Starting chapter 1 verse 1 of Haggai, I'm never sure exactly how to pronounce that. It's probably something like Haggai, but I'm just going to say Haggai because I don't know. There's in the second year of Darius the king, that's the same Darius that we read about in Daniel and the Landstand. He was in Persia at the time, this is happening in the Land of Israel, but the same king was ruling over the whole area.
There's in the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai, the prophet, who's herbible the son of Shethiel, the governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehoshua the High Priest, thus says the Lord of hosts. These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord, then the Lord of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet. Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies and ruins? Now therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways.
You have sown much and harvested little. You eat, but have never had enough. You drink, and you never have your fill. You love yourselves, but know when it's warm.
And he who earns wages does so to put them in a bag with holes. Thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. Go up to the hills and bring wood, and build the houses that build the house that I may take pleasure in it, and that I may be glorified. Says the Lord, you looked for much, and behold, it came to little.
When you brought it home, I blew it away. Why, declares the Lord of hosts because of my house that lies and ruins, while each of you visits himself with his own house. Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. and I have code for a drought on the land and the hills on the grain, the new wine, the oil, and all the ground that the ground brings forth a man and beast and on all their labors.
So what God is saying here is saying look at your lives, you're struggling to survive. Everything you work harder you'll get ahead, but everything you do comes to nothing. When you drink your self-thirsty, when you eat you're still hungry, when you earn some money, you don't know where it goes, but it's gone. And sometimes we feel that way, it seems like we're always just in this mode of struggle and trying to make it meet into have enough.
And I'm going to try, I know this was speaking to me about some things, but I don't want to try to give too much interpretation of what God might be wanting to speak to you through it. Just listen to these passages and see what God has to say to you. In this situation, about it saying, it's because of my house. You planned on coming back to build my temple, but you've gotten distracted and taken care of your own houses.
It says about you living in your own panel houses, I don't know if that was a good thing or bad thing. I don't know if that meant that they were doing luxury things when they should have just built their necessities and then build his house. I don't know, but at this time you're saying, look at your situation. Your land is cursed and it's because my house is in ruins.
So go get started and build my house. And so in verse 12, then, then's a rubable son of Sheltiel and Joshua the son of Jehosidek, the high priest with all the remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the Lord their God. In the words of Heggai the prophet as the Lord their God had sent him. And the people feared the Lord.
Then Heggai the messenger of the Lord spoke to the people with the in Lord's message. I am with you, declares the Lord. And the Lord stirred up the spirit as a rubable son of Sheltiel, governor of Judah. And he stirred up the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehosidek, 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. And on the 24th day of the month, in the sixth month, in the year of the second year of Darius the king, I want to pay attention to these dates. This one's saying the 24th day of the sixth month is when they started working on building the temple. In the chapter 2, it says, in the seventh month, on the 21st day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Heggai the prophet.
Speak not as a rubable son of Sheltiel, the governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehosidek, the high priest, and to all the remnant of the people, and say, who was left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not? Has nothing in your eyes yet now be strong, those rubable, declares the Lord?
Be strong of Joshua, son of Jehosidek, the high priest, be strong. All you people in the land declare the Lord work for I am with you, declare the Lord of hosts. According to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt, my spirit remains in your midst. Fear not, for thus does the Lord of hosts, yet once more, in the little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land, and I will shake all the nations so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts.
The silver is mine, and the gold is mine declares the Lord of hosts. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former says the Lord of hosts. In this place I will give feast to the clear to the Lord of hosts. And then in verse 10, this is the 24th day of the ninth month.
This is the act of three months after they started building the temple. This isn't in the 24th day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet, thus says the Lord of hosts. As the priest is about the law, if someone carries holy meat in the fold of his garment and touches with his fold, red or stew, or wine or oil, or any kind of food, does it become holy? The priest answered and said no.
And Haggai said, if someone who was unclean by contact with the dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean? The priest answered and said, it does become unclean. Stopped and explained that a little bit. That was a little bit confusing to me when I first read it.
Basically it's saying, were these foods, how, as I was in the Testament, talked about, clean, unclean, and saying if something is holy and touches them, it doesn't do anything. They're the same, but something that is defiled, which is, if you touch something instead, then you become unclean first or not, and you have to watch different things to be out of clean again, but something that is unclean touches these foods, then that makes them unclean as well. Kind of like what we say, if you have germs on your hands and you touch food, then the food becomes germany, but if you touch the food with something that doesn't have germs, it doesn't fix the food. So, verse 14, then heggi answered and said, so it is with this people, with this nation before me declares the Lord, and so with every work with their hands, what they offer there is unclean.
Now then, consider from this day onward, the thing, let me read a little more, consider from this day onward, four stone was placed upon stone in the temple of the Lord, how did you fare? When one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were about ten, when one came to the wine bat to draw fifty measures, there were about twenty. I struck you with all the products of your toil and a blade, with a blade and with a mildew and with hail, yet you did not return to me to declare to the Lord. The thing, this people is unclean because you haven't returned to the Lord, so everything that you do is also unclean.
Everything that you touch, every sacrifice that you make is unclean because you're unclean. And so, everything that you touch has been cursed because of you. And verse 18 says, consider from this day onward, from the twenty-fourth the ninth month, since the day that the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid, consider, is the seed yet in the barn, indeed the vine and the fig tree and the pomegranate and the olive tree have yielded nothing. But from this day on, I will bless you.
We're saying this at this point, three months after they started building the temple, there was still no sign of God's blessing. Everything was just as barren or more barren than it was before. What do you say? Because you were faithful during this time of working on building the temple that from now on, I will bless you.
A lot of times we end up getting our heads at, if we decide we're going to be obedient to God, we're going to start following God's it. Everything should start going better and get like frustrated in the spirit when it doesn't. And I can't imagine what it's been like. These people were struggling already.
They spent three months building this temple and not working in their fields, not trying to make money like they have been. And God still wasn't blessing them. But three months later, they were from God and God said, from now on, I'm going to bless you. Because you've been faithful and obedient to what I commanded you.
I'm going to stop there and we don't hear what happened then or what that blessing looked like. But we can come up with it. That's what happened. And I'm really struck by this.
So I'm thinking about our house and God's house. Are we, we consumed with our house? Are we hearing that we're going to give the God's house? That we're going to be building God's house?
Not focused on our own. Whatever that application is. And it's not talking about physical house only. It's not talking about just our church.
It's not talking about any of the other things that we give our lives to. But it's saying, look at your whole lives. Look at what you're giving yourself to. Give your lives to me.
Seek for building what is, it's for back in chapter 2 verse 6. For this says, the Lord of hosts, yet once more in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. This is quoted in Hebrews 12. And he says, when it's saying, once more shake the heavens and the earth says, this signifies it.
It's going to be taking away everything that can be shaken. And everything that is not, not God, is going to be shaken. It's going to be destroyed. And only what can't be shaken will be what is left.
He's saying, build your life on what can't be shaken. Give your life to what can't be shaken. Jesus says about, if you're like, for, if you're giving your life to make money into, well, there's a mosque that can destroy what you made. There's a rust that will rust away what you made.
But if your life, if your work to what can't be destroyed, if your life to heavenly things, I'm going to turn next to Matthew chapter 6. I'll read it because I was just saying it. Chapter 6 verse 19 says, do not lay it for yourself's treasure on earth. We're moth and rust, destroy where thieves break in and steal, but lay it for yourself's treasure in heaven.
We're neither the moth nor rust destroys where thieves do not break in and steal. Where your treasure is, there your hurt is also the eyes will aim for the body. So if your eyes healthy, your whole body will be full of light, if your eyes bad, then the whole body is full of darkness. If then the light in your, in you is darkness, how great is that darkness?
No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate one and love the other, or he will love be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life. What you will eat, what you will drink, or what you will put on.
Not life more important than food, than the body more than clothing. Look at the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap nor gather than to burn. Did their heavenly Father feeds them? Are you not?
The more value than they? Which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his life, span of life? Why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field and how they grow, and either toil or spin.
They will tell you, even solemn in all, his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. But if the gods have closed the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more close you? Of you of little faith? Therefore, do not be anxious, saying what shall we eat?
What shall we drink, or what shall we wear? As a Gentile, seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious about itself.
It's efficient for the day as it's in trouble. We've spent quite a lot of time talking about this in the Bible study a few months ago. And really stood out to me. There's two promises in this passage, even just in this last verse, verse 34.
Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious about itself. It's efficient for the day as it's in trouble. First promise is that there's going to be trouble one night. And that's a promise from God.
You will see it over and over. Second promise is that God will take care of you. And the second promise doesn't make any sense without the first one. When we say here, when you're facing difficulties, what do you do about it?
When you're struggling with not having enough food, or enough money to pay your rent, or all the things that so often come up, what do you do? Do you try to work harder? Try to figure out how to fix it, or do we go to God and interest him? And he's saying, seek first, the kingdom of God, and all these things will be given to you as well.
This is exactly what God is saying in the Book of God. He was saying, build first my house, and all these things that you're spending your time on are going to be taken care of. When you are cursed, you are not going to get anywhere, no matter how hard you work. When you give yourself fully to my house, in the building my kingdom, you will be blessed, and you'll be taken care of.
When we're in the tight spot, it's difficult to think of giving. It's difficult to think of sharing. When we're so busy and we don't have time to even do the laundry or the grass, it's difficult to think of how can we give our time to God. We can barely even take care of ourselves.
God is saying, seek first my kingdom, in my righteousness, and I will give you all these other things. I will take care of you. When we were reading that verse about tomorrow, because tomorrow will be anxious about itself, we're like, oh, that's really encouraging. That's really helpful.
Today has enough trouble to do. That's really encouraging. But it actually is, because if you don't know that, when you have trouble, you think that God loved you. When you think that, oh, something's wrong here, it's encouraging because that's true.
If it's reality, when we understand, when our understanding of how things work, imagine reality, that gives us a piece that we can know. Oh, we're having trouble. That's what God said. So we can also be confident in God's promise to take care of us.
You talk about a lot of the same things in here, the food, your drinks, your clothes, same thing that they were struggling with in Hega. We're eating, but never having enough. We were drinking, but never always thirsty. As I was looking at this, I just began to see how this principle is seen so strongly throughout the whole Bible.
I was reading in, I think it's the first thing 17 Elijah had been sent to the king I have and tell him that there's going to be drought. After a little while, Elijah didn't have any food or water because there was a drought and he went to town. He saw, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, gathering some sticks and he asked for a drink of water and she went to get him to water from the well. He said, oh, could you get me a pick of bread too?
And she was like, well, that's a little more difficult. I was just gathering these sticks because we have just enough flour and oil to make one more loaf of bread. And me and my son were going to eat it and then we were going to die. Elijah says, don't be afraid.
Go do, he said, but first bring me a loaf of bread. He kind of says that your oil is not going to run out. Your flour is not going to run out until it's throughout over. So this woman baked up her last food into a loaf of bread and brought it and gave it to Elijah.
And her flour didn't run out and her oil didn't run out and she kept using that flour and oil until till the drought was over. And I always wondered, did she shake her oil, dry a little bit before bringing him his bread or make sure that it was there and I don't have to, it was there until she brought him the bread. But, Elijah was up here. Give me everything.
If you don't have enough, give, if you don't have what you need, give yourself to me. What God is saying, God takes care of us. And he does it when we're trusting in him and giving ourselves to him. He doesn't do it when we're trying to take care of ourselves.
He probably has heard the quote from the Bible about God helps those who help themselves, which actually isn't there. But that's exactly the opposite of what the Bible teaches him. God helps those who trust him to give themselves fully to him. One more passage I want to read that as you think about this, you'll see in so many of the stories of the Bible how, oh, the same thing was happening.
People were in need. So God told them to give them. He was the second of the story of Gideon. And he had an army of 32,000 men and the enemy was said it was so many that you could count them.
I don't know how many that is, but they basically had zero chance of winning that battle. So God said, I want you to send more than 99% of them home. Because you have too many for me to save you. You have too much that if I save you with 32,000 men, you are going to take credit for it.
You're going to say it was because we were so mighty that I saved you. But if I save you with 300 men, you will know with me. You won't be able to take credit for yourselves. You'll know that if you God just God saved you.
I want to read one more passage. It's in John 12, the start and verse. We'll skip the beginning because I have no idea how it applies. I'm starting 23.
Because in Jesus the answer to them, the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it.
Whoever hates his life loses it. Whoever loves his life loses it. And whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me.
Where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. And this passage is talking about Jesus and us. When I was thinking about it, I was thinking about it related to Jesus.
This isn't just a principle that God has for us. It's a principle that God lives by himself. That when he wanted us to be his children, that he gave his only son to die for us. He gave his only son to die.
He said, unless it's a permanent wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alive, but all by itself. But if it dies, then it will produce much fruit. And I always feel like I could understand that very well related to Jesus. And he's saying it in the context of the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
So I always connected with that with Jesus saying, if I die, then I'm going to draw a man to myself. I'm going to save millions of people by my death. But when you read this, he's flying at us as well. As if it dies, it bears much fruit.
Whoever loves his life loses it. Whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me. And where I am, there will my servant be also.
If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. So Jesus is applying it to us. He's saying, whoever loves his life in this world will lose it. Whoever hates his life will have eternal life.
What does that mean? It means the same things we've been talking about in Book of Hagai. He said, if you want life, give yourself to building my temple, give yourself to my work, not your own. If you want to take care of your food and your drink and your clothing, what do you do?
You seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you. He says, all these things, God knows that you need them. And he loves you. He will take care of you.
But seek first my kingdom. Take first kingdom of God. Give your money to God's kingdom, not to build you up, make you look good. Or not saying, just give it to the church.
That's not necessarily what this means. Give it to God's work. Give it to building up God's kingdom. Give it to saving, saving the lost.
Give it to things that go into bringing honor and glory to God. Our time is another huge thing. It's very tied with money because we spend some time working to make money. But our time is also something that God wants from us.
Give me your time, both in seeking me, in spending time reading the word, spending time with prayer. But also give your time in the ministry and sharing with those who are in need. Give your time in relating to people that are hurting. Give it to God's people.
Give your time to connecting with people that aren't saved. Give it to God, love them. God, God does one, one all of us. I shared this Sunday's closed morning.
We just got back from England and we went on their plane for seven hours and our seats were extremely cramped. I barely moved. My shins were right up against the back of the seat in front of me. So if I did my seat back at all and pushed my shins and harder into the seat in front of me, as we were getting in, we saw all the first five seats up in the front.
They were all big padded seats turned at an angle so they could fully recline. They get special food. They get extra service. When we were looking at our flights, I didn't know what the difference between first class and regular seats were.
But for instance, on the first class we were ridiculous. We were seeing flights that were $20,000 for a ticket for first class compared to the $1,000 for our economy seats. The reason I'm saying this is a really struck in reading reading these passages, especially Jesus's teachings. So what it means to follow Jesus and how much he's wanting our whole lives and thinking about getting these first class tickets, $20,000 is way more than we can afford tickets.
The seats look really nice and it definitely looks like it would be much more comfortable ride than I could see why people that have lots of money would choose to get the first class seats. But that would be a really big sacrifice for reclining shirt for seven hours and I figured I could probably put up with being cramped for seven hours to save $19,000. But that applies to our lives. We often looking at our lives and what it takes to follow God, we generally want to pick the economy seats.
We wanted to take the seats that don't require a lot of sacrifice. We might think it's for missing out a little bit on nice padded seat to heaven. But it's a lot less sacrifice to just believe in Jesus saving me and not give our lives fully to God. But reading what Jesus talks about, he never talks about the way it doesn't require a sacrifice.
The only life he talks about living for him is completely living for him. Like he says here, he lives hating your life in this world compared to loving this life that Jesus really is asking us our whole lives. And we can expect that he has tremendous blessings connected with that. But that's what he wants from us is all of us.
And when we're seeing these struggles in our lives to say, God, I want to trust you. I want to give my life to you. I don't want to pull back from serving you because I need to give everything I have just to survive. Some of us aren't.
But I probably missed it. It's been at that point in our lives where there was a struggle just to know where we're going to get money for the next thing, our mortgage, we're getting food for the next week. And God probably had the different applications for this for each one of us. But I just spent the last couple minutes just going to God.
And I want to give you my life. But I don't know how. I want to live for you. But it's so hard even just just goodbye.
Looks good to God. Another guy. We know that you are a great and glorious guy. You love us.
You have such blessings in store for those who follow you. You give their lives for you God. And I just ask that each of us or that you would guide us or you would reveal our own lives, things that we are living for. That's not you.
Things that you desire for us to lay down for your glory for your kingdom. What we spend our time on God will be honoring to you. So what we put into our minds is our eyes. The honoring that you got.
The ways that we spend our money God will be honoring to you. We'll be looking for how to seek first your kingdom, your righteousness, and knowing that we don't have to worry about all these other things that our lives got which seem so pressing and seem so hard. But we can trust you God. When we give everything that you will take care of us.
Having thank you for your amazing great. You do speak, that you do direct us God. You do reveal yourself and your great love. And I just ask that you would guide us in our relationship with you.
We would know you. We would know your voice. We would know your love. And we just want to flip our trust in you.
Put our faith completely in you God. Walk in obedience to your word that you have given to us. And that you open our eyes to understand. God I ask that you would guide each one of us to a specific area of their lives.
That you want to change. That you want to take care of. That are keeping us from experiencing the wonderful blessings of your kingdom. The wonderful blessings of your grace.
God I ask that you would open our eyes. That you would set us free from everything that's binding us. Everything that's keeping us from fully knowing you. From fully loving you.
God I just bless your name. Thank you for your wonderful grace to do us. That you forgive us for sins. You heal us for.
You make us clean in our hearts. You cleanse our consciousness. You bring us joy in your presence Lord. God I'm so grateful and thankful for how you reach that to us.
God in our sin and our deadness that you loved us when you gave your son a time for us. You sacrifice everything for us God. You gave your one and only son in our place. God we love you.
We thank you. You've given us the name of Jesus. We totally approach you. Come into your presence.
God we love you and we thank you for all that you've done for us. All that you've given us. Amen.