Let me add my welcome to Wiley’s. It’s so good to look out and see all of you. I want to extend a special welcome if you’re visiting or maybe even for your first time. I also want to welcome back – I’m looking out and seeing so many Belhaven college students and other college students from across the Jackson area – I trust your Christmas break was restful, and we are thankful that you are back. We are in a mini-series this month looking at the Old Testament, the little Old Testament book of Haggai. Tonight we’re in Haggai chapter 2. You can find the text on page 791 in the church Bible in front of you. Haggai chapter 2.
And as you’re turning there, just something to consider. There’s a story of a war hero that I heard recently who, at 8:30pm in darkness, in pitch black darkness, the soldier, 21-year-old private Frank Bradish, was in a Bradley armored vehicle when, in the darkness, from 200 yards away, was fired at by another tank. And they had driven right into an ambush. Two crew members, two fellow soldiers, were killed instantly. Four others, including Bradish, were seriously injured. But Bradish opened a door, he dragged everyone, everyone out of the vehicle, he fired a flare, he got out the radio to call for help, he began to return fire to now multiple tanks, holding them off for twenty minutes. It must have felt like hours and hours, but he held them off for twenty minutes until their platoon arrived and rescued them.
I heard a minister tell that story of that war hero and it stuck with me because after he told the story he asked this question. He said, “Can you imagine the absurdity if Bradish had talked like this as he was doing the work of holding off the enemy in those twenty minutes?” He said, “Can you imagine the absurdity if he had talked like this – ‘I am just so tired of returning fire. I am just so tired. I really don’t feel like doing this anymore. This is so difficult. This is so hard. I feel so weak.’?” And the minister said, “Can you imagine if he had said that?” And then he said, “Don’t you think it should also be absurd when we as Christians say, ‘I am just so tired of the struggle. I am just so tired of the work of sanctification. I am just so tired of the work of evangelism and the work of the kingdom. I am so weak. I am so small. My faith is so frail. The temptation to give up is so great.’?”
And so Haggai comes to us tonight and it responds and says to do the work of God’s church, to do God’s work, in all of the sameness, in all of the smallness, to be enduringly faithful is a very good thing. And so here’s why I begin with that story of that war hero and those questions. That story helps to illustrate the context of this little book because Haggai is written to a discouraged group of people in very great danger of giving up. Stephen Biggs preached last week on chapter 1, and they were in very great danger of giving up because they had lost their way and they had lost their first love. So we can see in this chapter, chapter 2, that they are in very great danger of exhaustion in the work and real fatigue in the work.
And just remember where we are in the larger story, remember the great Babylonian power had invaded Israel, sacked Jerusalem, destroyed the city walls, the temple, and had taken the Israelites captive back to Babylon for 70 years. But also remember that the Babylonians were overtaken by the Persian Empire and the victorious Persian king had issued a decree to allow the Israelites back and to allow them home. And so they would return to Jerusalem to rebuild the city. And we read about the rebuilding of the walls in the Old Testament book of Nehemiah. But God commanded them not only to rebuild the walls but also to rebuild Solomon’s now ruined temple. And they began that rebuilding work fifteen years before Haggai begins, before our story begins. And it’s not going well. We read about that in Ezra chapter 4. And they are weakening in the work. And they think that the work will never end. And they are afraid and they are distracted. And the work is neglected because they lost heart and they lost their grip and they lost their stamina in the work, they lost their affection for it, and they lost their confidence that there was something worth fighting for – and it was God’s house.
And so then God sent two prophets to reorient their hearts to the place where God is. He sent Haggai and Zachariah. And so in this little book, Haggai gives four sermons delivered in 520 BC, between the months of August and December. All four sermons – look with me at the book – all four sermons are introduced with the phrase – you read this in chapter 1 verse 1 – “The word of the Lord came by Haggai” or “The word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai.” And so Stephen Biggs preached on that first sermon last week; we’ll look this evening at chapter 2 verse 1 because Rupert is the newbie on our pastoral staff, he’ll have two sermons next week! So you see in chapter 2 verse 10 and in chapter 10 verse 20, again that language, “The word of the Lord came by Haggai” or “The word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai.” And so this evening, Haggai chapter 2 verse 1, we’ll be looking at encouragement – I don’t know if you need to hear this – encouragement for discouraged kingdom builders.
And so let’s give our attention to God’s Word. Before we do, let’s pray and ask for His help. Let’s pray.
God, we give You thanks for Jesus Christ. We thank You that He is the friend of sinners, that He is saving and helping and keeping and loving His people. We thank You for our time together tonight. Thank You that we can close this day in worship with one another and under Your Word. We know that Your Word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path, and so we pray that You would guide us in this time, that You would come and give Your Word success, and we pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.
So Haggai chapter 2, beginning in verse 1. This is God’s Word:
“In the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet: ‘Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to all the remnant of the people, and say, ‘Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares 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 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. And I will shake all 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. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts.’”
Amen. This is God’s Word.
So verse 1, “The Word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai.” In our outline tonight, I want to consider two things in this text and then seek to apply as we close. First, in verses 1 to 5, I want to look together at the sources of discouragement for kingdom builders. The struggle that they have. Their sources of discouragement. And then second, in verses 6 to 9, the promise. The strength that the Lord provides in the promise with this promise.
So first, in verses 1 to 5, the struggles; the sources of discouragement of these kingdom workers. If you look back at Haggai’s first sermon, chapter 1 verse 1, the first sermon was to the leaders. And so Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the high priest. You notice in chapter 2 that the second sermon is to a wider audience. Chapter 2 verse 2 – it was to the leaders and to the people. And so “Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to all the remnant of the people.” You see, the work began – if you look back at the end of chapter 1, chapter 1 verse 14 – “and they came and worked on the house of the Lord of hosts their God.” And so just now, weeks later, Haggai gives this second sermon to these depleting, discouraged, weakening workers.
You can see here, verse 3, that the work was a struggle because it was despised. So God tells Haggai, “Say, ‘Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes?’” And you see the word “former glory” – you know that in 1 Kings chapter 5 we read of the building of that former temple, and there was a workforce of 180,000 men. And so you imagine watching a football game at these great stadiums – at Penn State or at Tennessee or at Texas A&M – that crowd working on this project. And it took seven years to complete; 180,000 men for seven years to finish the work. And the former temple was a glorious structure, an impressive structure. And so of course now, their work, this work seems, verse 3, “as nothing.” It’s nothing by comparison.
And commentators say that they had just a small fraction of the workers given to this project, and so we read this in Ezra chapter 3, that when this rebuilding work began, that many of the priests and the Levites and the heads of fathers houses, old men who had seen that first house, belittled and criticized their work. And so you can imagine the struggle, just now de-energizing it was to the work of their hands, how discouraging this was to their already weak hearts that some of their mentors, some of their own, some of their kingdom partners belittled and despised and critiqued their works in this way.
But the work was not only a struggle because it was despised; it was also a struggle, you see, because it was demanding. One commentator said that, “The same people who had responded rightly in Haggai chapter 1 by obeying and fearing the Lord and whose spirit the Lord had stirred up to work on the temple now, just weeks later, are dispirited by the great task ahead of them.” And so this mission was so big, this mission was so overwhelming, here they stand, they’re starting from scratch. Think about it – clearing the waste and clearing the debris and clearing the fragments, removing the rubble, discerning what you need to keep versus what you need to throw out, they’re starting from scratch. And after just weeks of this work, there would have been nothing to show for the work that they had done. There’s nothing to show for their work.
And you can understand, they were – maybe perhaps like you tonight – they were losing heart in the work. What is the point of evangelism? What is the point of fighting this sin? What is the point of giving myself to the means of grace over and over, Sunday after Sunday, when I’m not seeing any progress? God’s work in us and God’s work through us looks so small and weak and fragile and insignificant, and so we lose heart. We lose stamina in the work. And so for them and for us, the laborers are few, the resources are little. We haven’t seen progress in the work. Maybe you think, “We’re never going to get this done. We’re never going to finish this,” and it fills them and it fills us with profound discouragement and inadequacy and weakness.
And so in the face of great struggle, God says, He says these three things to these discouraged kingdom workers in these first few verses. Verse 4, He says, “Be strong,” “Work,” and then verse 5, He says, “Fear not.” And so, “Be strong,” “Work,” “Fear not.” He says, “Be strong.” And you notice this weakening, this discouragement marks all of God’s people because He says three times, “Be strong.” He says it to the governor, “Be strong,” He says it to the priest, Joshua, “Be strong,” and then He says it to all of God’s people, “Be strong.” So “Be strong,” “Work,” and then verse 5, “My spirit is with you, fear not.” One commentator said, “The great secret here is He’s not saying, ‘Be courageous.’ He’s not saying, ‘Don’t be afraid.’ He’s not saying, ‘Stick to your duties,’ as though He were saying, ‘You pull yourselves up by your shoelaces.’ He is saying, ‘Every time I give you an exhortation, I will provide all of the resources that you will ever need to fulfill the command I give you.’ He says, ‘I will be with you.’” “I will be with you.”
Kids, think about this. I don’t know if you remember towards the beginning of the old Lion King movie and there’s this scene where Simba and Nala go to the elephant graveyard, the place where they were never supposed to go, and then they are cornered by those three bad hyenas. And this writing is incredible; I looked this up. The hyenas’ names are Shenzi, Banzai – and I love this – Ed! So Shenzi, Banzai and Ed, the hyenas. But Simba’s and Nala’s backs are against the wall and so these hyenas corner them and they’re mocking them and walking towards them to finish them off. And then young Simba lets out that little pathetic roar. And they laugh at him and they say, “Do it again!” And they are utterly unafraid. And so little Simba opens his mouth to roar again and what do you hear? You hear the roar of his father, Mufasa, who arrives on the scene. And that loud and booming and that great roar comes out in defense of his child. And at the very last second, he shows up to defend his son, to fight for his son.
And that is what God is saying to weak people in Haggai chapter 2, and that is what God is saying tonight to weak people at 1390 North State Street. God is saying, “Be strong, keep working, fear not because you are not abandoned in the work.” He is saying, “Be strong, keep working, fear not because you are not alone in the work. Be strong, keep working, fear not, even when the work is great. Even when your heart is weak, be strong, keep working, fear not.” For He says, “I am with you.” And so we see the struggles of these kingdom workers. We see the sources of discouragement to them.
And then second, the strength that the Lord provides. You see this in verses 6 to 9. God says that there will be a shaking. He says, verse 6, “I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. I will shake all the nations.” And so verses 6 to 7, the Lord will do again what He did with Israel at Sinai when He made a covenant with them, He says. Exodus 19:18, “The whole mountain trembled greatly at God’s presence.” And so once more, in a little while, “I will shake the heavens and the earth.” Verse 7, “This shaking is so that the treasures of all nations will come in, and I will fill this house with glory.” And so what are we to do with this language, “the treasure of the nations”? And you note from the context, you see from verse 8, “The silver is mine, the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts.” That seems not to be a reference to Jesus Christ, the treasure of the nations, even though we can say that one day, some day Jesus will be the treasure of the nations. But rather, He’s saying here to discouraged workers, discouraged kingdom workers, “I am able to supply all of your needs. And so this silver and this gold, even from opposing nations, I am able to supply it, to prosper your work.”
One minister said of this, he said, “God is saying that the kingdoms of this world, the powers of this world, and the overwhelming movements of this world, we can tremble at them, but they can have” – and I love this – “they can have their petty day, they can have their petty day, but the kingdom that God is building, the kingdom that God is building will last forever.” Many point out that we can even see a partial fulfillment of this promise – we’ll read it in the coming weeks in our morning reading through the book of Ezra – in Ezra chapter 6 when the Persian king, Darius, made a decree to let the cost of the rebuilding of the house of God be paid from the royal treasury. So from the Medes Persian royal treasury, whatever is needed in the decree – bulls, rams, sheep, wheat, salt, oil – let that be given to them day by day without fail. And so there is a partial fulfillment that we can read in Ezra chapter 6.
But you see, the promise also looks forward to that day when every tribe and tongue and people and nation will be gathered into His kingdom work. And so I might be discouraged in my labor today, and you might be discouraged in your labor today. We might get discouraged in our evangelism efforts. We might get discouraged in our small and slow sanctification. But then we hear about what God is doing in Japan and we hear about what God is doing in Moldova and we hear about what God is doing in Scotland and what God is doing in Peru and what God is doing even in our midst in the Internationals class and in our Young Adult ministry and in our Youth ministry and what God is doing in our homes and what God is doing in you, Christian, and He’s not finished yet. Because Hebrews chapter 12 tells us that the final day will be the ultimate fulfillment of Haggai chapter 2 verse 6 when the Lord will once more shake all things so that what remains will be a kingdom that cannot be shaken, a kingdom that cannot be shaken. And on that day, the glory of God’s dwelling place among us will indeed, verse 9, exceed the former glory. And indeed, the kings of the earth will bring their treasure into it. And so from all the corners of the earth, standing and singing, “Worthy, worthy is the Lamb! Worthy is the Lamb who was slain!”
And so we see the struggles of these kingdom workers. We see the strength that the Lord provides. And let me offer just, in conclusion, let me offer three lessons for us from this text, from this little story. The first lesson is, Christian, you are called to work. You are called to work. You are called to faithful, plodding work. You are called to the work of the long obedience in the same direction. Christian, you are called to work. And many of us come into this month, many of us come into a new year with new resolutions. We have longings for change; we have desires for change. And so let me ask you a question from Haggai chapter 2. Let me ask you a new year’s question – Where do you need to give yourself a new and afresh to God’s work this year? Where do you need to give yourself anew and afresh to what God is doing this year?
There’s a line that I love in Nehemiah chapter 6. Nehemiah says this four times. Nehemiah chapter 6, he says, “I am doing a great work.” That’s a remarkable line. “I am doing a great work.” And how can he say that he is doing a great work? Because it’s God’s work. And so where do you need to believe afresh that this is the greatest work? The work of sanctification. The work of you keeping short accounts with God. The work of delighting in and meditating on His Word day and night. The work of evangelism. The work of missions. The work of hospitality. Do you believe that this is the greatest work under heaven? Do you believe that it is the greatest work? It’s greater than the work for power and the work for approval and the work for control and the work for ease. It’s the greatest work under heaven. And so where have you lost heart, lost stamina, lost confidence in the Lord’s work in you, Christian, and in the Lord’s work in His church? And so where might you, where can you take heart, take courage, bend all of your energies in service to the Lord with a great resilience and give yourself anew and afresh to God’s work this year? So Christian, you are called to work.
Second, Christian, you can have confidence as you work. You can have confidence because His promises are yours – that He will supply what you need as you build and labor. You can have confidence because the Lord is with you, believer in Jesus, and His Spirit is in you. You see, verse 5, in the old covenant God’s Spirit was with His people. And now in the new covenant, God’s Spirit is in His people. Christ in you, the hope of glory. His dwelling place. One commentator said, “What Haggai 2 tells us about building the house of the Lord applies not only to Jesus as the ultimate dwelling place and to the heavenly Jerusalem as the final dwelling place, but also to each believer who is God’s dwelling place under construction, a temple of the Holy Spirit within you.” And so you can have confidence as you work.
And it is easy, week after week, it is easy in mundane jobs, it is easy in carpool, it is easy changing diapers and going to the doctor, it is easy doing math homework and it’s easy family drama, it’s easy Sunday after Sunday with the same hymns, the same ministers, the same Sunday school, it’s easy to forget this – that you can have confidence as you work. You can have a confidence in all the smallness, in all the sameness. God is doing a great work, and so you realize that when you come together, when we come together in worship, and when you volunteer in VBS, and when you share the Gospel with a neighbor, that you are doing, you are involved in the greatest work under heaven and you can have confidence that God is at work, that God is building His church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against her.
And so you are called to work, Christian. Christian, you can have a confidence as you work. And then third and last and brief, you can join Christ as you work. You can join Christ as you work. I’ve mentioned this story before. I have a friend, and when he was seriously dating in college the woman that is now his wife, he went to visit her dad to ask for his blessing before he proposed. And it happened that her dad was a PCA minister, and so my friend went – and I don’t remember if it was over coffee or if it was over lunch – but the dad, the pastor’s big question for him was not about how much money he had saved, it wasn’t about kind of his work, vocational game plan, it wasn’t about where he wanted to live, but the big question was, “Tell me how you are not perfectly, but tell me how you are really and truly going to minister to my daughter as a prophet, a priest and a king.” And my friend jokes, I don’t know if this is true, but he jokes that he responded and said, “Can I phone a friend?”
And it may land, that question may land as a goofy question; I think it’s beautiful. He’s saying, “How are you going to mirror Jesus Christ in the way that you love my daughter?” Christ is our great Prophet, Priest and King. Christ is the final Prophet, Priest and King. And as we catch a vision of Christ, He is the ultimate encouragement for discouraged kingdom builders. You see this in verse 1. You see a prophet, you see a priest; there’s not a king. There’s a governor, Zerubbabel. And Jesus is the final Prophet. When Jesus was a child – we read about this in Luke chapter 2 – He made His ways into this temple that they’re struggling to build right now in Luke chapter 2. And when His parents found Him, He said to His parents, “Do you not know that I must be in My Father’s house?” Later in Mark 11, Jesus entered again, this temple, and He drove out the money changers and said – get this – “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations.” He teaches about kingdom work. He teaches about kingdom building. He is the great Prophet.
All throughout the gospels, He says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” “Whoever does these words and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” He teaches us to pray, “Your kingdom come.” He tells us, “Your kingdom, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom. He is our great and final Priest. He is the final Priest as well. You see, we’re not building the temple because Jesus, Jesus came as the final Priest, the final sacrifice. And the temple, all the nations will one day flock to. And through Jesus’ sacrificial work, God would one day – look at verse 9 – God will one day give peace. Jesus is the Prince of Peace. He came and preached peace to those who were far and those who were near. Paul tells us in Ephesians 2 that we are “no longer strangers and aliens but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In Him you are also being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” He is our great Prophet. He is our great Priest.
We don’t have a king here. You see, Zerubbabel is not a king; he is a governor. But if you look in Jesus’ genealogy, Matthew chapter 1 verse 12, we read that “And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel.” And so you go on in Matthew chapter 1 verse 16 and “Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.” And so right here in the genealogy of Jesus is the son of David, this governor from Haggai, Zerubbabel, whom Jesus follows in line.
And so Jesus is our great Prophet, Jesus is our great Priest, and Jesus is our great King. And we can say the hands of the king has healing hands. Jesus is our great King, restraining and conquering all of our enemies. Jesus is our great Prophet, Priest and King. And as you catch a vision, Christian, as you catch a vision of Jesus Christ, you see that He is the ultimate encouragement for discouraged kingdom builders. You, Christian, are called to work, and you can have a confidence as you work and you join Jesus, you join Jesus Christ in your work.
Amen. Let me pray for us.
Our great God and Father, we pray that You would help us to know our labor in You is not in vain. We pray that You would help us to not stop building. We are weak and we need the strength that You provide. Help us to work knowing that You are with us and take away our fear. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.