[Evening Sermon] Rags and Riches (Haggai 2:10-23)

He made a story of John Payton who went to be a missionary in

what was then called the New Hebrides, now Vanuatu, as he

declared his desire to go and take the gospel to these

unreached lands and explains to a mission conference perhaps not

unlike this one, why he was so full of passion to reach this

people with the gospel. Eventually someone in the the

congregation couldn't hold back anymore and they stood up.

This was in Scotland. They stood up and said the

cannibals, the cannibals, you'll be eaten by the cannibals.

And John Payton very calmly replied, Mr. Dixon, you're

advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid

in the grave there to be eaten by worms.

I confess to you that if I can but live and die serving and

honouring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me

whether I'm eaten by cannibals or by worms.

And in the great day of the resurrection my body will arise

as fair as yours. In the likeness of our Redeemer.

There is a man with a passion for mission.

There is a man willing to sacrifice all so that others

might hear of the grace and the love of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And yet, I think there is a a danger.

There is a danger not with John Payton or any other of 1000

inspiring missionary stories we could have shared this week,

whether from history or no doubt in the lives of some of those

missionaries. Sponsored by sent from PCPC.

But the danger is that we begin to think that missionary

conferences are about recruiting All Stars.

That is 123-4000. People today hear about mission,

hear God's voice in the book of Haggai.

We think what's going on is that the top 1% point 5% are being

creamed off and sent to do something exotic in some exotic

corner of the world. And then we can go back to

everyday life happy and wait for next year's conference.

But to do so, we're to miss God's desire, God's desire to

see the nation's one and its desire to use ordinary people,

not All Stars to reach the nation's in its final section of

Haggai this evening, we need to ask the question, what do I need

to be in order to be effective in mission in God's church?

And the answer will be, you need to be nothing but just see that

God is everything. We will ask the question, what

do I need to have in order to be effective for his cause?

And we'll hear the same answer. You need to have nothing except

the confident trust that Christ is all you may feel.

Mission is for others above you, beyond you.

And the Lord says no, you. It is you, young and old, rich

and poor. It is you that I'm going to use.

And he does say first of all this evening by saying to you,

you are totally incapable. You're totally incapable.

That's what I want you to hear. This evening.

There's a final greeting from the UK Dallas PCPC.

From the bottom of my heart, let me tell you, you are totally

incapable. But that is the Lord God.

Verse 10, we get this strange last prophecy where God comes

and gets Haggai to ask the priest some questions.

The first one actually is verse 12.

He asks the priest, look, if someone carries holy meat in the

fold of their garment. In other words, meat that's been

sacrificed on the altar and then cooked because the altar in the

temple was a was a bit like a giant BBQ, some of the meat

afterwards could be eaten. If someone's got that meat and

it's kind of wrapped up in their garment, notice it's in the

garment. That's going to be really

important later. And then the garment touches

something else. Does the other thing become

holy? In other words, is holiness

infectious? Now that strikes us as a very

weird question, but for the priest it was a very easy

question. There were rules about this in

the book of Leviticus, to which we are not going to turn this

evening, you'll be relieved to hear.

And the rules were this, that if something holy touches something

unholy, the holy becomes unholy. It is unholyiness, uncleanness

that is infectious. We know this, don't we,

children? When you sorry parents, when you

send your children out wearing white trainers and a white

T-shirt and they come into contact with a muddy puddle, the

puddle doesn't get cleaner. The child gets dirtier.

So too the Levisqal laws. And so Haggard goes back a

second time. Second question.

Such a strange sounding question for a book that's meant to

motivate us for mission. But stick with me first. 13 If

someone who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches

any of these, does it become unclean?

And the priest answered again correctly, it does become

unclean. Second time round, it's the

reverse. A dead body is unclean.

What happens if a dead body comes into contact with

something that's clean or the unclean?

Sorry, the clean thing becomes unclean.

It's Leviticus 101. During COVID, my wife and I had

a young girl from the church living with us.

She was, she worked in the hospitals and it was that stage

where no one knew quite how serious the disease was going to

be and all the rest of it. And I came, we all were locked

down, but she was a hospital worker, so still going into

work. And I came downstairs one

morning to find her sat with my young, probably 5 year old

daughter on her lap kind of combing her hair.

And I said to this, this young woman, oh, you're, you're not

going to work today. And she said, no, I've got

COVID, she's going to take my daughter back, please.

Unsurprisingly, my healthy daughter did not cure my logic

of COVID. And unsurprisingly, not much

later, my family all got COVID. They're all fine.

It is disease that spreads. What's the punchline?

Why is God asking these questions?

Verse 14 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 is

unclean. Do you remember the whole book

of Haggai has been God saying time and time again, build my

temple. It's in ruins.

Build it, reconstruct it. I need a holy dwelling place on

earth. There needs to be a point where

heaven and earth meet. Build, build, build.

And finally by this stage of the book they have been building and

God says everything you do is going to be unclean.

What is the work of their hands? The work of their hands has been

the building of the temple. Their hands are muddy with with

brick and cement and yet God says you can't do it.

Even what you offer there. Verse 14, your sacrifices, your

offerings, they're not going to be acceptable to me.

Why? Because you are unclean and your

uncleanliness is going to spread to everything you touch and do.

You are incapable of building a home fit for me.

They cannot bring heaven to earth.

They cannot give God anything He needs or deserves.

Why? Because they're unclean.

He needs people to realise they can't do anything.

Why? Not to crush them, but to get

them ready to receive grace. To make them realise that

without Him they are nothing, but in Him they have everything.

That is where the Christian life begins, isn't it?

We realise there is nothing we can do to save ourselves,

Nothing we can contribute. No good deed, no prayer, no zeal

of repentance, nothing. In my hands I bring simply to

the cross, I cling. It is not the fervency of my

repentance, the soundness of my faith, but it purely the grace

of God that saves me. But so to the Christian life.

We don't leave grace behind. Every day should begin in the

same place. Lord, I am helpless, but you are

mighty. John 15 I am the vine, You're

the branches, Whoever abides in me, and I in Him.

Here it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can

do nothing. You're totally incapable of

building God's Kingdom. You cannot convert a single

native of Dallas or of Leeds or of Japan or of Canada.

You are unable to bring new life.

And yet, and yet, the book doesn't end there.

You're incapable, says God. But in verses 15 to 19, he turns

the tables and says, I am gracious.

It's a tricky little section of the book and we won't get into

the weeds. But he asked them in verse 15,

look, look, what's been going on?

Have things been blooming since you turned back to me?

Have your crops been bursting at the seams?

Are your barns full? Is all well?

And the answer is no, things haven't been good.

God has been disciplining them. Their crops have been less than

they hoped for. Verse 17 Why?

Because God struck them. I struck you and all the

products of your toil with blight and with Milji, yet you

did not turn to me. I tried to wake you up and you

would not listen. Time and again I appeal to you,

and you would not listen. Disappointment after

disappointment, prophet after prophet sent to call God's

people back to him, and they would not listen, and so he sent

hardship upon them. God does that sometimes, doesn't

He? There are times that He will

discipline us, send tough things into our lives, not because He

hates us or is turned against us, but because He wants to wake

us up. He's done that to his people and

still nothing. You're hard hearted, you're

apathetic. Everything you do is unclean.

You will not listen. You will not listen.

So what am I going to do with Jesus God and the answer is

there at the verse end of verse 19.

What am I going to do with you people who will not listen,

people who are not interested in me, people who don't care about

mission. What am I going to do with you

says the Lord God, I'm going to bless you.

You see end of verse 19. But from this day on, I will

bless you that, but it's it's it makes no sense.

In fact, liberal commentators, non gospel believing

commentators on this part of Haggai get to this sentence and

say it is nonsense. It makes no sense.

God is telling them off, telling them off, telling them off,

showing them what they've done wrong and then saying he's going

to bless them. That makes no sense.

And it doesn't make sense. Unless you understand the

gospel, you have nothing, but God wants to give you everything

graciously. This is Romans 3.

No one sees God, no one is righteous, no one does God good.

But but God gives his Son. But now, says Paul, despite all

your sin, but now the righteousness of God has been

revealed, apart from the law, apart from anything you can do,

God is preaching the gospel to his people through Haggai.

He will bless. And indeed he did, didn't he?

This temple was built. This temple of Haggai was built.

And if you read the rest of the books of the Old Testament,

you'll see the end of the story. Haggai doesn't tell it, but it

was unclean. It was unclean because humans

cannot build, cannot build heaven on earth.

And so the Lord Jesus comes, and he is a true temple, isn't he?

His flesh is holy. He is the one place on earth

that God can dwell because he is not built with human hands.

He is born of a virgin by the power of the Spirit, and so his

body becomes a temple of the Holy Spirit, a fitting place for

God to dwell on earth, because he's made not by the will of

man, but by the will of God. He is pure and spotless and

sinless. And there's an extraordinary

chapter in his life, Mark 6, where he's called by Jairus, A

synagogue ruler, to come and heal his daughter.

And as Jesus goes, a woman who's been bleeding for years touches

the hem of his cloak, his garment.

She's unclean. If you believe you're unclean,

she touches him. And what happens?

Does he become unclean? No, she is healed by touching

the garment that is wrapped around holy flesh.

And by Haggai, what happens in the Old Testament garment

wrapped around holy flesh, holy meat, but it becomes unclean.

Sin is contagious, but not with Jesus.

With Jesus, righteousness is contagious.

And if you think the the the parallel is too stretched.

How does Jesus continue? He continues on having almost

accidentally cured that woman who touches his garment.

He goes to the House of Jairus, where the young girl is now

lying dead. Haggai, what happens when a dead

body meets something pure? The pure is made unclean.

Jesus touches the dead body of this girl and life flows into

here. Finally we have the real temple,

the true temple, the source of life and blessing.

Blessing here is paradise on earth.

Here is salvation in the Lord Jesus.

Everything comes from Him. What do you need from Him?

Everything. What does He demand from you?

Nothing. If you're not a believer here

this evening, if you've never come to trust Him, don't think

that you're not good enough or pure enough.

Don't wait until you're confident enough in your faith

or you hate your sin enough. Don't hold back.

He is not asking anything of you other than to come to Him and

receive His grace. His mercy could my zeal no,

respite no Could my tears forever flow all, for sin could

not atone. Thou must save, and Thou alone.

Just come to Him and He will forgive you with all your mess

and He will use you for those who already Christ's.

You want to be involved in building his Kingdom.

Kill off self-reliance. John Newton, great Anglican

minister, used to say that Mister Self was his big enemy.

In one of his letters he writes and says that it's self

righteousness that has been the main barrier to his growth.

Interesting that, isn't it? Not sin, but self righteousness,

which of course is a sin. He says this I've wanted to

contribute. I'm tired of being totally

dependent on Jesus, always having to come to Him as a

miserable, helpless Sinner. I wanted, and I'm paraphrasing

here, the 18th century English. I wanted to be able to sort some

things out on my own and come to Him for the big things.

But I found I can't do anything without his help.

That is true, isn't it? Nothing without him.

But Newton goes further. He's so honest.

That's why his LED is a beautiful to read.

He says this. If this had only humbled me and

LED me to rejoice in his or sufficiency, it would have been

well. But it has often had a different

effect to make me sullen, angry and discontented.

Very honest. We don't.

We're so proud. We don't like having to rely on

Jesus. We want to be able to bring our

kids to faith without having to pray daily for them.

We want to evangelise our friends without the need to be

bringing them to the Lord on our knees.

We want to act without needing to rely.

But Lord says no, you can't do it apart from me.

You can do nothing but again with me.

I will cleanse you and empower you and you can do anything that

I call you to you. He wants to bless.

That's why he came to earth to bless.

He wants to build this temple till it fills the earth.

His desire, as we've said time and again this weekend, his

desire to bless far exceeds your desire to be blessed because

he's full of grace. And that's why the book ends

with this promise from God, this final prophecy.

I promise that that we could summarize very simply by saying

God declares I will win. I will win right at the end of

your sheets there. And we get a final prophecy from

verses 21 through 23, and it's given to Zerubbabel, who's the

king figure. He is a descendant of David and

an ancestor of Jesus. And he's promised, he's promised

that the nations are about to be shaken up, the heavens and the

earth. I'm going to knit together, says

God, two things that never should have been torn apart,

religion and politics. Now, I'm not about to get

political. Don't panic.

But the gospel is political. The gospel is political because

the gospel declares Jesus Christ is king.

That is ultimately a political statement.

I don't mean in terms of Democrats and Republicans or

Labour and Conservative or whatever it is in your own

country. There are of course,

implications for politics, but ones that I'm not foolish enough

to get into this evening. But it's the rubbable.

The King is told. I will shake the nations that

stand against you. Nothing in heaven or earth will

be able to stand against you. The rubbable, the strength of

the kingdoms of the nations, the Chariots, they're riders.

They'll be overthrown. It's Exodus language.

Remember the Exodus where Pharaoh sends his Chariots and

God throws them upside down in the Red Sea for user rubber

ball. The same thing will happen,

heaven and earth. The physical enemies of the

church will not stand. Ultimately, neither will the

spiritual enemies, heaven, God. In the beginning, God made the

heavens and the earth, the invisible realm and the visible

realm. Both have rebelled in differing

degrees, but neither will win. Satan will fall.

And so on that day, verse 23, because the Lord of hosts, I

will take you, Zerubbabel, my servant, and make you like a

signet ring, like my image, a signet ring bears your image.

For I've chosen you, declares the Lord of hosts.

I will shake the world and enthrone you, and then I'll rule

through you. Did it happen?

Was the world shaken and Zerubbabel enthroned?

No. But yes, you'll find

Zerubbabel's name again in the Scriptures.

It's not a well known character, is he?

But he's back in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus.

This promise, as it were, is a family heirloom passed down from

Zerubbabel to his Son, to his Son, to his Son, until

eventually it is put into a cradle, into a Manger in

Bethlehem, and into the hands of the King for whom it was always

meant. And that king grew up, that holy

King who was both king and temple, who was holy flesh and

holy warrior, and he rode into battle in the most unexpected of

ways by riding into battle on the cross.

On the cross he defeated Satan as he paid for our sin.

He took away all the allegations that that Satan could hurl

against the church. All sin cancelled, all debts

written off. He defeated Satan and died.

And as he died, you remember God shook the earth.

Matthew's Gospel. But the dead come out of the

tombs, and the Lord Jesus comes out of his tomb, rises again as

king. The temple rebuilt the rubble.

The name means out of exile, the seed of exile.

Lord Jesus was sent into exile, castaway from his Father's

presence on the cross, but then rose again to triumph and sent

his disciples to make all nations his.

He is determined to see the nations one and the way he's

going to do it is through you and through me.

How, how specifically in your life?

That is a question for you to think through.

But that He will do it is sure and is certain.

And that's why a book that is about the building of the temple

ends with the promise of a Kingdom.

Because we're not going to build a cult, a little sect in the

corner of the world. The church and the Kingdom

become one because there's one king and one saviour.

Christ has not come just to run 1 little corner of the earth,

but the whole earth. And the way into the Kingdom is

through the door of the church. As you enter the church, you

enter Christ's palace. And the nations need to hear

that because there is no other way to be saved.

Only one life will soon be done. Only what is done for Christ for

Christ, Only what is done for Christ will last and say PCPC,

that is your call. Go and make disciples of all

nations in the power of Spirit and confident that Christ

Himself is sending you, is with you and is ahead.

Let's pray. Our Father in Heaven, we bring

before you one final time this weekend the Great Commission to

make disciples of all nations. We ask that in your loving

kindness you would establish churches and bring men, women

and children to bow the knee before the Lord Jesus, as

Saviour and as Lord, as priests bringing cleansing and as King

bringing victory. Give us confidence that he will

win, that in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus we see already

that the victory is won. Send us out with humble

confidence, we pray cast down the remaining forces of

darkness, and we pray save many millions.

We ask for the glory of Christ, and in His name, Amen.