Haggai: Defining the Relationship | Pastor PJ Berner

As we get into the book though, I, I wanna ask in, in, maybe you remember this

fondly, maybe you remember it awkwardly, but how many of you had a DTR with your

boyfriend or girlfriend, or now husband or wife at some point in your relationship?

Some of you don't know the, the phrase DTR, some of you do.

DTR means defining the relationship.

Uh, for my wife and I, that was our first formal date

because I'm that kind of a guy.

I want to get my ducks in order.

I wanna know what's going on.

So we had spent some time together.

We had had gone out on a double date because we went to a Christian college.

So if you've never been to a Christian college, here's how you

have to date at a Christian college.

You have to, to to meet each other first.

That's, that's appropriate.

Um.

And then you have to go out on a group date and then you have to go out on

a double date and then you can go out on a, on a date, one-on-one, unless

anybody thinks something untoward is happening between the two of you.

So I just wanted to fast forward that.

So I think we knocked it out in about a week's amount of time.

'cause I was like, enough with all these other people,

I just wanna get to know her.

So we went to the, the pier in Santa Monica.

I think I've told this before, but we had our DTR there on the pier in Santa Monica.

Um, and I, I just told her right off the bat, I said, look, I, I think that you're

really cute and, and you love Jesus.

And those are two huge things in my book as far as somebody

that I'm looking to be with.

Uh, but I just want you to know that I'm, I'm dating to find

the person I'm gonna marry.

So if that's not where you're at, then, then we probably should

just pull the plug on this now.

And by God's grace, she, she said, you know, I'm in this the same boat

and that's what I'm looking for too.

So that's A-A-D-T-R moment.

Maybe you think back on yours and you think, yeah, I, I remember mine.

It was a little more awkward than, than that, or better than that, or whatever.

But it's the time that you ask these questions.

You say, okay, where are we at in our relationship?

How are we doing in our relationship?

And where in the world is this thing going?

It's important maybe not to have on the first date, but at some point in time with

somebody that you're dating to define the relationship and to have that check-in.

And not only is that important for you to do when you're dating somebody

that you're considering marrying, but it's helpful for us to have

dtrs in our relationship with God on occasion where we stop and with God.

Ask the question, where am I in my walk with God?

How am I doing in my walk with God?

And where am I headed in my walk with God?

The book of Haggai, as I just read it, deals with the post

exilic people of Israel, meaning they had already been in Babylon.

Remember Northern Kingdom's gone, Assyria took them out.

Southern Kingdom went to captivity under Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon, so they were

in Babylon for 70 years, and then the Persians came and defeated Babylon, and

that set up the return under Za Rubber Be.

And Ezra and Nehemiah, that whole timeframe we're in that timeframe.

When we come to the book of Haggai.

And the book of hag ideals with the problem in that the, the

Israelites had been neglecting their relationship with God.

And the, the, the evidence of that as the book tells us is the fact

that the temple was in ruins still.

So when the Israelites first came back, they began to rebuild the temple, but as

they began to rebuild the temple, they encountered opposition about two years in.

So they came back to Jerusalem in 5 38 BC to rebuild.

They began to rebuild the temple.

They laid the foundation of the temple, but then the book of

Ezra tells us and Ezra 4 24.

The work on the house of the Lord came to a stop because

they encountered opposition.

Well, for 16 years from 5 36 BC to five 20 bc the temple was simply

a foundation and then the ruins.

And what that tells us and what that was communicating to God at the

time, was that the people of Israel really didn't care much about their

relationship with him because the temple was integral to their relationship

with God in the Old Testament.

This is where the priest ministered and served.

This is where the sacrifices were offered.

This is where the Holy of Holies was.

And so for Israel to be just fine with the fact that the temple was in

ruins while they gave attention to everything else in life was conveying

to God, Hey God, you know what?

When we go to our DTR with you, we really don't care all that much about how we're

doing with our relationship with you.

So in the book of Haggai, what we find is we find Haggai calling them to repent from

that mindset and to deepen and strengthen and build up their relationship with God.

That's what we need to look at this morning as well.

How do I deepen and strengthen and build up my relationship with God?

Similar to how those DTR questions ask us if we want those questions to reveal.

A deepening relationship we have to give is intentional and careful

thought and consideration to what makes a relationship with God strong.

So the Book of Haggai this morning is gonna give us three essential elements

of a strong relationship with God, three essential elements or pursuits

of a strong relationship with God.

Contextually minor prophets if you're interested in these things.

Timeline, here's where we're at.

Zechariah and Haggai prophesied right around the same time.

They're contemporaries of each other, prophesying during the time of post

exilic Israel, and so you'll see Haggai right there around five 20 bc,

but as we do each week, the author of Haggai is the title of the book.

It's Hagi.

He wrote again in, in five 20 bc.

His audience, as I've already mentioned, is post Exilic Israel, and, and what

we'll find as we unpack the book is that the theme of the book is all

about priorities and specifically the priority of our relationship with God.

The book's also unique because sometimes we will say, you know,

he wrote a round this time, or it was close to this time and it, or

maybe, you know, it was this year.

What's really cool about Haggai is we have specific days.

That we can trace to each of his messages that he gave.

We know it was five 20 BC based on the dating of the Kings and

the reigns and the second year of Darius and so forth and so on.

But we also know the date that he gave each message.

For example, Haggai won one through 15, which is the opening message of the book,

August 29th, August 29th, five 20 bc.

So if, if you just think five 20 bc that's gonna be what's true

of all of these four messages.

The second message comes in verses one through nine of chapter two.

One through nine of chapter two, October 21st, October 21st, the third

message verses 10 through 19 of chapter two, comes in December, December

18th, and the final message verses 20 through 23 also comes in December.

December 18th, same day.

So you look at those time markers, we can say, these are the days which kind

of helps us to understand the, the, the timeframe of the whole argument of

the book, of what, of what's going on.

And so when you read chapter one through chapter two, we're

covering a span of, what's that?

August, September, October, November, December, four or five

months of, of prophecy taking place here in the book of Haga.

But what was the problem?

Well, as I've already alluded, the problem was the temple lay and ruins.

So look at verse two, if you will, verse two.

It says this, thus says the Lord of hosts.

These people meaning the, the post exilic Israelites.

These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.

Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet.

Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in paneled houses while

the house lies and ruins this?

The state of the temple, as I've alluded to already, was indicative of something

more significant in Israel, not as just a state of spiritual decay among the people.

They were growing comfortable and complacent.

In fact, think about this.

It was less than two, two decades since they had been in exile.

And, and before that, some of them are still around.

As, as he's gonna ask the question in chapter two, he's

gonna say, who among you is left?

Who saw the the house in its former glory?

There may have been some that were still there.

Who saw the first temple before the destruction, who lived through

the whole 70 years of exile, and now they're back here in Israel.

The problem was so quickly, had they forgotten what they went through

and being taken away from Israel.

They were back and they were comfortable and the walls were rebuilt and the city

was getting, getting rebuilt, and they were paying attention to their own lives.

They were building their houses.

In fact, that's what paneled houses is a reference to.

If you look down at verse nine, he says, similarly, why is this drought gonna come?

He says, because of my house, the temple that lies and ruins while each of you

busies himself with his own house.

God is calling out Israel saying you have misplaced priorities in your life.

You've forgotten what you need to be worried about, which

is your relationship with me.

And the fact that the main conduit of your relationship with

me, the temple lies and ruins.

While you guys busy yourself about your paint swatches and remodeling your master

bathroom tells me that you really don't care about your relationship with me.

And so God is, is calling the people and saying, is it really the time for

you to focus on your paneled houses?

While my house lies in ruins?

What's more he points out?

The irony is the fact that the fact was that, that this

wasn't even benefiting them.

Look at verses five and six.

He says, now, therefore, thus says the Lord.

Consider your ways.

Let's, let's evaluate things.

How has this gone for you?

You've stoned much and yet you've harvested little.

You, you eat, but you never have enough.

You drink, but you never have your fill.

You, you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm and he who earns wages does.

So to put them into a bag with holes, they weren't reaping the

reward of focusing on themselves because they weren't focusing on God.

They didn't have the priorities in order.

And so what was God's corrective?

Well look at verses seven and eight.

Thus says the Lord of hosts.

Consider your ways.

Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house.

That's the charge.

Build the house, the foundation's there.

It's been laid.

It's now time to build the house.

It's been 16 years.

Let's get back to work.

Why?

Look at the last part of verse eight, that I may take pleasure in it, and

here's the key that I may be glorified, says the Lord, that I may be glorified.

That's the key.

That's the point.

That's the purpose.

That's our goal.

That's the call on us.

It was the call on Israel to glorify God.

Well, if you look at verses 12 through 15, the people are going

to hear and they're gonna obey.

It says they obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the

words of Haggai, the prophet and the Lord their God had sent him.

And, and the people feared the Lord.

And then it's gonna say this, and, and they came and they

worked on the house of the Lord.

Verse 14, uh, the, the Lord of host their God in verse 15 on the 24th

day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the

King, here's another date for you.

September 21st, five 20 bc.

That's when they start rebuilding the house.

So the message comes from Haggai August 29th, and by September

21st, they've started building the house of the Lord again.

So they listen, they fear God and they obey, and they get to

work on the house of the Lord.

And so then in chapter two, uh, about a month after this, October 21st.

High guy comes back with another message for them and basically the message that

he comes back to to them with in verses one through nine is, Hey, keep going.

Press on.

Don't let up.

Don't slow up.

Don't give up.

Keep building the house of the Lord.

He comes back here and he says this.

He says, work for I am with you.

This is verse four, 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.

And so I think what's going on here is the prophet by God is, or God by

the prophet, rather, is conveying to them, Hey, keep going and, and,

and trust that I'm still with you.

The covenant that I made with you when I brought you out of Egypt, when I made you

my people, A people for my own possession.

It's still intact.

I'm still with you, declares the Lord.

Don't worry about things, don't fear don't give up.

Again, if you encounter opposition, don't throw up your hands and

give up like you did 16 years ago.

Keep going, keep building, keep working.

I'm with you.

And so they, they get this message of encouragement.

In fact, not only that to, to keep going, but Hagg, I cast their attention to the

future, which we understand to be the future at this point of, of this time.

And that's what he means in the rest of this message, when God is

gonna shake the nations and the, the glory of the nations is gonna

come in and help build the temple.

Now, this is not gonna be his Abel's temple.

This is gonna be the temple of the millennial kingdom.

This is looking forward to the time when God is gonna ultimately restore things.

Things.

In other words, God is telling the people in the midst of their building

and their efforts, I'm with you, and I'm gonna see it through to the very end.

It's not even gonna be this temple, but there's another temple that's coming.

I'm gonna see it through the very end.

I'm not going anywhere.

In other words, God is conveying that he's faithful to his people

here and encouraging them to be faithful to the task at hand.

Again, as, as the book opens, Haggai puts his finger on the

spiritual apathy of the people.

He says, my house, the House of God, lies and ruins.

And we have to be careful as a church not to be in the same position ourselves.

This was a time when they were comfortable, things were on the

upswing, they were back from exile.

Things with Persia were good compared to what they had been with Assyria and with

Babylon and with the other world powers.

They weren't really fearing much, and so they had been lulled into the idolatry

of comfort and materialism and family and security and peace and status,

which led them to neglect the number one thing in their life, which was

their relationship with God and church.

If we're not careful, we can find ourselves in the exact same position.

I mean, we live in a place where we're one of the, the leading questions, the

burning questions is what's going into the new strip mall over by Target.

That's the concern that we have in life.

We're not concerned about a foreign army coming in and invading and

destroying us and turning us upside down.

We're not concerned with not having enough food.

We're not concerned with drought or blight or mildew or crop

damage or anything else like that.

When you consider the luxury that we live in right now, it is so easy for

us to leave the temple and ruin, so to speak, in our own walk with God.

So as we're thinking about our DTR, defining our relationship with God,

asking those questions, okay, where am I at with my walk with God?

How am I doing in my walk with God?

Where am I going in my walk with God?

If you want to answer those questions and say, man, my walk is deepening,

then our first way that we need to do that is point number one this morning.

Invest sacrificially in your walk.

Invest sacrificially in your walk with God.

Remember verse eight.

He says, build the house that I might be glorified.

The Westminster shoulder catechism opens with a question, what is the

chief end of man to glorify God?

In other words, the chief end of every single human being that's

ever been born, ever been created, ever existed is to glorify God.

That is the overarching umbrella priority that is, is the priority that pervades

every other priority in our life.

The problem that we have is sometimes we can list our priorities for the day.

Maybe your priorities are, if you're a stay at home mom and you've got young

kids at home, maybe your priorities are something like, I need to get up.

I need to spend time with the Lord.

And then I need to make sure that, that I've got food for my kids that,

that they're gonna eat breakfast.

I need to get them dressed and ready for the day.

I need to, to make sure that I know what's gonna happen today, what we're

gonna do, where we're gonna be going as a family, where we're gonna be driving.

I need to think about dinner tonight.

I need to think about my responsibilities.

I've got, I've got a meeting with this person over here.

I need, make sure that my kids have childcare during that time.

And, and the, that's life, right?

We have to deal with the things and responsibilities of life.

The mistake we make is that so often we can say priority number one, I need

to spend time with the Lord, and then we leave the Lord behind after priority

number one for the rest of our day.

Instead, what we need to remember is this overarching priority, this umbrella

priority, that that pervades every other priority on our list is to glorify God.

That's why we exist, and so our whole life is not about can I get my

relationship with God taken care of in 15 minutes this morning to move on to

all my other responsibilities after.

Us, our whole life is about our relationship with God.

Take a baseball team.

At the beginning of the season, every team's goal is the

same, to win the World Series.

They're gonna have other goals as well, though, right?

Like maybe their goal is to win the division, or maybe their goal is to

have a certain number of, of wins.

Or maybe the ownership's goal is to have a certain number of sellouts

at home, or maybe an individual player's goal is to get a certain

number of wins or a certain number of.

Home runs for them.

And yet at the end of the day, all of those other goals are

subservient to the chief goal, which is to win the World Series.

All of those other goals are meant to be accomplished towards the end

of them winning the World Series.

All of your goals in life, all of your life as a whole is meant to be lived in

service of the primary goal of glorifying God with your whole self and person.

And that looks like investing sacrificially in your wok deepening

a God glorifying wok will mean.

Investing sacrificially in that relationship.

That's something that the Israelites weren't doing and

they weren't willing to do.

Why?

Because it was gonna cost them their time, right?

They were gonna have to take time away from their paneled houses to

come over here to the temple and start rebuilding the house of God.

It was gonna cost them their resources.

They were gonna have to give up some of the, the, the things that they were

gonna do in their own homes to be able to fund some of the things that needed to

be done for the building of the temple.

It was gonna cost them their attention.

They were gonna have to give thought not to.

What are we gonna do with the layout of our new kitchen?

Instead, they were gonna have to give thought to, okay, how do

we need what's next on our, our goals for building the temple?

See, it was gonna cost them, and, and that's one of the reasons

why they didn't want to do that.

They weren't willing to invest sacrificially in

their relationship with God.

What does that look like for us?

What are some of the paneled houses in our lives?

Well, a, a few thoughts here.

Number one.

We can be guilty of living in paneled houses by giving God the leftovers

investing sacrificially.

It's not just money, but it is money.

And so when we don't give from the first fruits of what God has

given us, when we give from the leftovers, here's what happens.

The battery in one of your cars dies and you have to go drop 250 bucks on a new.

Your kids go to the dentist and you get the dentist bill in and

and you now owe the dentist $7,000.

Not really, but it feels like it.

Sometimes you go to the grocery store and you try to stay on budget,

but inflation, you've got a Friday night and you're sitting at home

with the kids going, what do we do?

And you decide to go to the movies and drop another $7,000 to go watch a movie.

You get the point, right.

And then at the end of the month when you're like, okay, oh yeah, we need

to give you, look at what you had thought you would set aside to give.

And you realize you, you really don't have anything left to give investing

sacrificially is given from the top saying, God, you, you've given

me these funds, they're yours and I'm gonna give from the top on it.

But what else is living in a paneled house?

Second is only giving God money.

God wants more than your money.

And I hope you hear me as your pastor saying we want more than that.

If somebody was to come to the church and, and, and give and be our leading

giver, and by the way, I don't know who that is, but if, if somebody was to come

to the church and be our leading, leading giver and yet not serve, not invest their

time, not invest their talent, their gifts that God has given to them, not

invest their attention on the the Lord, and they just were to sit in in the back

and say, well, I mean, I'm good though because I'm the top donor of the church.

Listen, God's not pleased with that.

And as your pastor, I'm telling you, I don't want that either.

We can live in paneled houses when we only give God money and we don't

give him the other things that we need to be rendering to him.

For example, maybe giving him more than that is serving at VBS

like so many of you did serving at revival like so many of you will.

Or maybe it's you, you hear from somebody in the church that.

I mean, they're, they're going through it right now and, and they're in a little

bit of financial straits and their cars in the shop and, and they've got a big

family and they don't know how they're going be able to make a buy on, on

one car, and you've got an extra car at home and you think, you know what?

Why don't you, why don't you borrow my car until yours is outta the shop?

Don't worry about it.

That's, that's giving more than money.

Or maybe you are single and you're starting to wonder if you're using the

gift of singleness the way that God wants you to use the gift of singleness.

Maybe you've been reading one Corinthians chapter seven and

thinking about, man, the, the single person is free to be concerned

only with the things of the Lord.

Am I doing that?

And you start to think, man, how could I use my time?

'cause I've got more time at my disposal and my attention and my efforts to serve

the Lord more than I am perhaps right now.

So ways that we can give more than money.

Another way that we can live in paneled houses is forgetting

that we're stewards, not owners.

And this is kind of true of the whole list here.

Everything that you have is yours because God gave it to you.

Right?

Your finances, God gave those to you.

The job that you have, God gave that to you.

Your intellect.

God gave that to you.

Your house, that's yours.

'cause God gave it to you.

The cars that you have, God gave those to you your time.

God gave that to you.

Your calendar that you have, the, the meetings that you're gonna

have, God gave those to you.

The neighborhood that you live in, God gave that to you.

The, the neighbors that live next door to you, God gave those to you.

You're stewards and not owners, and the, the very basic fundamental

reality is the life that you have.

God gave that to you, to steward for him the chief, and a man to glorify God.

Finally, another way that we can live in paneled houses today is by

asking, how much do I have to give?

Instead of asking, how much can I give, how much can I give?

Lord, show me how I can serve you more.

I wanna give more.

I wanna spend more of myself on you.

The Apostle Paul said we were pleased not only to share the

gospel, but our very lives with you.

That that should be our mindset towards the Lord.

Lord, how much more can I give to you?

The Israelites?

We're, we're, we're boasting in a foundation there.

God, look at, look at our, look at our flat ground.

Look how cool this is.

We can build an awesome temple on this eventually.

And God was saying, let's go.

Let's get after it.

Don't be satisfied with the foundation.

I'm saying to us, if you're serving the Lord and you're tempted to

say, Lord, look, isn't this enough?

Look at how great I am because I'm serving in these ways.

That's like standing on the foundation of the temple.

God going, look how cool my te, my foundation is God.

This would make an awesome temple, wouldn't it?

And God's saying, let's go, let's go.

I think the Apostle Paul's such a great example of this

Second Corinthians chapter 11.

2 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

I don't have time to go there, but if, if you've got time

later on, you can read that.

That's his resume of, of earthly suffering.

It's just listing all the things that he's gone through and, and I love you.

You read that and then you pair it to, to second Timothy chapter four,

when Paul's right into Timothy and he's like, Timothy, I'm done, man.

I'm poured out.

I'm exhausted.

And now there are ways for me the crown of righteousness.

And let's live that life.

Let's wear ourselves out for Christ.

Your relationship with God is, is dynamic, right?

And it should be growing, not stagnating.

And so the first way we can have this DTR moment with God to say,

okay, God, how are we doing?

Where are we at?

Where are we going?

Say, are you investing sacrificially in your relationship with God?

Or have you been lulled into a state of spiritual apathy thinking, man, the

foundation's there, that's good enough.

That's good enough.

Israelites, were going to listen and rebuild as I, I mentioned earlier, but

there was another massively important element that needed their attention

before they could keep going and get fully back to work and, and finish this thing.

Uh, look down at verse 11 of chapter two.

Again, we're in December now, December 18th specifically, so we're

about two months after the last one when Hagg, I was saying, good job.

Keep going.

Okay, so now December 18th, God is saying, Hey, Haga, I need you to go

back because we've got a problem.

And so Haggai's gonna come back.

And this time he's not gonna talk to Zabel.

He's not gonna talk to Joshua.

He's gonna ask a question of the priests, the religious

leaders of Israel at the time.

And so it says in verse 11, thus says the Lord of hosts

ask the priests 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 of the food, does it become holy?

And the priest answered and said, no.

Then Haggai said, if someone who's unclean, then by contact

with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean?

And the priest answered and said, it does become unclean.

So Haggai is addressing a, a problem, and he does so by asking questions

that were, were pretty much gimmies for the priest at this time.

These were not SAT level questions.

These are basic level questions, and the questions have to do

with the transferability of both holiness and defilement.

So he says, if you take a consecrated item, priests something from the

house of God, and you touch something regular, something ordinary, something

common with a consecrated item, does that common thing become holy?

And the priest rightly said, no, no, cleanly cleanliness

is, is not transferable.

Okay, so then hack.

I said, okay, another question.

If somebody who's defiled by contact with a dead body touches something that

is common, does that thing that they touch, does that then become defiled?

And the priest rightly answered, yes, defilement is transferrable.

The problem facing Israel that Haggai was now addressing in this

next section here is that they were building the temple with defiled hands.

Think back to Za Za and the arc.

Okay, so David wants the arc in Jerusalem, so he sends the the people

to go get it and they wrongly and against God's law and prescription,

they put the cart, the arc on a cart.

And as the cart is going along the cart, the, the oxen trip and stumble.

And so the cart begins to tip and the ark begins to fall off the cart and zas nearby

in, in a, uh, a meth moment of thinking, well, I don't want the ark to fall to

the ground because that would defile it.

Za reaches out to steady the ark, and what happens to Za Za dies.

God kills him, and David gets angry.

But I love the way that Sproul puts it.

RC Sproul, put it this way, za wrongly assumed that it would be

more defiling for the arc to hit the mud than to hit his hands.

See?

Za reached out with defiled hands, unclean hands into the presence of God

or what represented the presence of God.

And similarly, here in Haggai, the people of God were obeying.

They were back about the building of the house, but they were

building with defiled hands.

They were building, not on a foundation of godliness.

They were building, going through the motions.

Meanwhile, they weren't dealing with sin in their life.

They weren't building into their relationship with God,

if I can put it that way.

In a way that was integral, in a way that was holistic in a way that was.

Fully surrendered to God.

They were going through the motions on the outside, on the inside.

They were still like Jesus would confront the Pharisees.

They were whitewashed tombs.

They were full of dead man's bones.

And this is actually where the Book of Zechariah comes in handy, because

Zechariah was a contemporary of Haggai writing at the same time.

And while Haggai doesn't list out specifically some of their

sinfulness, Zechariah does.

So for us, Zechariah chapter seven.

Verses eight through 11.

You can just listen here.

Zechariah seven verses eight through 11 says this, the word of the Lord

came to Zechariah saying, thus says the Lord of hosts render true judgments,

show kindness and mercy to one another.

Do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the soner, the poor.

Let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.

But verse 11, they refuse to pay attention and turn a stubborn shoulder and stop

their ears so that they might not hear.

So Zechariah's prophesying to them about the injustice that was running

rampant during the time about the immorality, about the, the harm, the

unrighteousness, one against another that was running rampant during

this time amongst the Israelites.

And so while they were building the temple, they're breaking God's law

over here, but thinking it's not that big of a deal because at least

we're doing what God wants us to do.

He just wants us to build a temple.

And God, through Haggai now is sending Haggai back saying, Hey, that's not it.

That's not really what I'm after.

You're building with defiled hands and building with defiled hands is not

something that's gonna go well for them.

In fact, he says, so it is with this people, this nation before me declares the

Lord and with every work of their hands.

Verse 14, what they offer there is unclean.

God's gonna continue with Haggai and say, they need to repent.

They need to repent.

He says, consider from this day onward.

Verse 18, the 24th day of the month, the day that this message is coming.

December 18th, there.

Since the day that the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid, reaching

all the way back to, to 5 36 BC almost 20 years ago, at this point, consider,

he says, is the seed yet in the barn?

Indeed, the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate and the olive

tree have yielded nothing.

Because why?

Because you've just been going through the motions with me.

You've been rendering me lip service.

You've been thinking as, as long as you do what?

What I you think I want you to do then I don't care about what

you do the rest of your time.

And God's saying, that's not how a relationship with me works.

If you're gonna have a relationship with me, that is deepening, that is

growing, it's gotta be more than that.

In fact, you may recall multiple times, but I, Isaiah chapter one, for example,

God tells the Israelites, you know what?

I hate your sacrifices.

I hate your feast.

I hate your solemn assemblies because you drum near to me and you honor me with

your lips, but your heart is far from me.

Listen, y'all, as we are building into a relationship with God, it's more than

showing up to church on Sunday morning.

It's more than reading your Bible every single day.

It's more than listening to other sermons on podcast.

It's more than being somebody who just doesn't cuss at work.

It's about building on a foundation of godliness that is rooted

to your relationship with him.

It's about a full holistic surrender to Jesus.

Like we were talking about point number one, saying, man, my, the goal of my life

is to glorify God with my whole life.

And so it's not just gonna be, I'm gonna stack up some good credit with

him by being obedient and, and going to church and doing these things so that

these other areas of my life, it's okay.

When you surrender, you let go of everything.

Nobody who, who surrender says, I'm surrendering to

you, but you can't have this.

'cause that's not surrendering at all.

So when you think about building into your relationship with the.

Listen, just like he wanted Israel to build on a foundation, not just of

going through the motions, but truly a foundation of, of authentic godliness.

That's what he wants from you and I to point number two this morning is this

build authentically on a foundation of godliness, build into your relationship

just like they're rebuilding the temple.

Build into your relationship authentically on a foundation of godliness.

Just like in Haggai's day, y'all, we can fall prey to thinking

that holiness is transferable.

We can fall prey into thinking, we can, we can drift into a sense of, of karma.

In other words, if I show up at church, if I read my Bible, if I give to

the church, then I'm good with God.

God's gonna be good to me.

That's not how it works.

God's not a cosmic vending machine.

Don't put in the quarters of our obedience or our attendance or our Bible reading

in order to get something back from him.

Now he wants a genuine relationship with us.

We need to remember what Paul says, that God is not gonna be mocked,

but each one will reap what he sows.

And so we wanna be sowing godliness.

Imagine this scenario.

Imagine getting a a, a new car and you have that car and you just take

pristine care of the ex exterior of that.

You take it to the car wash weekly.

You, you shine the tires at home.

You put new wiper blades on the windshield so that you make sure

that your windshield's clear and you, you dust off your, your rear

view mirrors and your backup camera, and you're just taking good care.

You always have it fueled up the interior of the car.

When you sit inside the car, you, the gas gauge reads full because it's

always full and it just, you don't let people eat in your car because

you don't want it to get stained.

You don't want it to smell like McDonald's.

Anything else that you have there and, and you just take pristine care of

the car, but you never change the oil.

Eventually what's gonna happen to that car?

It's gonna stop working.

It's gonna break down.

It's not gonna function.

Why?

If you just leave that car parked in its spot, after it breaks down and you ask

somebody, what do you think of my car?

They're gonna look at it from the outside and be like, man, that's great.

Looks so good.

You take pristine care of that car.

You're washing it, you the windshield's super clean.

The inside's great, still smells like a new car in here and this looks great.

And yet if they go to start that car, they're gonna recognize,

man, there's a massive problem That is, that the car's broken.

When we give God lip service, when we think God's fine with us, because we show

up at church, because we read our Bibles on a regular basis because we, we clean

up the perimeters of our life and, and I'm not as bad as this person over here.

It's like we've taken pristine care of the outside of our relationship with

God, but we've never changed the oil.

And in the end it's gonna break.

It's gonna break.

This is the life that is lived by the person in Matthew seven who is

gonna say on that day, Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name?

And, and, and we cast out demons in your name.

And, and we, we, we did many anybody miracles in your name and they're gonna

hear back from God, depart from me.

I never, I never knew you, you and I.

We had no relationship.

Your relationship with me was a relationship by osmosis.

You were looking, looking to be justified by proximity, and that's not how it works.

And so you can gimme your, your, your resume.

You can show me the, the things that you've done for me.

Lord, I, I went to church all the time and I, I was a good person

and I, and I voted Republican and I, I did this and I did this.

There's plenty of people, hell, who did all those things.

God never knew them.

See your relationship with God, that is holistic, that is built on a authentic

foundation of godliness, means that, that it's not just about the hour and a

half that you're here on Sunday mornings.

It's about your whole life.

It's about your whole life.

It it impacts, in other words, your, your authentic godliness, your

relationship with God, it's gonna impact the movie that you watch after

you put your kids to bed at night.

It's gonna impact the, the websites that you're visiting

when no one else is around it.

It, it's gonna impact your plans for retirement and what you're gonna do

with your free time after you retire.

It's gonna impact the decision on whether or not you move to

take a, a job somewhere else.

As you consider the landscape of the local churches in that area, your relationship

with God is, it's gonna impact the words that come outta your mouth when you get

cut off by another driver with a student driver's sticker on the back of their car.

The words that come outta your mouth, it, it's gonna impact

those that come outta your mouth.

When you talk about politics and, and what's going on in the world today,

your relationship with God, it's, it's gonna impact the clothes that

you buy and the clothes that you wear.

It's gonna impact the person that you choose to date and eventually marry.

It's gonna impact the way that you discipline your children.

It's gonna impact where you let your mind drift.

When you have free time, it's gonna impact whether or not you want to spend

that money on that upgrade in your house.

It's gonna impact your relationship with your neighbor.

See, authentic godliness is not just about when you need to be godly, when

you show up at church, and it's not just about 15 minutes a day to start your day.

It's holistic.

It's your entire life.

And so as we wanna build into a deepening relationship with God, that means

that we are building authentically on a foundation of godliness.

Some of you may have seen in the news recently, chip and Joanna Gaines, they

are in the news for all the wrong reasons.

They're have a brand new show where they're sending families

out to try to live like pioneers.

And one of the families on that show is a same sex couple, and rightly

so many people are calling them out on this because Chip and Joanna

Gaines are professing Christians.

They've called them to account for this and then things get worse because

one of their employees brought another man home to his wife and said, we

are now gonna live as a throuple.

And Joanna Gaines has gone on social media and said, you to this person,

you are good and we love you.

That's what, what it means that, that God is not gonna be mocked.

That is not building on a foundation of authentic godliness.

That's a situation where we, at the end of the day have to say, I don't care about

the words that come outta your mouth.

If you're gonna reject clearly what God has called you to do,

and God's not pleased with that either.

See, we need to live a life of authentic godliness before him if

we're gonna have a relationship that has any sort of substance before him.

Ezra chapter six tells us that they were successful in this.

They do repent and, and they, they do build the temple and the temple's gonna be

completed, and it's going to be completed about four years after it gets started.

So six five rather five 16 BC is when the temple is finished.

So five 20, it's resumed in five 16.

It's finished

still in the, the midst of the call for Israelite repentance

and restoration of the temple.

God wanted his people to know that, that he was gonna be with

them and committed to them.

You can imagine perhaps after the temple is, is finished, they

may be wondering, okay, now what?

Haggai chapter two ends this way.

Look at verse 21.

It says, speak to Abel, the governor of Judah saying, I am about to

shake the heavens and the earth.

And to overthrow the thrones of the kingdoms.

I'm about to destroy the strength of the kingdoms and the nations and overthrow

the chariots and their riders, and the horses and the rider shall go down every

one of them by the sword of his brother.

It seems here that God is forecasting the day of the Lord, the the

future day when he's going to finally judge all of his enemies.

And the reason we say that is because Persia was not a growing threat to, to

the people of Jerusalem at this time.

In fact.

Things were going okay.

They had sent the Israelites back to Jerusalem to rebuild.

So we don't think this is about an earthly nation at this time, but

God is forecasting for the people.

Now the temple's gonna be done.

And now he's saying, look, this is what's in store for you.

And then he says this down in verse 23, he says, on that day,

declares the Lord of host, I will take you Oza Abel, my servant, son

of she, LTL, declares the Lord.

And I'll make you like a signet ring for I have chosen you,

declares the Lord of hosts.

Okay?

On that day, in that future time of eschatological judgment, the day of

the Lord, I'm gonna take you Zabel.

Well, after this rebel kind of fades into oblivion, we don't really know

much about the rest of Rebel's life.

He's kind of gone.

And so as he's talking about the day of the Lord, he's talking about Abel.

And yet he's not talking about Zabel.

And here's what I mean by that.

He says, use rub.

Be son of Sheel, tl.

Uh, those words may not mean a whole lot to you, those names, um, unless

you're looking for names, she ltl anybody, um, will, will accept she ltl.

Zabel also will accept that, um, those were names that you'll find in Luke's

genealogy and Mary's gene genealogy of a pretty significant figure that we know as

Jesus see, Zabel was in the Davidic line.

And so this promise at the very end of the Book of Haggai

is God reminding his people.

That there will be eventually an ultimate Davidic ruler that's gonna

rule and reign as God's signe ring ring.

In other words, he's gonna have God's authority, he's gonna have God's blessing,

and he's gonna rule as though he is God.

We know that descendant as Jesus and he will one day rule

and reign for all of eternity.

He will one day rule and reign from Jerusalem during the millennial kingdom

for a thousand years here on this earth.

And that is how the book ends.

God's reminding his people of his faithfulness to them.

Which is so encouraging if you think about it, because maybe you're sitting

here after these first two points going, okay, and invest sacrificially.

Yeah, I need to, I I can grow there.

It's me too here.

Or, and maybe you're thinking about this, this second point too,

going, man, build authentically on a foundation of godliness.

Man, I can, I can grow in that area too, and, and I, I need to be more godly.

And maybe you're sitting here going, this is, this just

feels, it feels insurmountable.

It feels like too much.

And if that's you, I, I hope that you're encouraged by this final point because

I think what Haggai is doing, what God is doing through Haggai, is he's ri

reminding Israel, Hey, Israel, no matter what, I'm gonna be faithful to you.

And so if you want a deepening, strengthening relationship with God,

you want to answer those questions, man, how am I doing with God?

Where are we going?

Where are we?

Then the final way to, to answer those with a deepening relationship with God is

this hope, ultimately in his faithfulness hope, ultimately in his faithfulness.

Th This is where we admit that our relationship with God

ultimately depends upon him.

It depends upon him.

Think about some of the promises that we find in God's word

about his faithfulness to us.

For example, Ephesians chapter one, he has sealed us with the Holy

Spirit as a guarantee of our future inheritance, the down payment he's

given us through the Holy Spirit that we will one day be with him.

Or how about one Peter chapter one?

He is guarding us by his power.

Through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the end time.

God is faithful to guard us by his power through our faith.

So what's keeping us believing it's God's power?

Or how about this one?

He is the God who has called us, who has justified us, who is sanctifying

us and who will glorify us?

That's the unbroken chain of Romans chapter eight.

In fact, so certain is that, that the glorified part is in past tense in

Romans chapter eight, and none of us sitting this in this room are saying,

I've already been glorified yet.

Right?

Why is it in past tense?

Because it's as good as done because God is faithful to do it.

Let's keep going.

We're not done yet.

He's promised us that nothing in all creation will be able to separate

us from his love in Christ Jesus.

That list in Romans eight, nothing in all creation can separate you

from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

By the way that that includes you.

You can't separate yourself from God's love for you in Christ Jesus.

How do you know?

Because are you part of all creation?

Uhhuh?

Nothing in all creation can separate you.

How about this one?

Man, God gave us eternal life.

He didn't give you three week life.

He didn't give you 30 year life.

He gave you eternal life.

And on top of that promise that nobody's gonna be able

to snatch you out of his hand.

That's John 10.

How about this one?

He's promised that he will never cast us out either.

That's John six.

Let's just do one more.

He said that he's able to save to the uttermost, those who

draw near to Christ through him.

Since Jesus always lives to make intercession for you.

See, we can hope ultimately in God's faithfulness because

God's never gonna fail.

And so your relationship at the end of the day, y'all is more about his

faithfulness to you than it will ever be about your faithfulness dance.

That said, it doesn't negate the need for your faithfulness to him.

And both of those realities are taught in scripture.

And let me give you one final illustration that falls short of it,

but I, I hope it will help, it helps me at least, so you don't get a choice.

When we lived back in California, we, we lived close enough to our school

that we could walk our kids to school.

And on the way to school, we had to cross a very busy road there to get over there.

And so we would cross the road and we would hold our kids' hands

and we crossed the road and off.

I would often find that I would be holding my daughter's Annie's hand as

we would cross the road and as we're crossing the road, I would make sure

that, that she was safe, because at the end of the day, we're crossing the road.

Who's responsible for her safety in crossing the road?

Ultimately, it's me.

So I would hold tight to her hand.

I would wash for cars.

I would make sure that she didn't trip or fall as we got across the street, and

I would make sure that she didn't drift off and wander away and chase butterflies

into the middle of oncoming traffic until we got across the street safely.

I was gonna be faithful to her the whole way, but I want you to

consider that from her point of view.

When we came to the busy street, she reached up and she grabbed my

hand and she looked for cars and she stepped out into the street with

me and she watched her feet to make sure that she wouldn't trip and fall.

She stayed focused on the goal of where we were going, and she made sure that

we got to the other side of the street.

At the end of the day, I was never gonna let anything happen to my daughter,

but at the same time, she played a part in getting from one side of the

street to the other side of the street.

So ultimately, us arriving safely was about my faithfulness to her more than

it ever was about her faithfulness to me.

Her grip on my hand might have loosened, but my grip was never

gonna li loosen on her hand.

Y'all, for us, we're walking through this life in a relationship with God,

reaching up, grabbing his hand as we go,

and as we walk throughout our days, we're gonna make decisions about how

hard we're holding fast to his hand.

And

as fallen people, there's gonna be times where sometimes our

grip loosens a little bit.

It,

but his will never fail.

He's got you

so you can invest sacrificially, so you can build on a foundation of godliness

because he's never gonna fail you.

He's never gonna prove faithless.

He will always see to it that you will be delivered ultimately into his presence.

So what would your DTR look like with God this morning?

Where are you right now with him?

How are things going with him and where are things headed with him?

These are important questions for us to answer.

If you wanna answer them in a way that reveals that you have a deepening

strengthening relationship with God.

We've seen these three principles this morning that will help in that pursuit.

A sacrificial investment in your walk building with authentic godliness

and exercising a confident trust in his faithfulness that will

never fail, will stand with me and we'll pray and be done this morning