Haggai 2:10-23
Sermon
Friends, it’s a great day. Today is a day to celebrate and be glad. Haggai has good news for us today.
It’s all in this line: “From this day on I will bless you” (verse 19)
We’re at the end of the story. About 4 months ago, in Haggai’s time, Haggai got up in front of the people and said, hey, look at our lives. We are working and working, and nothing does what it is supposed to do. The crops don’t produce, the olive trees are bare, and the water is a mess. Whatever we do get always runs out. The wine vats and olive stores are empty. This needs to stop. We need to stop. We need to stop and rebuild the temple. Let’s rebuild the people of God.
He said that and they did. They got to work. They didn’t get it done. That would take another 4 years. But they got to work so Haggai could get up in front of the people and say, people of God, today is a great day. We’ve come a long way. We have made huge progress on the temple. Now I get to tell you, God will bless you.
From this day on, God will bless you. Your crops will produce everything they should, your fruit trees and vines and pomegranate and olive trees will produce what they should. They will all make what they should and more. Let me tell you, starting today, God will bless you.
Friends, this Is a great day. This is a day to celebrate. This is a day to be glad. They are blessed.
It’s like the sun has started to shine on them.
This is an old illustration for blessing. Martin Luther used it. He said blessing is like the sun.
Before blessing you live in darkness, you live in cold. But even worse nothing lives. The plants don’t produce. The water doesn’t flow. All you know is failure.
Then the sunlight comes. You don’t really get anything from it right away. You get the rays of the sun. The warmth of the sun. But over the days, the water flows. The plants start to grow. The trees bud and turn green. The crops begin to shoot up. It may take months still but eventually the sunlight brings the harvest. The sunlight brings life.
What’s the point?
The people of God, Haggai’s time, they obeyed. They stopped living in sin and disobedience. And God looked at them and he said, let my light shine on my people again.
It’s not like blessing was a store. It’s not like God said to the people of Haggai, you’ve worked so hard, you’ve done such a good job for the last 4 months. Just come on in and take all of my good stuff. Let me just give it all to you. That’s not what he said.
The people didn’t actually get anything that day. In fact, Haggai says, “is there any seed left? Nothing has borne fruit.” Blessing didn't mean that God said, o you obeyed me. Here is all the good stuff you need in life. Blessing didn’t make them suddenly rich beyond their imagination. Blessing didn’t mean that their houses were full.
Rather God said, I approve of you in my Son. I love you in my Son. And I will let my approval show up in blessing. It will take months. For some things it will take years. But from now on your work will start to produce. Your crops will start to grow. Your water will flow.
Do you see what happened? God didn’t look at them and say, because you obeyed me, I’ll bless you. He looked at them and said, oh, you really are my people. I will bless you. (Not, “When you obey me, I’ll bless you. But Oh you are my people, I’ll bless you.”)
Friends, this is the main point from Haggai today. You and I, just like the people of Haggai’s day, should always do what God says. We should worship him. We should love him. We should fear him. We should trust him. We should honor him. We should glorify him. And what does all that look like?
That means we should do our jobs.
We should tell the truth.
We should love people, especially our families.
We use our gifts as we best we can.
We behave as God citizens of our land. We vote. We obey the laws, both the laws on paper and the laws of God.
And we build up God’s congregation. We gather with brothers and sisters in Jesus. We forgive each other. We text each other. We eat together. We encourage each other. We rebuke each other. We teach each other. We tell each other of Jesus. We give offerings. We serve with our time and our talents to serve at this facility and out in the community. We tell the truth. We admit our faults. We ask for help. And we do all of that in the name of the God who created us and redeemed us.
This is what Christians do. We do what is right.
And we don’t do it so that our houses are full. We don’t do it so our bodies are well. We don’t do it so our lives are happy.
If you believe that God created the world and everything in it and that he chose Abraham and his children to be his people and that the ultimate child of Abraham is Jesus Christ the king of kings and the Lord of Lords, that he rules and he reigns all things, that he loves us and prays for us and forgives us and protects us, and that is preparing an eternal home for us, if you believe all that is actually true and God is doing these things, then you will obey.
And today we can say, I can say, from this day on God will bless you. From this day on you get to live in the sun.
Friends, this is part of the gospel of Jesus. God blesses us. He does not bless us when we do good or if we do good or because we do good. None of that’s true.
God blesses us because has made us his people in Jesus and he loves to bless his children in Jesus. He loves to bless his people. He loves to give his believers good things.
See, some of us are here today behaving in a way saying, it doesn’t matter what we do, it doesn’t matter how we behave, everything will be okay. We’re thinking that somehow we can keep living the same way and the sun won’t ever go dark on us.
Someone came to me and said, pastor, I’m not having communion right now. And I said, do you want to tell me why? And they said, I haven’t forgiven this person for something they said long ago. I’ve been carrying this around in my heart. I didn’t realize it but I do now and since the Bible is pretty clear that we need to forgive before we come to the altar, I realized I should forgive this person first.
Now I’m not sure that person is totally right on reading their heart, but I will say, have you ever had that moment where it was like someone turned the spotlight on you? In that moment it was like someone lit a spotlight shining into the darkest corners of my heart saying, did you forgive that person for the thing that they said? Did you forgive that person for what they did?
That person really made me ask, is everything okay? Can I keep behaving the way I have? Or as Haggai says, consider your ways.
Friends, if you and I believe that Jesus Christ has died for our sins, we will behave in a way that says I want to live God’s way. I want to build these people up. We will behave in a way that says I’m going to encourage you I’m going to correct you I’m going to rebuke you I’m going to teach you I’m going to forgive you.
And maybe we need to. If we were going to talk to each other, can we really say, God has blessed us? I know a lot of you would say, God has blessed you individually, but can you say God has blessed us? I don’t want you to do it right now, but look around as you leave, look around later today, and then think about it this week. Talk to your friends and ask, has God blessed us?
I think we can say there is need to repent today.
Because today God wants to say, from this day on, I will bless you. From this day on, I will let my light, the light of my son shine on you.
And I’m not going to promise that it will show up right away. This is not me giving you the store. I’m not going to promise that this congregation, this group will instantly be full of forgiveness and repentance and love and hope and joy and all that.
You obey and I bless.
I want you to think, for a moment, of the power of this blessing. I want you to think of a young man going to ask his future father in law if he can marry his daughter. I remember that moment. I was out at my in laws house in CA. We were actually getting ready to go to China, so the pressure was on.
…. Now my future father in law was not a scary man. Hard working, down to earth, silly kind of guy. However, I was on pretty shakey ground. We had met each other a few times but had only spent a few days together in all of our time. I had not impressed him once because we had broken up and I had blown off a visit at his house because we had split up.
I remember sitting in his living room. And the ladies had left the room. I had this little speech prepared. I’ve got a question for you. I’d like to know if I can marry your daughter. I think I actually said, John, would it be okay if I married your daughter?
He didn’t make me wait long. He didn’t play that tough future father in law on me. But for a man that moment feels like an eternity. That’s because in that moment there were two different paths for my life forward. If he gave me his blessing, it didn’t mean that my life was filled with candy and fun and easy stuff every day.
Now what’s the point? From that day on, my father in law said, I will bless you. I will bless you. He didn’t say it because I had obeyed. He said it because he wanted to make me his son.
Here is a neat thing. My father in law is a jeweler, he makes rings and things. That day I could say, will you one day make your daughter her ring. And I got from him the sign, the seal of his blessing.
To this day, I can look at that ring and say, yes, it is the sign that I love my wife and I’m committed to her and I care for her. But it also the sign of his blessing. It is the sign that I am his son.
Now friends, did you catch at the end of this lesson? He said, “‘On that day,’ declares the Lord Almighty, ‘I will take you, my servant Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will make you like my signet ring, for I have chosen you,” (verse 23)
There is a lot to unpack there, but suffice it to say this: that God took his ring and gave it to you. That he made your baptism and mine the mark, the sign, and the seal of his blessing.
From this day on, God will bless you.