Ezra 5:1-2; Haggai 2:10-19
Haggai chapter two, verses 10
through 19. Before we read the passage, let
me mention a couple of things. This passage tonight is gonna
tell us that a defiled people, an unholy people must be changed
in order to be accepted by God. And the context, the historical
moment that we are in is, Well, the, the story of Ezra
Nehemiah, which is a period of about a hundred years of the
returnees from exile. Remember in the year 539 BC,
Cyrus, the king of Babylon said, you can, you can go back. You
can rebuild. You can build the temple. You
can build the city. You can build the wall. You can start worship.
And here’s all the stuff we took from you. And here’s more money
to go back. And only a teeny weeny fraction
of the people went back. And so in the spring of 538,
remember we’re counting down towards Jesus at 539 was the
decree, 538 the spring is when they traveled back all those
miles. And then in the fall of I think
537, so we’re about two years in from that decree, they built
an altar, they sacrificed to the Lord and the sacrifices began
again. And then in 536, which would
have been the following spring, they built the foundation of
the temple and remember, all the priests, all the Levites,
all the people dressed up. It’s probably a lot like yesterday’s
royal fanfare. Thousands of people worshiping
God, dedicating the foundation of the temple. And then the opposition
hit. And remember we said there’s
about a hundred years of opposition. So a hundred years of opposition,
we’re about 20 years in now. They failed to finish the temple. They laid the foundation, but
20 years later, Haggai, who we’re looking at, and Zechariah come
on the scene to minister to God’s people and say, quit living rich
lives for yourselves. Build the house of God. Quit
putting panel in your houses, hanging your flat screens and
all the rest. Get the temple built. And so it’s taken Haggai
and Zechariah bringing the word of the Lord to the people of
God to get them to build. And so when we’ve looked at Haggai
so far, it’s been about a three month stretch of his ministry.
He comes in August and in the first chapter he says, you’re
neglecting my house. Y’all got paneled dens, my house
lies in ruins. What’s your problem, people?
That’s sort of what he says. And then about a month later
in September, he says, okay, you’re building again, great
job. Let’s encourage you. And then last week we looked
at a portion of chapter two that told them to have the long look.
This temple’s little, yes. This temple’s small, but in it
will In it, great things will come. And we looked at the long
look of not only Jesus being presented in the temple, but
him promising to build a true spiritual temple of people, not
built with human hands, but built with chosen and precious stones
laid up in Zion for God’s holy temple that will last forever,
even into the new heavens and the new earth in eternity. Well,
somewhere along the way, between last Sunday night and tonight,
that really didn’t happen, but at least chronologically in the
Bible, Zechariah comes and ministers and Zechariah gives them, I don’t
know, 13 chapters or so of, uh, you ain’t seen nothing yet, so
to speak. Uh, it’s going to be good. Uh,
so tonight we begin a little three stretch set of verses,
uh, in Haggai where he’s going to say, you Israelites need to
be pure. Next week, he’s going to say
a new day is coming. And then in a couple of weeks,
we’ll look at Zerubbabel. You have to say that seven times
really quick. Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel will come
and be a significant character. So as we read tonight, let’s
take note of how God decisively and dramatically works to save
his people. Ezra, I’m sorry, Haggai chapter
two, beginning at verse 10. On 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,
ask the priest about the law. If someone carries holy meat
in the fold of his garment and touches with his fold bread or
stew or wine or oil or any kind of food, does it become holy?
The priest answered and said, no. Then Haggai said, if someone
who is unclean, By contact with a dead body touches any of these,
does it become unclean? The priest answered and said,
it does become unclean. Then Haggai answered and said,
so it is with this people and with this nation before me declares
the Lord and so with every work of their hands and what they
offer there is unclean. Now then consider from this day
onward before stone was placed upon stone in the temple of the
Lord, How did you fare? When one came to a heap of 20
measures, there were but 10. When one came to the wine vat
to draw 50 measures, there were but 20. I struck you and all
the products of your toil with blight and with mildew and with
hail. Yet you did not turn to me, declares
the Lord. Consider from this day onward,
from the 24th day of 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, the fig tree,
the pomegranate and the olive tree have yielded nothing. But
from this day on, I will bless you. This is the word of the
living God for us, his children. What does the world see when
it looks in on the church? What does the world see when
it looks in on the church? Does the world even pay the church
any attention? Are we making the invisible realities
of heaven visible on earth? Do our lives, our faithfulness,
does our worship reflect the realities of Jesus kingdom? What does the world see when
it looks in on us? Probably not much. Sometimes
we probably should be ashamed though. We should probably be
a little nicer to ourselves possibly, but here’s a, tougher question,
not just what does the world see, but what does God see? What does God see when he looks
in on the church or looks in on our Christian walk or looks
in on our faithfulness or our activity? Well, that’s in a sense
what Haggai is telling the Israelites. I’ll tell you what God sees and
he doesn’t like it. I’ll tell you what God sees and
he says, change your ways. He asked a couple roundabout
questions about meat and garments and defilement and holiness.
Um, and then he gives a very clear answer. Um, they’ve just
had a week harvest. They’ve just earned money only
to put it in bags with holes in it. They’ve just put on their
new suits of clothes, but they’ve been moth eaten. They’ve just
put in the winter seed. And it is not yet, to quote Haggai,
in the barn. There’s a lot of uncertainty.
They’re also staring at a mound of rubble. They’re staring at
a foundation that was laid some months ago, some years ago, in
fact. And it’s a rather demoralizing
moment. They’ve been building and they’ve
been planting. And then they’ve not been building, but still
planting. And will God prosper them? Will
he give them what they need to make it in life? What will come?
And the answer is, well, trust God. The answer is trust God,
because your hands aren’t producing anything. Maybe some of you have
lived in a neighborhood where someone started a house. In fact,
if you drive down to Edgewood, go down to Edgewood, a couple
blocks down and look to the left. There’s a house that was started
a couple years ago, maybe during COVID. Big foundation, looks
like a nice basement that’s tall enough even to play basketball
in by the looks of it. It just sits there. And a foundation
uncovered is gonna eventually tumble in and it probably would
have to be torn down to begin to build again. No builder in
their right mind would put something on a foundation that’s just sat.
and gone to waste, but maybe put it into perspective in your
spiritual life. Maybe you have started some things. Maybe you’ve had good intentions.
Maybe you’ve set some resolutions and maybe you’ve been set some
for this year and here it is May and everything is on the
back burner. Everything is undone. Everything
is, well, it’s a good thought. It’s a twinkle in your eye. It’s
a list of intentions, but unrealized even. Maybe you haven’t tried
or begun to do the work. And I think what Haggai is gonna
say to Israel, he’s gonna say to us, is God sees, he knows
your condition, and yet he has mercy and says, okay, from today
forward, fresh start. from whatever the date is, the
24th day of the ninth month or whatever that date is, or tonight,
May 7th, 2023, God says, start fresh. Stop being lazy. Stop being half-hearted. Stop
being unholy. Well, two questions pop up in
our passage. They’re strange ones. The first
one, if someone carries holy meat in the fold of his garment,
and touches with his fold bread or stew or wine or oil or any
other kind of food, does it become holy? I don’t know if you’re
like me, you know, food safety, raw meat in the fold of your
garment. I mean, that’s going to have to go in the wash. That’s
going to be a downy or an awl or a, I don’t know, whatever
detergent you use and probably wash it twice, put on the extra
rinse. Don’t put anything else in there. Raw meat. It creates
too much emotional noise for me. Salmonella and all the rest. No, but what’s God saying here?
If someone who is unclean, or no, we got, I’m jumping ahead.
If someone carries holy meat in the fold of his garment, because
it is holy meat, does whatever it touches become holy? You kind of get the idea. He’s
jabbing at their superstition. Well, we’re Jewish. He’s jabbing
at their, Self-righteousness. We’re the people of God. He’s
jabbing at their, maybe their perceived obedience. Well, we
came all the way back from Babylon. Other people stayed in that foreign
pagan nation, right? He’s jabbing at our perceived
righteousness. Well, I come to church. I come
morning and evening, I sit in my same seat, I keep my tie straight,
my dress is unruffled, and I fold my hands, I say the prayers,
I put something on the offering plate, I don’t miss the hymns,
and I’m at Sunday school and I’ve got perfect attendance,
and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, what does God say? I don’t care
about those things, right? Touching a pew doesn’t make you
holy. The holy meat touching your garment doesn’t make it
holy. The priests are pretty clear, if someone carries holy
meat, in the fold of his garment, and it touches with his fold
bread or stew or wine or oil or any other kind of food, does
it become holy? Would the priest say no? Now you gotta be confused,
because this morning, touching the apron or the handkerchief
of Paul healed you, right? Touching the hem of Jesus’ garment
healed you. The shadow of Peter healed you. This is a really
big issue here, isn’t it? Holiness. is not communicated
by your conduct. How many people sit up straight?
How many people do all the outward things, all the proper things,
all the church etiquette things, thinking, surely God sees. Surely God takes notice. Surely
God says in his heart, boy, am I lucky to have them. in my little
congregation down there? And the answer is no, he’s not.
Holiness is not communicated by contact. That’s the first
question. Second question is if someone
who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches Any of these,
I guess he’s referring to the wine or the oil or the stew or
any other kind of food. So if anybody who’s unclean because
they had contact with the dead body touches these things, does
it become unclean? And the priests say, yes, it
does. Unholiness does defile. Isn’t this an interesting picture?
Holy things touching you does not make you holy. but you unholy
touching other things does defile it. And he gives a conclusion. So it is with the people. So
it is with this nation before me, declares the Lord, declares
Yahweh. And so with every work of their
hands, whatever they offer is unclean. What’s going on here?
Why the strange questions? Why the priest consulting the
Levitical law, the ceremonial law, Why these strange questions? Well, Haggai has been around
a couple months. Haggai has been on the job site.
He’s been watching the cedars come from Lebanon. He’s been
watching the carpenters and the stonemasons. He’s been watching
the priest and the Levites and the supervisors. He’s been watching
the people of Israel begin to build the temple again after
20 years. And he notices some things. He notices they’re half-hearted. He notices they’re not in it
to win it. He notices that they’d rather
be at home polishing their panel dens. He notices that their all
is not behind the labor that they’re putting. Now I could
play a good joke on you and say, you know, the reason we have
workdays is we wanna see your zeal behind how well you scrub
a window, right? See if you’re really working
for the Lord. No, our workdays are just to get some chores done
and save a few bucks, right? This is a real workday. What’s
their work? They’re building the house of
God for the presence of God, for the glory of God, for the
manifestation of his witness in little tiny Jerusalem. for
the whole of the earth. So go back to the questions I
was asking at the beginning. If the world looked in on our
church, if the world looked in on Jerusalem, would they see
wholehearted zeal? Would they see giving our best
for the glory of God? What would they see in our Christian
walk, our Christian life, our Christian witness? I remember
as a kid coming to church one Wednesday
night and somebody had donated a file cabinet to the church.
You know, if you don’t know what to do with something, you don’t
need it anymore. You have a yard sale if it’ll
bring you a few bucks. You take it to Goodwill if you
have a pickup truck. Or if all else fails, you give
it to the church, right? The church needs everything.
That’s why churches have 19 pianos. But I remember somebody donated
a file cabinet to the church and had a big old dent in it.
And I guess we didn’t know who gave it or what it was. So my
dad carted it out on the sidewalk out by the church and put a big
note on it that says the Lord’s house deserves better and just
left it there. And that’s what Haggai is saying.
Don’t bring me your dented file cabinets. Don’t give me your
old out of tune piano that won’t. even pick up a tune, don’t bring
me your half-hearted labors. And especially this, people of
God, don’t think that whatever you do will merit holiness in
the sight of almighty God. Church work does not save you. Outward appearances only mask
what’s really in our hearts. Remember what Jesus said to the
Pharisees? You are whitewashed tombs. You are clean on the outside. You look great on the outside,
but inside you are dead. I think of Psalm 15, and I think
of also Psalm 24. Both of these Psalms ask a very
big question. Psalm 15, O Lord, who shall sojourn
in your tent? who shall dwell on your holy
hill, he who walks blamelessly, he who does what is right, he
who speaks truth in his heart, he who does not slander with
his tongue, he who does no evil to his neighbor, he who does
not take up a reproach against his friend, he in whose eyes
a vile person is despised, he who honors those who fear the
Lord, he who swears to his own hurt and does not change, he
who does not put out his money at interest and does not take
a bribe against the innocent, he who does these things shall
never be moved. Well, what we admire in people
very often are things that God abhors. But what we should admire
are the things of Psalm 15, which actually we find completely in
the person of Jesus Christ. Only Jesus has clean hands. Only Christ has a pure heart.
Only the eternal son of God is acceptable and pleasing in the
sight of almighty God. He is obedient. He’s the law
keeper. He’s the father pleaser. and he is the perfect sacrifice
for our sins. And thanks be to God, he offers
us Jesus’ obedience. He offers us Jesus’ righteousness. God sees us in our justification,
which we come to by faith in him. He sees us as if we’ve never
sinned and as if we’ve always obeyed. And then he commands
us to grow in grace, read our Bibles, become more Christ-like,
shed our sin, tack on virtue and growth in grace. And part
of that growth in grace is to serve the church with a whole
heart. It’s not to serve for show, it’s
not to serve for a right standing, it’s not to serve in order that
our obituary may be complete. If there’s a newspaper for it
to be printed in when our time does come. That’s a dying thing
these days, isn’t it? But God wants right hearts. He wants right efforts in our
works. And so the statement is made
by Haggai, consider from this day forward. Let’s put a stake
in the ground, he says. Let’s start fresh. I love the
words of Jeremiah, the steadfast love of the Lord. His mercies
are new every morning. I don’t know if you think of
it. Every night you go to bed and you die. and you rise the
next day. We have six days to labor and
seven to keep holy to the Lord. And so every week, every day
is a cycle of life and death, life and death, life and death,
work and rest, work and rest. And God is a God of new starts,
a God of fresh starts. Every Sunday we come to church,
we confess and God grants us forgiveness. He keeps short accounts
and so should we consider from this day onward. Every morning
when you wake, say, Lord, it’s a new day. Give me strength.
Lord, it’s a new day. Keep me from evil. Lord, it’s
a new day. Lead me not into temptation. Lord, it’s a new day. Keep the
devil from me. Lord, it’s a new day. Help me
to hear the voice of Christ and not Satan. It’s a new day. Help me to live by the spirit,
not the flesh. It’s a new day. Help me to Walk
strong in the Lord. It’s a new day. Help me to serve
you with a whole heart. And maybe you need a haggai to
come jab you and say, wake up from your spiritual sleep. Wake
up, as Paul says, from your slumber. The day is fast approaching. And if God were to look in on
your life, look in on your spiritual growth, look in on your church,
what would he see? He says to the Israelites here,
before you began to build again, after this 20 year hiatus you
took on building my temple and working on your own houses, how
did you fare? You went to the pantry to get
20 measures and there was only 10. You went to your barrel of
wine. to get 50 measures and you only
could draw 20. I brought blight. I brought mildew. I brought hail upon all your
efforts. And yet you did not turn to me.”
What a stinging message this is. And maybe it’s a message
you, we, all, some of us, whoever, by God’s grace and spirit need
to hear. It’s a poke in the chest by God.
Through his servant Haggai, through his word, wake up. Quit your spiritual slumber.
Quit your spiritual lethargy. Quit living on the road to hell
as we say. What is it paved with? Good intentions. I’ll read my Bible tomorrow.
I’ll have my quiet time in an hour. I’ll say my prayers later. I just wanna see this TV show.
I just need to make my coffee. I just need to do this, go there,
here, there. And before we know it, the day
has passed. And before we know it, a week has passed. Before
we know it, a month has passed. And then you wake up and you
realize how many years you have wasted saying, Lord, I’m gonna. I’ll get around to it, Lord.
And Haggai is saying here, no, stop. Hit the reset button. Reboot your phone, reboot your
life. Cut some things out and get back to walking with the
Lord. Consider from this day onward. And I think he gives them a little
warning. He reminds them of how bad it’s been. You’ve put your
money into bags with holes. You’ve planted crops that have
come back meagerly. Now he says, look, you put your
seed in the ground. Is that seed yet in the barn?
In a sense, he’s saying springtime is around the corner. And do
you want it to be a good springtime? or a bad one. Now, I am not a
health and wealth person. I am not a, if you do X, God
will give you Y. I think if you work and you pray
and you’re responsible, God will inch you along in life. And there
are seasons of plenty, there are seasons of want. I don’t
think it’s magic. If I please God really hard, he’ll give me
blessings. We’re not health and wealthers, right? Some of us
do well, some of us are average, some of us struggle. But I do
think that if we are not walking with the Lord, I think if we
are not walking with the Lord, we won’t prosper and we won’t
prosper in all kinds of ways. And it’s really subtle. We think,
boy, we’re doing really great, but we’re not walking with the
Lord. We don’t prosper. And he’s given them a little
bit of a threat. Spring is around the corner. Nothing’s in the
barn. Your vines haven’t produced anything.
Your palm granite trees haven’t produced anything. Your olive
trees haven’t produced anything and neither have your fig trees. Then he gives a promise from
this day forward, I’ll bless you. From this day forward, I
will be a gracious God to you. And so what’s the message? Well,
the message is to repent. God is a God of fresh starts.
He is a God who gives us turning points where we can return to
him like the prodigal son coming to our senses and saying in my
father’s house, even the servants don’t eat the pig pods. And so
I’ll go to my father and I’ll say, I’ve sinned against you.
Please take me as your servant. I think this is a challenge to
do our church work with clean hands. That is holy hands. Think of Robert Murray McShane,
the Scottish minister who, um, By all accounts, and even in
his biography, he was a great and holy man. He died by the
age of 30, but he was a diligent man, served God really well. He was sort of a man untimely
born like Paul. And he has a little quote, and
he says this of ministers, and I’m speaking to the point here.
Don’t do church work with dirty hands. He talks about how the
minister needs to keep his sword clean and he needs to keep it
sharp. And if that’s not only true for
ministers, it’s true for Christians. It’s true for every church member.
What good are we fighting the battle of all battles with a
sword that is unkept? with a sword that is not sharp,
it’s rusted and it’s stuck in the sheath. It’s not battle ready. And it’s very true of ministers. It’s very true of elders. It’s
very true of church members. If we want to be effective in
the world, if we want to serve God and be a bright light, we
need to work at our church work with clean hands given to us
by Christ. Don’t labor in vain. Don’t just
work up. your salvation. What’s God saying
to them and to us? He’s saying, well, I’ve been
hard on you, but there’s going to be a harvest. I’ve been hard
on you and there’s going to be good times. There’s going to
be a temple built, the presence of God, the glory of God. Before
long, there’s going to be Christ, the true temple, and there’s
going to be an end gathering of his saints. But presently,
And this is before their eyes. And it’s hard for us to see because
we’re just staring at pages on the scripture. There’s a corpse
of a church building. It’s a bunch of rubble. It doesn’t
look hopeful. It doesn’t look bright. It doesn’t
look promising, but there’s also for them a corpse of the way
of life. They’re spiritually dying because
of their lack of holiness, their lack of faithfulness. And then
all around them, their fields are bare. The grass is patchy,
right? That’s a good image for us. We
work so hard to put our seed down in the fall. We hope it
rains. We sprinkle our yards. We put down the weed killer and
then we wake up at spring and our yard is patchy and it’s humiliating. Is that because all the neighbors
see it? There’s his green because they spent more money on it than
you did, but you’ve neglected your yard or tried to do it the
cheap way, the shortcut way. Israel here is dead and sin and
procrastination. And the challenge I think for
us is again to ask the question, are we displaying in our lives
and in our church the realities of heaven? What realities do
we or does our church show before the watching world? Do we show
our future hope of glory in Christ? Do we show the present realities
of heaven? Do we even think holiness in our life? is something relevant,
something to worry about. Well, God here says it matters.
If you’re unclean and you’re touching the life of the church,
you make it unclean, you defile it. But thank the Lord that Christ
and his blood sprinkle us clean and make us fit for faith and
for ministry. Let’s do pray together. Our great
God, we thank you that it’s not up to us. It’s not because of
our strength. It’s not because of our cleverness.
It’s not because of our cleanliness, our righteousness, our hard work,
our stick-to-itiveness. It’s not because of our elbow
grease or our appearance or because the world thinks we’re great.
It’s not because of any of these things that you find us useful. It’s simply because we are found
holy in Christ. So Lord, little simple folks
like us, a small little church like ours make us Holy and therefore
useful because we are a bright witness in a dark world, a crooked
and depraved generation. May they see us. May they ask
about who we are and why we are the way we are. And we can tell
them of Christ and his transforming grace. We ask all this in the
name of Jesus, our great savior. Amen.