God wants his people to be holy and blessed. Haggai 2: St Stephens Belrose FIVE30 Service. May 10, Introduction

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1 1 Introduction God wants his people to be holy and blessed Haggai 2:10-19 I have two things to say tonight. The first is that God wants his people to be holy. And the second is that God wants to bless his people. We come tonight to the third of Haggai s four prophetic messages. In the first message Haggai spoke as a prophetic leader. In the third message we see Haggai in the role of prophetic teacher. He wants the people to give careful thought to their situation and he has a message which he wants them to take to heart. His message is that God wants to bless them and that he wants them to be holy. But let me first tell the story of Haggai to provide a context for this message. St Stephens Belrose FIVE30 Service May 10, 2015 The year is 520 BC. The place is Jerusalem. God s people have returned to the city after some 50 years in exile. They have been home now for 16 years. Solomon s great temple, built some 500 years before, lies in ruins and although they began to rebuild it they soon became discouraged and gave up. Instead they gave their energies to the problem of providing for themselves: to farming and building their own homes.

2 2 But nothing was going well. They went through years of drought and poor harvests. The people were discouraged. The miracle of their return to the promised land had become a story of disappointment. And then God raised up two prophets: Haggai and Zechariah. Two prophets to encourage the people and to stir them into action. On Aug 29, 520 Haggai stood up in the middle of the new moon festival and declared God s word to the Governor Zerubbabel, the High priest Joshua and to the gathered people: Is it time he asked for you to live in your paneled houses while this house (the temple) lies in ruins?...go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored (1:4,8). And the people were immediately struck by Haggai s message and resolved that day to rebuild the temple. Three weeks later, in the middle of September, they began to work. Soon they were ready to lay the first stones of the new building. And so on Dec 18 they held a solemn event on the temple site. The old foundations were still in place but they were now laying the first stone of the new work. Again we can imagine the dignatories gathered on the stone floor of the old temple: Zerubabel, the governor and his advisors; Joshua the high priest along with the other priests; and a great gathering of the people. Do you have that picture clear in your imagination? The flat stone floor of the old Temple. The first stone of the new structure there to be put in place. The leaders and the people gathered. And again, moved by the Spirit of God, Haggai stands up to declare his third prophetic message. What will the Lord say through Haggai on this significant day? What he says is this: I want you to be holy. And, I want to bless you. And so the first thing I want to say tonight is: 1. God wants his people to be holy Explanation God s people were struggling. God was not blessing them. There was never enough of anything. When they went to the granary to get some wheat or grain there was always less than they expected (16). And when they went to the cellar to get some wine there was always much less than they thought there would be (16). Not only that but their crops were always affected badly by hot drying winds so that they withered. Or fungus so that the seed heads would not form properly. Or hail which shredded the plants where they stood (17).

3 3 So what was wrong? Why was God withholding his blessing? At God s direction Haggai puts two questions to the priests: questions about consecration and defilement. So I need to pause here to explain these twin ideas of consecration and defilement. Let s start with a distinction we are all familiar with: clean and unclean. We all have a pretty good idea what it means to be clean. You have a shower and you feel clean. You wipe down the kitchen benchtops and they look clean. You wash your hands and they are clean. And uncleaness is familiar as well. You play a physical game or go for a run; you sweat, your clothes are all damp, your hands are clammy; you feel unclean. Or you step in some dog poo and have to clean it off: you feel unclean. So cleaness and uncleanness is meaningful to us. Hold that thought. Now let s try to understand this idea of holiness. In the Bible holiness means to be set apart for God s use. Consecration is the process by which something is made holy. So two words we are unfamiliar with. What is the core idea? Well like all biblical words they find their meaning in Israel s story. God chose Abraham and his descendants to be his people: he set them apart from the rest of the human race and had a purpose for them. They were to be his holy people. He chose a land in which they were to live. Of all the land on the earth he set apart the land of Canaan to be the place where he would reveal himself to his people. This land was holy land. He allowed Solomon to build him a temple. Of all the buildings in the promised land this building was to be set aside for the worship of God. It was to be a holy building. Within this building there was a room where God s Name would dwell. All the rooms in the Temple were holy but this room was the Most Holy place, set aside for God Himself. Not everyone could come and go through all the rooms of the Temple. Only the priests, the descendants of Levi, were able to enter the central rooms of the Temple. Of all the people in Israel, only the priests were

4 4 set aside to serve him in his temple. They were to be his holy servants. The priests offered sacrifices of birds and animals to God. People would bring a bird for example to the Temple. The priests would kill it and offer it to God. In this offering the animal would be set apart for God and for his purposes. It would be consecrated; made holy. So that s what it means to be holy. A holy person or object has been set apart from others of its kind for God and for his own purpose. It has been consecrated. The opposite of holiness or consecration is defilement. Something which is completely unsuitable to be brought before God is said to be defiled. A dead body for example is defiled. Gentiles (non-jews) are defiled. And Jews can be defiled as well by failing to obey God s law. So holiness and defilement are like being clean or unclean before God. So back to Haggai standing there on the temple floor. He asks the priests (12): if something has been consecrated (like an offering or some cup or plate) and then comes into contact with something that has not been consecrated, does that second thing become consecrated too? And the priests answered No. Haggai asked a second question (13); the opposite question. If something is defiled and it comes into contact with something that is consecrated does the consecrated thing become defiled? The priests answered It becomes defiled. And this brings Haggai to the heart of his message: read v 14. This is what is wrong. This is why God s people are struggling. They are not holy and everything they touch is being defiled. Everything they do and everything they offer here in this land and in this broken down temple is defiled. It is as if the temple ruin is a dead body. And everything that happens there at the altar is being constantly polluted and stained by the failure to rebuild it. Nothing is holy and so God is not blessing them. This is what Haggai the teacher wants the people to think about. Three times he exhorts them to give careful thought (15,18,18) to this. God wants you to be holy. Application So what should we make of this? Haggai calls us to whole-hearted worship of God. He reminds us that this is the purpose of creation and of our role in the created order. God places us in the world

5 5 and gives us stewardship of the world so that we will shape it and mould it and re-arrange it to worship Him. He shows us that this is not only the most important thing in our lives but also that it is the best thing for us. When we live in God s world but fail to offer him wholehearted worship everything falls apart; everything winds down; death begins to stalk the land. But when we acknowledge God as God, when we worship him with all that we are and with all that we have then there is life and hope and the good. When God s people make God s creation a place of worship then all is well with the world. So Haggai is calling us to make the worship of God the centre of our lives. Our businesses, our land and property, our skills, our savings; it s all for the worship of God. This is what it means to be God s holy people. You may be thinking Holiness. Well that s a very old concept. From the OT. Not relevant to Christians in the 21 st century. Yes it is a word we don t use much. And an idea we have trouble understanding. But the NT calls Christians to be holy. Read 1 Peter 2:9-10. The NT teaches that we have become God s holy people. We are the new Israel; the new people of God. Of all the people of the world we have been set aside for God s purposes. And what is our purpose? To declare the praises of God. To be a people who know God and who proclaim his greatness and his saving gospel to the world. God wants his Church, he wants us to be holy. To be his chosen, holy people. Set apart for his purposes. Set apart to proclaim him to the world. So on this important day Haggai wants the people to learn an important lesson from past experience. God wants you to be holy. But what of the future? His message is 2. God wants to bless his people Explanation The final word of Haggai s message is an assurance of blessing: From this day on I will bless you (19). Now it would make sense if Haggai declared that the Lord would bless his people once the temple

6 6 was built. But on this the first day of the serious business of reconstruction; on this day when the second temple was only just beginning to emerge; on this very day Haggai gives God s assurance From this day I will bless you (19). God wants to bless his people. He asks the people (19) is there any seed left in the barn? His point here is not that there is a shortage. In mid Dec in Israel the seed was already sown and ploughed into the ground. But the winter months were ahead. Only in the spring would this seed germinate. The harvest later still. So just as the first stone was a sign of hope, the beginning of the later temple; so the empty barn was a sign of hope. The seed was in its place awaiting the change of seasons and in time would become a wonderful harvest. And so the two things are drawn together: the rebuilding of the Temple and the coming harvest. God wants his people to build the new temple. Why? Because he wants to bless them. Haggai s earlier messages also included words of assurance about God s heart towards his people. I am with you said the Lord on the first day of Haggai s ministry. He said it twice on that day. I will grant peace was the assurance in his second message. So God s intention to bless his people at the end of the third message is consistent. The Lord loves his people and wants to give them every good gift. He wants to bless them. Application What does this word mean for us? Well we know something Haggai may not have known. God wanted to bless Israel because he wants to bless the whole world. Through this second temple God had a plan to bless the whole of creation. You remember at the moment of Jesus death what happened in the Temple. The curtain that separated the Most Holy place from the rest of the temple was torn from top to bottom. Now we are used to the idea that this opened the way for humanity to come to God; that the death of Jesus and the forgiveness of sins makes it possible for sinful humanity to enter the presence of a holy God. Praise God for His grace! But the tearing of the curtain achieved something else which we do not think about so often. It allowed the holiness of God to enter the world! And this has always been God s purpose in creation. To make his wisdom known; to make himself known; to fill the whole earth with his glory; to turn the whole of creation into a temple where his holiness is present in every place and where all things are made holy by his presence.

7 7 Haggai had a fellow prophet. Anyone remember his name? In Zechariah s last oracle (Zech 14:20-21) he envisages a day when even the tiny bells attached to the saddles of the horses will have inscribed on them Holy to the Lord. He foresees a day when even the pots and pans in the kitchens of Jerusalem and Judah will be holy to the Lord. He sees a time when people will take the consecrated pots and pans from the temple to their homes and cook with them there. A day when the holiness of God reaches out and enters and transforms the world. And we Christians are called to be the people through whom the holiness of God reaches out and changes the world. Again and again the NT calls us the saints, the holy ones. We are filled with the Spirit of Holiness and by the power of the Spirit we proclaim Jesus as Lord. This is our fellowship, our essence, our reason for being. In our choices and decisions about our lives and possessions we seek to bring everything under Christ s rule. And so His holy Kingdom comes in our own households and lives and in the world. This then is the mighty grace of God. God s loving purpose is to share the most precious thing which has ever existed; to share himself. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus wants to be known. He is making Himself known through his holy people. And in this way he wants to bless not only Israel. Not only the Church. Not only the people of the world. But the whole of creation. Conclusion So God wants us to be both blessed and holy. Not only us but the whole of creation. Let me encourage you as Haggai did to give careful thought to this. To take this to heart. For his part Haggai did what God called him to do at a critical moment in Israel s history. On that day, Dec BC Israel overcame her hesitation to build. In four years the second temple was complete. God s people did what God called them to do in their day. What is God calling us to do? He is building his new Temple across the face of the world. You and I are living stones. And God is building us into his new worldwide Temple. And in this temple who is the foundation stone? Jesus. And who is the capstone? Jesus.

8 8 And who is the keystone? Jesus. And who is the cornerstone? Jesus. God is building his Temple. And he is calling us to play our part in building this new Temple. To consecrate ourselves to God and to his great purpose. To be his holy people. And so to be blessed.