Be God's Family
S3 E45. Haggai: Finish What You Started
This is the Begots Light Podcast with Ben Greenbaum and Mark Elsasser, and here in 2024, we've been taking a look at the Old Testament all the way from the beginning in the book of Genesis and to the time of exile. Now with the root of the time of exile, there's some remnant that's going home in order to rebuild the temple, and so we'll take a look at the book of Haggai. Haggai, you know, Ben, I don't know if I've spent a whole lot of time in Haggai in my life, I mean, enough to make sure I think I know a little bit of what's in it, but I don't think it's like my number one devotion spot to stop. Though there's some interesting things there in Haggai. You Haggai, you've been friends? Yeah, back in the day. Yeah, yeah, I did preach a sermon series. It's probably been 10 years ago, maybe a little bit more, but I did preach a three week sermon series through Haggai. Sadly, I can't tell you much about the sermon series because I've forgotten, I think most of what I probably shared. I probably should have gone and dug that out before I came up here to record this. How were all the people they probably hung in every word and they probably remember. Oh, undoubtedly. Yeah, I mean, that's usually, that's usually the responses to my sermons is that people, they don't just listen, Mark, they internalize, they memorize. Yeah, so there's people living according to Haggai today. Undoubtedly. Let's take a look at what old girl Haggai was doing. I mean, he was somebody who is going to go home with the people. The people had been in Babylonian exile, then the Persian Empire took over and there were a whole bunch of different kings that came along there over a period of time. But some of them allowed in the book of Ezra, allow these guy names, the rubabel to return. And he did. He returned and began to do some work on the temple. He ran into some difficulty along the way. We won't take a look at all of that here, but he ran some difficulty because there were people in the area who did not want him to rebuild the temple. They did not want zero bell and his and his buddies to complete the task and for them to feel like God was with them again for the glory of the Lord to return as we saw a few weeks ago in Ezekiel that they wanted to stop the Jewish people or the people of God from from doing this. And they put it in a good amount of pressure on them until they they stopped, zero bell stopped the work for a good period of time. I mean, he just stopped for like a decade. I just want to, we're not going to take a deep look in all of that, but I like to ask some questions here about that concept of getting pressure from people to stop doing what God's called you to do. And so you cave into the people, you stop doing what God's called you to do. This, this is a con this is a temptation for bishops, preachers, leaders, Christians today, right? I like to do what we have even even people when they have a sense of a call to witness to somebody in the neighborhood at work at school or whatever else. And someone puts pressure on them. It's a temptation just, I'm going to stop, because if I'm doing God's work, I should get all good results, right. And so, zero bell stopped for a decade. Talk to me about that a little bit in terms of our present day world in which we live. Yeah, I think fear has always been a motivator for, you know, for people. I think undoubtedly I've probably caved the moments of fear, you know, worried about repercussions of an action where the fear of the repercussions probably guided me more than what God was probably calling me to do in that moment. The thing is something we always have to be aware of and self aware enough to ask our self what is motivating me in this moment. Is it God is, or are my circumstances constraining my life with God. And so that was ultimately one of the things and we see it, you know, today, that's one of the things that we oftentimes marvel at is we see folks who actually have to deal with persecution on the daily basis. Because of their identity in Christ where there are many of folks who very much their lives parallel what we see out of the apostles in the New Testament, who were under constant threat. What we see here with in Haggai, which we see, you know, obviously it's the narrative itself picked up in Nehemiah and Ezra, where they're dealing with people who are hostile to them. And really the question is, is are we going to trust God and trust him to move and be faithful to him, or are we going to yield to the opposition that we're facing. And that's one of those areas that I've marveled at having been with folks in underground churches and different and a couple of different nations and seeing just this resolute faithfulness, this unwillingness to buckle to fear. It's almost as if fear is not an option for them because they're so rooted in their identity in Christ. They're so secure and God's eternal promises that they very much reflect Christ in this world to where even under the threat of death or imprisonment or whatever, it's not something, it's almost to a point where they don't really think about it much. There's been a couple of folks that I've been with, and it's almost like they just kind of shrug it off like, well, this is, this is life. This is what life in Jesus looks like. And they have, oddly enough, they have a level of freedom in their life with Jesus that I don't often see among many Western Christians who live with, who live in a state of freedom. Where we have the freedom to share our beliefs with others, it doesn't mean that you might not get pushed back, doesn't mean that you might not face some ridicule or some opposition. But it's always, it's always one of those things that I just kind of marvel at, that there are folks who exist under the daily threat of death because of their faith in Jesus Christ who have this just apps, they live with this absolute freedom when it comes to living into God's call to be his ambassadors, to bear witness to Jesus. And then for us who are free, how oftentimes we are more bound up to fear than they are. I remember one of my seminary professors said that if he ever received an invitation from the White House to go and the President of the United States, 40 years ago, President of the United States says to him, what, what do you need? What does the Christian Church need from the President of the United States? My seminary professor said persecution. Could you arrange some persecution, sir? Because that's what we really need. We're just too complacent. And that has stuck with me for a long, that was a surprise answer that he came up with there. And it's stuck with me because we don't really face it. No, and what's fascinating was I heard a sermon one time preached. This would have been when my wife and I went to a church, Irving Bible Church in Dallas and we had a guest preacher one Sunday when we were living in Dallas. And he was from a former Soviet block country. And it was fascinating because he's like, you know, we had, they had lived under real persecution as followers of Christ had lived under real persecution. We're part of an underground church movement, we're bold with their faith. And he said when the iron curtain fell in the late 80s in the particular country he lived in was ultimately set free from under Russian oppression. And they had the freedom to live out their faith. He said, I anticipated, he's like, I went to the church because I anticipated that everybody would be present, worshiping God. And he said, instead, they were out buying bread. And it was just that he used that kind of as a segue to talk about how the country where he was from, how under, how having been tangibly set free in this world to where they were not oppressed anymore. Crazy enough became one of the largest barriers to their evangelistic movement. And he says, it's this weird, I mean, I don't know if dichotomy is the right orbit, there's this weird tension within the world that we live in that those who are oftentimes most free. And those who are blessed materially are often the ones that are most imprisoned when it comes to issues of fear or not fully living into God's call upon their life. On the other hand, that here in this story, is a rubabelle that the construction manager of the place the governor of the land stops, they stopped for a decade because they were under some pressure so they got the persecution of pressure. And they stopped rebuilding the temple, and we pick it up in the book of Haggai. It says, in the second year of King Darius, that's the Persian king that took over the Babylonian Empire. On the second year of King Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the high priest. This is what the Lord Almighty says. These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord's house. It had been a decade, the pile of rubble is still there, and they said it's not time yet. I don't know if by that point that they just gotten used to it not being built if they were complacent, if they still felt they were under some duress from the enemies who wanted them to stop. So it goes on in verse three, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai. Here's what God says, "Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses while this house remains a ruin?" It's a great iconic verse from the book of Haggai, but boys, it doesn't say it all. You've taken the time to rebuild your houses. They're looking good. You got them all decked out. I don't know if they had the 1970s wood paneling in them, like we had in our houses back in the day, but they were nice. A paneled house and that day, like wood was scarce in the land, so they put some money into it. They put some effort into it, and it says, "You've rebuilt the city. You've built me with your neighborhood. You called us back, it's looking great." But the temple here, it's pile of rubble. It's a powerful statement that God makes through Haggai. Let me go out with this just a little bit. Verse five, "Now this is what the Lord Almighty says. Give careful thought to your ways. You've planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but you're not warm. You're on wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it. You can't save a dime. This is what the Lord Almighty says. Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, build the temple, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored," says the Lord. "You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?" That's a great question. God's giving this talk through Haggai. He says, "You look around, and it hasn't worked out like you wanted to. Have you ever asked yourself a question? Why?" God answers the question, verse nine, "Because of my house, the temple, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house." That makes it real. I think it's common, common human desire to pay attention to our own house, rather than God's house, to pay attention to our own longings, our aspirations, our interests, our desires. Our time, rather than yielding to God in His way. It seems to be a common part of humanity to want to do this, and God makes it very real for them that you've got your priorities upside and down. If I can for a second, Doug, I'm going to bring back an old phrase that I once I was ridiculed for using. But you've avoided it for a while. I have. I'm impressed with myself. But you no longer can. But I'm bringing it back. Hold it down. Today is the day. It's here. Because as you were talking, the only thing I could think to myself, Mark, is that there's nothing new. Under the sun. Yes, amen. I'm feeling spiritual now. There's not, we pay attention to ourselves more than we pay attention to God. Yeah, and we live in a world we live in a context that gives us the freedom to do that. And so it's easy to become preoccupied with the world around us and living in a way that is, which we don't really think about much. But how much is the world itself, the expectations of our culture guiding the life that we live, even to the point where there are aspects to our life that we oftentimes even associate with our Christian life. I mean, how often has the notion of the American dream itself crept in to the Christian message within the West? I mean, we are the ones that have formulated the health and wealth gospel, which is pervasive throughout Western Christianity, where there is this preoccupation with ourselves, our material, well-being, our physical, well-being and you see that in the people here, where they're preoccupied with themselves, their physical wellbeing, their material wellbeing, where they have, I mean, they've put God to the side. This podcast is going to drop a week before election day. And boy, how many things have we heard about the middle class and you're a better life for you and housing affordability. And less is long. It almost seems like almost all of the talking points are about me, me, me. I'm going to vote for the person who gives me more for me, not necessarily who gives us more for them. Yeah, and it's not that necessarily those conversations are, you know, it's not that they're bad conversations, but where do they rank in priority of life? The idea that inflation itself, which is not a good thing, right, but that it presents us with this existential crisis, a crisis that is going to absolutely up end my life. You know, for those in Christ, we don't live as if everything is an existential crisis. But when we feel a threat to our material wellbeing, whether physically, financially or otherwise, things become an existential crisis. And so it's always, it's amazing to me the things that grip our heart. You know, if only we approach our relationship with Christ with the same enthusiasm, we approach those conversations, you know, right, right. I mean, it's, I don't really want to crack on the politicians because they're playing to the human emotion. I'm going to care about my house. My wellbeing, my life, which is exactly what God says through the Prophet Hagai here, like you're paying attention to your panel houses. My house is in ruins. And you're busy with your own life while the temple or, or the faith is out of order. It's kind of normal. Yeah. And again, it's not that, you know, a concern for a material wellbeing is a bad thing. But when it becomes the absolute priority of life that, that constrains our character, that God's our character, that motivates our life to where our life isn't centered on Jesus Christ and his will and his desire in abiding in him. There are, you know, sadly, there are more, there are many of folks, many of self-proclaimed Christians that are preoccupied or more preoccupied with those things, with those conversations, then they are with their life in Jesus. And that's where there's a problem. It's a problem. Right. Because then the circumstances of our life, whatever they may be, whether it's the blessings of the world or the things that we look at as a, as a negative. Those things are the things that come to constrain who we are. And neither God nor the prophet Hagai told the people, well, rip the wood off your houses and bring it to the temple and go live in a cave. That was the point. It was that you, you got it out of balance. Right. Your number one priority is the wrong. That's what it seems like to me. So the result of it, verse 12, or in Hagai chapter one, verse 12, then Zerubbabel, the governor, the guy who was in charge of the project, Josh with a high priest bringing that spiritual life of the people back together. And the whole remnant of the people, the remnant or the people who returned from exile, all of them says, obeyed the voice of the Lord, their God, and the message of the prophet, Hagai. You know, a lot of times then we've been looking at these prophets and nobody's paying attention. Good old Hagai. They listened and they put it into action. They began to obey. Verse 13, then Hagai, the Lord's messenger gave this message of the Lord to the people. I am with you, declares the Lord. So the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, the governor and the spirit of Josh with a high priest and the spirit of the whole remnant of the people. They came and after a decade began to work on the house of the Lord Almighty, their God, on the 24th day of this sixth month. They wrote it down. Like, it's been a decade, it's been 10 years. I'm going to write down the day. We're starting up again. We believe. We believe you, God. We even believe you, Hagai, the prophet. You know, we, we are trusting in you and that are the tractors still out there? Are the people who want to have their heads still out there? Yep. But something changed inside of them and they said, it doesn't matter. We're rebuilding the temple. And that, that's a pretty good story. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, it just reminded me of what the title to the first sermon in Hagai was. It was stirred up and part of it was funny. All of a sudden this has come back to me a little bit. The entire, the, the central point of that, of that message was about our life in Christ. And are we stirred up basically into this frenzy of desiring to live into God's will for us? Um, as we see with the people here is that, you know, Hagai comes in, delivers the message and they're all this bumping each other and, and ready to get on about the work of God. Um, and are, are we, uh, living into that as well? That sounds like a pretty good sermon series. I, I'm still going with the fact that the people who heard it, I mean, their lives are on the path. I doubt it. You know, it's funny is like, now I'm going to have to go back and look at these sermons. There, there are moments, you know, after 20 plus years of ministry, I preached a lot of sermons on a lot of passages. And so there are inevitably, you know, when I'm asked to preach on a passage, um, I've probably preached on it before at some point. And so I'll, you know, whip out that, that old sermon, uh, if nothing else, just to kind of provide a framework for the new sermon, I'm going to write. And I, and I'll think to myself, man, I remember that message. That was a really good message. And then I pull out the sermon to look at it and I'm like, man, that was not a great, great message. And still, yeah, God used to somehow, but I'm like, that was not the way I remembered that going. Yeah. It's good old time and ego. Stirm together. And there's nobody that can preach like I do. Right. Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Well, that's a pretty good story. The story of Haggai. And he's one of these prophets in the back of the Old Testament that we don't pay a lot of attention to. But God used him to get the people up and into action again. Another one is a prophet, Zechariah. And in fact, over in the, the book of Ezra chapter five, they're tied together. Ezra chapter five verse one. Now, Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the prophet prophesied to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel who was over them. So these guys worked hand in hand, Haggai and Zechariah. Next time, let's just take a little look at Zechariah and some of his visions of a new Jerusalem that he had for the people. In the meantime, you can go to our church's website, fishersumc.org or the church app. Click on the beak odds light link. And that'll take you to more elements of this year long study we've been involved in of the Old Testament. And there's all kinds of stuff there that might help you along your journey. And if you want to stay up to date with the beag odds light podcast, we encourage you to follow and rate wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for listening today and may the Lord bless you. (gentle music)
Mark Ellcessor and Ben Greenbaum talk about the prophet Haggai, who encouraged the people to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.