"Thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider your ways. 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.” Haggai 1:7-8
Last week we began looking at a small but powerful book in the Old Testament called Haggai. God has challenged lazy, apathetic, and disobedient Israel to Consider your ways. In all of life there is a time to talk and a time to act, a time to consider and a time to stop talking and starting doing. Musician Bruce Springsteen once said, “A time comes when you need to stop waiting for the person you want to become and start being the person that you want to be!”This was a time to for the Jews to act. God says very simply GO and BUILD. It was time to get on with what God had given them to do. Because they had not honored God, every area of life was suffering and God’s glory was being dishonored. The temple of the Old Testament existed for the glory of God. And you and the Church today exist for the glory of God (Ephesians 1:6, 12, 14). The only remedy was to stop making excuses and start doing what God had told them to do 16 years earlier and if they did it, God would be pleased, happy, and glorified in their obedience.
So we read in verses 12.14, “Then Zerubbabel the son of She-altiel, 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…And they came and worked on the house of the LORD of hosts, their God on the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.”
It is one of the discouragements of preaching when a pastor preaches with passion and power and then be greeted with yawns and indifference as they go back to being and living as they always do. Still, from time to time there is something quite different. The word strikes home and a life is changed. When it happens to a whole church or large numbers of people, you have a revival! That is what happened after Haggai’s preaching. Through the prophet, God was lovingly but sternly giving his people a state of the union massage and a call to put first things first and the people heard it, received it, and acted on it.
This is amazing! 16 years have gone by and now the people desire what God desires and are doing what God has called them to do. Haggai reports that Zerubbabel and Joshua and the people obey and begin to work on the temple, on the 24th day of the sixth month. If we compare that with the first verse of the chapter where Haggai began to preach this message on the first day of the month, we find that the change came in just 23 days! Haggai spoke on August 30, 520 B.C.The work began on the 21ST OF September. I wonder if there is a day like that in your life or if today July 15, 2009 is that day; a day where you finally get your priorities straight and where you put first things first, where you put God and His work first in everything.
We read in verses 13-14, “Then Haggai, the messenger of the LORD, spoke to the people with the LORD's message, "I am with you, declares the LORD." And the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, 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”
So the Lord responds with His tender assurance and support. First, God makes a wonderful promise to the Jews. “I am with you”. God honors those who stop making excuses. He promises to be with those who dare to take Him seriously. He guarantees that His eternal companionship for those who put Him first. What does that mean: Intimacy, protection, provision, preservation, power, companionship, satisfaction, sustaining grace, joy, life abundant, and contentment, in short, a life blessed by God!
Secondly, notice that along with His ongoing presence He gives a powerful provision in order for the Jews to desire to obey and to do what He has commanded. Don’t miss what takes place here my friends. There are stunning implications for you in this text. They are enormous. God has commanded that the Jews consider their ways, go, and build. How did the Jews change their desires? How did they begin to obey what God commanded them to do? They consider, repent, go, build, and work on the house of the Lord as God commanded.
Why were they able to do this after so many years of apathy and disobedience? Verse 14 says, “The LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, 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.” Note please that the people responded and worked because the Lord stirred up the spirit of the people. This is an important note because it reminds us that God’s work ultimately depends on God. He must give the orders, he must give the energy, he must give the desire, and then he must stir up the spirits of his people before anything good will be done.
Oh the wonder of God’s grace! God gives the command and God gives the enablement to obey the command. More than that, God gives the desire and the passion to want what God wants. What God commands, God gives. We need to be glad for the grace of God beneath our response to the grace of God. If grace did not awaken the Jews to grace, they would have continued in their foolish ways. But grace commanded and grace awakened and grace enabled. Romans 11:36, “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”
There are three primary lessons from Haggai 1:
1. Put First Things First Jesus said, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and yet lose his own soul?” Jesus said "Seek the kingdom first, and all these other things will be added" (Matthew 6:33). If you give yourself, your time, your money, and your resources to God, His church, and His cause, rather than focusing on building your life, your kingdom, and other things, He will give you everything you need to do His will, bring Him glory, and bring joy to your life.
2. Get Started Again This week a simple thought has come to my mind more than once. It goes like this: I can’t go back, I can’t stay here, and I must go forward. You can’t go back to the past—not to relive the good times or to seek revenge for the bad times. But you can’t stay where you are either. God only has one direction for his people: Forward! He told the Jews: WORK/BUILD and this morning His word in the New Testament to us is GO/SEEK FIRST/FORWARD! He never leads us back into the past and he rarely lets us stay where we are very long. That’s why the first two letters of the gospel spell our marching orders: Go!
3. Pursue Immediate Obedience The people of Haggai’s day meant well but good intentions don’t matter when it comes to obeying God. Remember: It’s always easy to find excuses when you don’t want to obey God. When God says, Build the temple, he does n0t mean tomorrow or next week. He means, Build it now! He will give you the desire, the faith, and the ability to do it. You can ask Him this very day! Procrastination is a sin if it keeps you from obeying God. We all have our excuses for not doing what we know we ought to do. But you know what an excuse is, don’t you? It’s the skin of a reason stuffed with a lie. Once we stop making excuses, we’re then ready to obey God. No more excuses! Now! Today! You!
Oh reader, consider your ways, and God will grant you true blessing when you put Him, His cause, and His church first in your life this summer.
Pastor Bill
No comments:
Post a Comment