Lord Jesus Christ is the temple of the living God. The church, his body, is the temple of the living God. And therefore, the way we build the temple in our day is through evangelizing the lost and edifying 1 another, encouraging building 1 another up.

We still build temples but in that spiritual rather than a physical sense. But I think the very same discouragements that the people faced in Hagguys Day could face us even though we build in different ways. So you think about it 9 months ago, we were we were hosting the Christmas journey and we would have been gearing up for a carol service. And then in the new year, we had the youth weekend away. We had the student weekend away.

There would be busy hub lunches all the time. There would be thrive in cafes mid week. There would be courses at the hub. There would be kids coming in from the local area. There would be Sunday school.

We would be singing our lungs out together compared to then, what is now? And there is something very healthy about that question because we we love those days and we look forward to being together, we hope like that again. And God has been kind to us in the meantime, hasn't he? He's helped us to adapt those ministries And then he's blessed those ministries so there aren't reasons to praise God. But Satan is a crafty enemy.

And he would want to use these days that we are in now to drain our confidence in the Lord's word to drain our enthusiasm for his work so that 1 by 1 we put our tools down and get off the job. And the lord is warning us through Haggai. Be careful of this better back than syndrome. We need to be careful of the kind of thinking that says, well, never gonna be what it was. And to be honest, I can't ever seeing it being the same again.

So do you know what? What's the point? What's the point in doing anything? We're never gonna be back to our former glory. We're never gonna be the people we were.

What is the point of doing anything at all? And so we get discouraged. We stop looking for opportunities. We stop wanting to build each other up. We stop thinking about evangelizing and making the most of the days that we're in and trusting the lord, and instead we think, well, what's the point?

So easy to get discouraged in the Lord's work at the moment. Or maybe it is the task of evangelism, which which discourages you, the slog of taking the gospel out. You think, you know, how is our nation ever gonna be reached? For the glory of Jesus. How am I ever gonna say anything meaningful to my neighbors when they just don't seem to wanna talk about anything near spiritual things?

It's discouraging. Could be our battle with sin. I feel that, don't you? It's just discouraging, isn't it? The slog against the old sins which weigh us down.

Could be suffering that we're enduring Why us? Why now? How long is this gonna go on? It's discouraging sometimes. Satan, the devil will use anything to keep us off the job.

Could be the better back then syndrome, could be the what's the point syndrome, could be sin, could be suffering, could be the task before us, could be anything. If he can't distract us completely, chapter 1, paneled houses, then he'd want to discourage us. So that we give up on the work. But wonderfully, this passage doesn't end there. Hagai wants these people and he wants us to know that there is hope for discouraged Christians.

And so this is the second point. There was reasons to despair, but there are some great reasons to rebuild. Have a look at verse 4. But now, be strong, zerubbabel declares the Lord. Be strong, Joshua, son of Jehovah, the high priest, be strong all you people of the land declares the Lord and work.

For I am with you, declares the Lord, Almighty. This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt and my spirit remains among you do not fear. And at this moment, this this promise that Hagai reminds them of would have taken on a fresh meaning. Because at this time of year, the people would probably be of celebrating the the festival of tabernacles. They would have gone outside and they would have been living in shelters, leafy shelters in in order to remember their time in the wilderness.

And therefore, at this particular time of the year, their redemption from Egypt and the purpose of their redemption to live with the Lord would have been right there in their minds. I am with you declares the Lord. Yeah. That's what the wilderness years were all about. That's what the the tabernacles and the leafy shelters were all about.

I am with you. And when you think even broader than that, the promise of God living with his people is the very lifeblood of the bible. It's what we find in the Garden of Eden. It's why God's people were taken out of Egypt. It's why they were returned from Babylon.

Ultimately, this is why the word was made flesh. This is the reason for pentecost This was the great prize. It will be the great prize of the new creation. It's just 1 word, immanuel. God, with us.

That promise is true for the people. And so yes, the temple is gonna look is gonna look different. It is gonna look different. It won't be the same 1. And as a community, you are different now.

These days that you are in are not those days. Things have changed. But yesterday, today and forever, I am the same. And I am with you today, and I will remain with you. So be strong and work, and don't be afraid.

And the lord wants to give us that very same assurance in our situation. These are these are difficult days that we're in. And we have changed. Maybe you feel as an individual, you have changed. And the church and our community has changed.

And the world around us has changed. And we don't know when or if things will change back again. But the Lord is saying to us, don't be discouraged because I am with you and I am sovereign and I was with you before this began and I'll be with you after it's over and I'll be with you at every step in the middle. The Lord is with us, and there is work to do. And so as Paul puts it in Gal 6, let us not become weary in doing good.

For at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Or in Haggai's words, be strong and work. And don't be afraid. Are you feeling discouraged at how things are going with you? About how things are going with the church, about the work of the gospel?

Are you weary of gospel work? Well, 1 reason to keep going is that the Lord is with us as he was, as he will be, and as he is now. But another reason not to be discouraged is that the lord is at work. The lord is with us and the lord is at work. Look at the end of verse 5.

This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt and my spirit remains among you. Do not fear and this is the reason we shouldn't fear verse 6. This is what the Lord Almighty says. In a little while, I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I don't know if you saw this week any of those videos from the the a root explosion.

I mean, they they they were incredible. There there were videos of people in the maternity ward as their wives were giving birth There was a video of a of a lady having her wedding photographs. There was a video of a man interviewing someone in the new studio and then there was 1 bang and then there was the bang. And the violence of that explosion was frightening and incredible. Apparently, you could hear the tremors of that explosion a hundred and 50 miles away which would be like feeling it here if it was in Manchester.

So that that's a long way away. It was a tremendously frightening, powerful experience. Glass blowing out, bridges destroyed, buildings, fractured roads falling to pieces. It was terrifying, the power and the force of that explosion. But here the Lord says that I will shake the cosmos.

And in the language of the old testament, That means judgement. That's judgement language. The powers of Egypt and Babylon and Persia and Persia and Syria and Greece and Rome and the powers of today, they are strong but they will be shaken. And when the dust settles, you will remain. It's important word for our day, isn't it?

The dictators that are around today, the powers of our world. Maybe you've been following. Hope you've been following. What's been going on in Belarus and the the the the violence and the oppression and the the the the the forcefulness of these dictators. The Lord is saying 1 day these Antichrist powers will be shaken and Yahweh your God rules the cosmos.

Yahweh, your God rules the powers of this world. 1 day he will shake them and his plans will never ever fail. His purposes for his people will never fail. And that is an encouragement to our brothers and sisters in Belarus, isn't it? Even under the the thumb of a tyrannical ruler, 1 day he will be gone.

1 day he will be gone. But the Church of Jesus Christ will be built in that country, and that will remain. John Calvin, great old reformer Christian. He says this about this passage. The Lord will shake all things above and below.

Rather not to restore his church. He would rather change the appearance of the whole world than the redemption should not be fully accomplished. He would rather change the appearance of the whole world than the redemption should not be fully accomplished. In other words, he's saying in the world's eyes, we may be small and the powers around us may be strong and the temples that we're building may not look very glorious and impressive, but God would rather change the appearance of the whole world. Than fail to complete his work.

And that god is your god. So don't be afraid, be strong, and work. But there's more he says in verse 7, I will shake all the nations. And what is desired by all nations will come. And I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord Almighty.

The silver is mine. And the gold is mine declares the Lord Almighty. The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of former house says the Lord Almighty. And in this place, I will grant peace declares the Lord Almighty. And at this point, Hag guy is doing what the prophets often do.

They speak to their time and beyond their time. They speak to the physical and to the spiritual. They merge language of judgment and salvation. And as we've already seen, this temple language is Jesus Christ and the church. We saw it in 1 Peter 2 last week.

Really important verse for this series. 1 Peter 2 verse 4. As you come to him, the living stone rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him. You also like living stones are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. In other words, we are the living stones.

We are being built into a spiritual house around the living Jesus Christ. And ultimately, that is what Haggai is speaking into. Calvin comments again. The prophet speaks of the spiritual ornaments of the temple and thus we perceive have a glory of the second temple. Is to be greater than that of the first.

There is no other way that verse 9 can be true. Because in a material sense, This temple did not reach its former glory. It never did. That never happened. And so those people weeping in Ezra 3 were right to do so.

From a physical perspective. But if these stones are spiritual, and if these decorations are the children of God, And if these precious ones are the children of God coming into Christ from the nations and if Christ himself is the great treasure the precious 1, the temple of the living God, that which is most valuable in all the world. If Christ is that precious desire, that valuable 1. Then verse 9 is wonderfully true. The church will be built.

The nations will come in Christ the temple will be of greater glory than anything that we could imagine. And in that place in Christ, we will find shallon. We will find peace. The latter glory will be led greater because it's the glory of Christ. The temple of the living God.

That will be built. And so you can see verse 9, do not fear. Be strong. And work. The lord is with you and the lord is working.

So brothers and sisters, there are, I think, real reasons to be discouraged at the moment. Satan Satan once to use these reasons, to distract us from the work, to discourage us. Satan wants to spread the better back then, what's the point syndrome? But God is giving us such encouraging truth to keep us on task here. Yes, things have changed but our lord is with us and there are neighbors to reach and there is a church to edify and there is work to do.

And the Lord says to us, so be strong and go for it because I am with you and I am at work declares the Lord. Let's take a moment just to pray and ask that the lord who is providing us with this encouraging truth would encourage our hearts to keep us on task. Father God, we thank you for these words. We thank you for your servant Haggai and for these sermons which you gave him, these words which you inspired him with. Thank you lord for how encouraging this message is that you are God who saved us in Jesus Christ are with us.

That you were with us back then, that you will be with us for all of our days and that you are with us now. We thank you lord that you are the 1 with power to shape the cosmos. You are the 1 with power to draw the nations to Christ, your temple, the temple of the living God. And we pray lord that even if we're feeling scouraged at the moment that we would not listen to Satan's lies. We would not fall for the better back then syndrome.

We would not give up but that lord we would be strong and that we would work and that we would not be afraid knowing that you are with us and that your purposes will prevail. Help us lord keep going in these days in Jesus' name. Oh, man. Uh-huh.