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Bold Builders

From this day on, God will bless you

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.  

 

Be bold builders!

Be bold builders!

Haggai 1:1-11

Sermon

If you saw a house like this, there is a lot wrong with this house, isn’t there? What’s wrong with this? (the list is almost too long)  

What would you do if that was the house down the street?  

  • Pull a weed when you walk by 

  • Say something to the owners  

  • Talk to the city or the township 

  • Some of you would probably say, I’ll never even move there. What if it was there after you?  

  • Might you move away?  

There are a lot of houses that look like that or something like that.  

What would you do if that was your house? 

That’s a tougher one, isn’t it? Because it’s one thing to say, I’d get on that house, I’d fix it. But what if you don’t know anything about roofing? What if you don’t know anything about siding? What if don’t know anything about plumbing or electrical or any of the dozens of other skills that you need to keep a house going?  

And what if your mom or dad is older, they need help getting to doctors’ appointments and groceries? And what if you are a police officer or you’re a chef at a local restaurant, you just don’t make that much money. What if the whole local economy is slow? People don’t get raises but prices keep going up.  

If anything is going to change, there are a lot of issues that you have to deal with.  

Adventure  

Friends, that is what God gets to today. He wants us to get at rebuilding our homes, our community, and our congregation. 

We are going to start looking at the book of Haggai today. I’m sure there are a few of you who have read Haggai a few times, but I suspect most of you know almost nothing about Haggai. Well, here is your chance. Here is the story.  

After 70 years in Babylon, the people from Judah – the area around Jerusalem, were allowed to return home.  

The country was in shambles. The land was burned. The homes were burned and destroyed. The city of Jerusalem was burned. The temple was burned and ripped down.  

I wonder if any of us would have stayed. I wonder if any of us would have looked around and said, yup, this is where I’m going to rebuild my home and this is where I’m going to stay. This is my place. 

Friends, there are times to walk away. There are times to say I’m done. There are also times to get up the gumption, the courage to stay and fix a place.  

And today God wants you to stay and rebuild this place. He wants us to rebuild our homes, rebuild our church building. He wants to rebuild our congregation.   

He wants us to start by consider the time and our ways.  

Development 

First, the time.  

[“These people say, ‘The time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord’s house.’ ” (verse 2) But God spoke back through the prophet, “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?” (verse 4)] 

“These people say, ‘The time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord’s house.’ ” (verse 2) 

  • They've returned from exile.  

  • They’re rebuilding their homes 

  • They’ve planted crops. 

  • They’re saying, it isn’t the right time to rebuild the temple.  

God responds and says back to them, is it time to live in paneled houses?  

I want to be fair to the people. The people don’t say, we don’t want to rebuild God’s house. They say its not the right time. God says, it’s not the right time for your houses. It’s the right time for my house. The debate is about time.  

There are two ways to understand these paneled houses. One is that they were fancy, ornate houses. The other is just that they were houses with roofs or enclosed houses. Either way God says, now is the not the time for your houses. Now is the time for my house.  

Friends, you might think this is the part where I say, we keep buying stuff. We keep running after stuff. We keep buying bigger and bigger houses. The materialism of this world is terrible.   

Here is something you need to know. This whole thing is kind of a surprise. Here is a little history. King David was the best and most famous king of Israel. He got to establish the far boundaries of Israel. He built the palace. And ultimately, he made the nation into people. He did not get to build the temple.  

What happened is, he started to build the temple. God came to him and said, wait a second, I didn’t ask you to do this. What do you think you are doing? It was not the right time.  

Now to Haggai he says this is the time. This is the time to build my house. God is timeless, yet he pays attention to time. Let’s break this down.  

God is eternal. He exists forever. He is also what we call immutable. What does that mean? He doesn’t change. He is always the same.  

You and me, we are bound by time. Completely. Our lives are structured by it. We are born, we live, and we die. I know all kinds of things about you based on what age you are, the time of your life, that I don’t know based on events. We’ve got all these little sayings about time to help us think about it.  

“It’s not about having time. It’s about making time.” “timing is everything”. “the time of our lives”. God is not like that at all.  

We probably don’t want to say God is timeless. He is beyond time. Somehow for God everything is the eternal present. It all is. The shocker is, He is timeless yet he pays attention to time. Let me give us a comparison. 

Take a clock. Pretend God is kind of like a clock. A nuclear fission clock. Forever ticking. Never runs out, never stops. Basically timeless. 

On the other hand, you and I are a timer. You and I are not timeless. We start and we end. That’s us.  

Here is the one other thing to think about with God. God’s not just a clock. He is an alarm.  

What do I mean by that? Somehow God in his timelessness manages to pay attention to specific times. I can’t even begin to imagine it. How can you be timeless and yet pay attention to a specific time? Somehow, that’s God. Eternal, yet tied to time.  

Think about that. What is that saying for life? There is this one time in the life of Jesus where Jesus says, you and I know how to pay attention to the weather. We get up in the morning and look at the sky and see that it is overcast, so we say, it will probably storm. Then he says, you can interpret those signs, why can’t you read the signs of God’s time? 

I think that is just fascinating, because I’m sure you, like me, hear all kinds of people saying, this is what the world is like. You have to get with the times. Don’t you see what is going? These are the times.  

And all of that is probably fine. But do you and I know God’s time? At certain points, at certain times, God’s alarm will go off and you would be wise to be tied into it.  

I hate that feeling when the alarm goes off beep beep beep and I get jarred awake. I ruin that amazing dream and I’m all groggy from deep sleep. Wouldn’t it be better to wake up a few minutes before the alarm goes off and calmly, quietly turn it off?  

I think this kind of gets at that point. Everyone has to pay attention to their own timer. We’ve all got that timer of our lives, telling us to work and to get married and retire and everything else. But you and I can live our lives by God’s clock and alarm, or by our own timer.  

Haggai even says how we can tell the difference. He tells us “consider your ways”.  

“Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. 6 You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.” (Verses 5-6)  

Notice what God says. He doesn’t say, consider the outcome of your life. He doesn’t say, think about how things are going. Are you succeeding or failing. He says, consider your ways.  

In Hebrew, paths. Literally, think about where you are walking.   

If you and I are saying, I feel like I don’t have enough money. I feel like I’m not eating good enough food. I feel like my house isn’t nice enough. I feel like my kids don’t have enough fun. I feel like I’m not getting far enough ahead in life.  

If that is what is driving our life, that’s not God’s ways.  

The Lord God is the God who says, I love sinners. I forgive sinners. I’m good and generous and I bless and I take care of not good people, not holy people, but people who ask for help, people who repent, and people who confess their sins.  

God doesn’t bless people they are good people. God blesses people because he is gracious and merciful and compassionate because of Jesus.  

Haggai is telling them what Jesus would one day say, “Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be given to you as well.”  

Think about the time they lived in. They just got back from 70 years in captivity. I know that the land they returned to was devastated. It was war torn. It was a mess.  

But what was that time for? That was a time to praise God. That was a time to be God’s people. That was a time to forgive and love. That was a time to proclaim God’s grace. It was a time to confess their sin. It was a time to sacrifice.  

That was a time for them to believe the gospel.  

Think about a man who had come many years before from almost the exact same place. Almost 1500 years before the Jews returned home, Abraham walked the same path. He went to a new land and a new place. And at each place along the way when he stopped, he built an altar and made a sacrifice. He called those places Shechem and Bethel and   

Because he knew the time he watched his ways.  

Friends, its okay to look at our lives and say, here is how its going. We know what time it is based on what God has done. But the gospel never says to you and I, if I’m a good person, if I work hard, then God will love me and take care of me and be good to me.  

The gospel says God loves sinners. God loves sinners who have lived through a pandemic and say, I will not live forever, my timer is going to go off. God loves sinners  

God loves you.  

Friends, consider your ways at this time.  

 

Action 

Haggai is writing all this so the people build his house.  

One of my favorite ways to illustrate what we’re  building… I like to use Legos, maybe because I like to build with my sons. I didn’t come up with this idea though. I borrowed it.  

So consider this, if I take one Lego brick and I say you are one brick, that’s good. That’s good. You should be the best brick you can be.  

And many of you care about your families. So you’re building multiple bricks together. Maybe 3 or 4 or 10, or if you’ve got a large extended family you’ve got 20 or 30.   

But you can’t really build anything good with only 5 or 20 Legos. You can make something good with 70 or 80 or 90 Legos.  

 

So here is what I’d like to ask you to do today. On the table in the  

Let’s be bold builders. It’s time to consider our ways. Let’s build.