Sunday
Morning Bible Study
August
17, 2014
Introduction
Do people see Jesus? Is the gospel preached? Does it address the person who is: Empty, lonely, guilty, or afraid to die? Does it speak to the broken hearted? Does it
build up the church? Milk – Meat – Manna Preach for a decision Is the church loved? Regular: 2900 words
Communion: 2500 words
The background to Haggai is found in the book of
Ezra.
The nation of Judah had been captive in Babylon for seventy years. The day
came when King Cyrus decreed that the Jews could go home, and he even offered
to pay for the rebuilding of their Temple in Jerusalem.
A group of people were gathered, led by a Zerubbabel,
of the line of David, he was to be the governor. Alongside Zerubbabel was the
high priest Joshua.
Over 42,000 people made the trip back to Jerusalem. When they got to Jerusalem, they set up an altar for sacrifice
and celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles.
After the people got settled, the work began on the Temple, starting with
the laying of a foundation (Ezr. 3:10-13)
(Ezra 3:10–13 NKJV) —10 When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests stood in their
apparel with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph,
with cymbals, to praise the Lord,
according to the ordinance of David king of Israel. 11
And they sang responsively, praising and
giving thanks to the Lord: “For He is good, For His
mercy endures forever toward Israel.” Then all the people shouted with a great shout, when they
praised the Lord, because the foundation
of the house of the Lord was
laid. 12 But many of the
priests and Levites and heads of the fathers’ houses, old men who had
seen the first temple, wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this
temple was laid before their eyes. Yet many shouted aloud for joy, 13
so that the people could not discern the
noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people, for the
people shouted with a loud shout, and the sound was heard afar off.
But after word got out to the surrounding people that the Jews had begun to
rebuild their Temple, the opposition began.
At first some of the foreign people
who had been living in the land since the Assyrian captivity asked if they
could help build the Temple.
Zerubbabel and Joshua told them
that they could not help, that only the Jews could rebuild the temple in
Jerusalem.
Then the adversaries switched
tactics.
They sent a letter to the new king of Persia, Artaxerxes, warning him about
what the Jews were doing.
Artaxerxes commanded the Jews to stop building their temple.
They told the king that he would
have nothing but trouble because the Jews were a rebellious people and would
stop paying their taxes to Persia.
Artaxerxes searched the historical
records and found that the Jews had been rebellious, and so he commanded that
the work on the Temple be stopped.
It’s at this point in history, where the Temple work has ceased, that the prophet
Haggai steps into the picture.
(Ezra 5:1 NKJV) Then the prophet Haggai and Zechariah the son
of Iddo, prophets, prophesied to the Jews who were
in Judah and Jerusalem, in the name of the God of Israel, who was over
them.
Though our focus for the next couple of weeks will be on what the prophet Haggai
did, he wasn’t alone. The prophet Zechariah
also was at work, and his book follows Haggai.
Zechariah’s work would start two
months after Haggai’s. Get to know the
main characters in Haggai because they will also pop up in the book of
Zechariah.
It’s now about 520 BC, and the
Temple building project has been on hold for about 15 years.
1:1-11 Neglecting God’s House
:1 In the second year of King Darius, in the sixth month, on the first day
of the month, the word of the Lord
came by Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel,
governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak,
the high priest, saying,
:1 Darius – (da-ri'-us) Darius I Hystaspes.
Darius became king of Persia in 522 BC
It is now August 19, 520
BC.
The contents of the book of Haggai
are all given between August and December of 520 BC.
The Temple building project has been stopped for 15 years.
:1 Haggai – Chaggay – “festive”, or “my feast”
We know very little about this
man.
He is the only person in the Old Testament with this
name.
It is thought that he might have been born on during a
feast.
:1 Zerubbabel – Z@rubbabel – “sown in Babylon”
He is
the grandson of King Jehoiachin, a descendant of King
David. He is the governor appointed by the Persians over Judah.
:1 Joshua – Y@howshuwa‘– “Yahweh is salvation”
His father
Jehozadak was the high priest at the time of the
Babylonian invasion (1Chr. 6:15).
He is a descendant of Aaron, the high priest.
(1 Chronicles 6:15 NKJV) —15 Jehozadak went into captivity when the Lord carried Judah and Jerusalem into captivity by the hand
of Nebuchadnezzar.
:2 “Thus speaks the Lord of
hosts, saying: ‘This people says, “The time has not come, the time that the Lord’s house should be
built.” ’ ”
:3 Then the word of the Lord
came by Haggai the prophet, saying,
:4 “Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses,
and this temple to lie in ruins?”
:4 to dwell in your paneled houses
paneled – caphan – to cover,
cover in, covered with boards or paneling
To panel a building required timber that had to be imported.
The Temple (1Ki 6:9) was paneled as was Solomon’s throne room (1Ki 7:7).
(1 Kings 6:9 NKJV) —9 So he built the temple and finished it, and he paneled the
temple with beams and boards of cedar.
(1 Kings 7:7 NKJV) —7 Then he made a hall for the throne, the Hall of Judgment,
where he might judge; and it was paneled with cedar from floor to
ceiling.
It was a sign of luxury, not necessity.
(Haggai 1:4 NLT) “Why are
you living in luxurious houses while my house lies in ruins?
The point is that while the people allowed the opposition to stop them from
building God’s house, they didn’t stop building their own houses.
They decided it was okay to allow the Temple to be in ruins, while they
strived for their families to live in luxury.
Lesson
God and Family
When it comes to serving the Lord we often are reminded that we need to
take care of things at home first.
Some people think that serving the Lord should be at the expense of their
family. They are at the church all the time taking care of other people while
their family is neglected.
But it’s not a case of “either/or”. You don’t serve God OR your family. We
serve both God and family.
And your family ought to take priority over other people.
When describing the qualifications of a leader in the church, Paul says he
should be …
(1
Timothy 3:4–5 NKJV) —4 one who rules his own house
well, having his children in submission with all reverence 5 (for if a
man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the
church of God?)
The implication is that a mature Christian is one who
takes care of his family.
Video: Coke Life
The folks of Haggai’s day were off.
They served their families instead
of serving God.
The problem comes when we begin consider our family as more important than
God. Jesus said,
(Matthew 10:37 NKJV) He who loves father or mother more than Me is
not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy
of Me.
Family ought to be a priority in our lives.
Yet there will be times when we need to be sure that God is our greatest
priority, and our family’s greatest priority.
I like what Joshua said at the end of his life:
(Joshua
24:15 NKJV) …But as for me and my house, we
will serve the Lord.”
:5 Now therefore, thus says the Lord
of hosts: “Consider your ways!
:6 “You have sown much, and bring in little; You eat, but do not have
enough; You drink, but you are not filled with drink; You clothe yourselves,
but no one is warm; And he who earns wages, Earns wages to put into a
bag with holes.”
:6 Earns wages to put into a bag with holes
No matter how hard they worked, they never seemed to come out ahead.
It’s like buying that new house that’s a “fixer-upper”, and it’s actually
just a “Money Pit” and everything goes wrong.
Sometimes God allows us to go through difficult times in order to get our
attention.
:7 Thus says the Lord of
hosts: “Consider your ways!
:8 Go up to the mountains and bring wood and build the temple, that I may
take pleasure in it and be glorified,” says the Lord.
:8 bring wood and build the temple
When Solomon built the first Temple, one of the major materials used was cedar
imported from the mountains of Lebanon. This was what “paneled” the
Temple. But instead of using the cedar
for the Temple, the people had been using it to panel their own houses.
Lesson
Temple Building
Our calling isn’t to build a temple made out of stone like the people of
Haggai’s day.
The New Testament describes two other temples we ought to be concerned
about.
1. Me
When you as an individual made a choice to follow Jesus, He put His Holy
Spirit inside of you, making you a “temple” of the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit of God dwells in you.
Paul wrote,
(1
Corinthians 6:19–20 NKJV) —19 Or do you
not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you,
whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you
were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit,
which are God’s.
As individuals, our bodies are a temple of the Holy
Spirit.
Paul said we ought to “glorify God” not only in our outward
physical body, but also in our “spirit”, which lives inside our body.
The outer me
Take care of your physical body.
Sometimes Christians are guilty of neglecting the vessel
in which their inward person dwells.
As our excuse, we like to quote,
(1
Timothy 4:8 NKJV) For bodily exercise profits a little,
but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now
is and of that which is to come.
But Paul’s point is not that physical exercise has no value, it just has little value compared to godliness.
There are some aspects of our physical bodies that we have
no control over – and those things could be legitimately considered a “thorn in
our flesh”.
But there are some things that we are solely to blame for.
When I got off my butt a couple of years ago and started
to change my eating and exercise habits, I not only lost a bit of weight, but
most of my own health issues went away.
My health problems were due to my own lack of
self-discipline.
I’m learning I need to do my part in taking care of this
“shell” I live in. Hopefully it will
help me have a few more productive years serving God than if I hadn’t taken
care of things.
If I can do it, you certainly can do it.
The inner me
Paul prayed for the Ephesians,
(Ephesians
3:16 NKJV) that He would grant you, according
to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in
the inner man
God wants to work through His Spirit to strengthen the
“inner” me.
Our part is to learn the daily disciplines of prayer,
scripture reading, and obedience.
If you are kind of new at this “Christian” thing, we are
going to be offering a new believer’s class on Thursday nights, starting Sept.
11, just to help you get off to a good start.
2. The Church
The church is not the building that we meet in, the church are the people
of God who gather together. And when we
are gathered together, we also form a “Temple”.
(1
Corinthians 3:16 NKJV) Do you not know that you
are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
The “you” in this verse is plural in each instance. We could translate it “you all” or “y’all”.
It’s the people gathered together that also becomes a
Temple where God’s Spirit dwells.
Each one of us as believers has a role in building the church, this group
of believers that gathers here together. Building this temple involves…
That’s a difficult
thing to see accomplished when some of you might think that “church” is all
about coming to be entertained by the music, and endure listening to the pastor
talk for what seems like hours.
That’s a part of
church, but only a small part.
Connecting
(Hebrews
10:24 NKJV) And let us consider one another in
order to stir up love and good works
That requires that we connect and build relationships with
one another.
Thursday nights has been a night where we try to do more
than just have you sit and listen. We
take time to actually pray for each other’s needs.
We’ve got some plans in the works that we are going to
roll out over the next few months.
We’re thinking of doing a small group potluck kind of
thing and calling it “Supper Eight”. You
will sign up, we put you in a group of eight people, and then you all go to
someone’s house and share a meal and get to know other people in church.
We’re thinking of doing a married couples’ date night
thing where you simply come on a Friday night, spend about fifteen minutes
together to get some encouraging words and guidance for your marriage, and then
go out on a date with your spouse.
I have a dream that one day we will have home groups where
some of you might open your home for others to come over once a week and share
what God has been teaching you and pray for one another.
Outreach
Building God’s Temple involves helping more people come to
know Him.
He commanded us to share the gospel with the world.
We’ve got some easy things lined up for you, things to
give you an opportunity to invite your friends to come to Christ.
There’s one more night of the Harvest Crusade at Angel
Stadium tonight.
On Thursday Sept. 4, we are going to show the movie “God’s
Not Dead” right here at church.
On Sunday night, October 5 we will be hosting “Harvest
America”, where Greg Laurie will be doing another crusade style outreach in
Dallas, but webcasting it across the nation.
Over the last two years, Harvest America has reached over a half million
people, with over 30K people responding to the gospel. We’ll give you a chance to be a part of it.
Be a part of building God’s church – not just Calvary
Fullerton, but the worldwide church of those who name the name of Christ.
:9 “You looked for much, but indeed it came to little; and
when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why?” says the Lord of hosts. “Because of My house
that is in ruins, while every one of you runs to his own house.
:10 Therefore the heavens above you withhold the dew, and the earth
withholds its fruit.
:11 For I called for a drought on the land and the mountains, on the grain
and the new wine and the oil, on whatever the ground brings forth, on men and
livestock, and on all the labor of your hands.”
:10 the earth withholds its fruit
Lesson
Putting God first
God had things that needed to be done, but His people were reluctant to do
what God wanted them to do.
In order to get their attention, God allowed them to go through lean times
The pages of “People” magazine are filled with people who are wealthy and
famous, but if you start digging into their personal lives, you will often find
people who are searching for meaning in life just like you are.
On Thursday night we watched the movie “What if…”
It was a story about an investment banker (Kevin Sorbo)
who had walked away from God and his Christian girlfriend to make a name for
himself out in the world.
The idea of the movie is that fifteen years later, after
finishing a big business deal, he meets an angel (John Ratzenberger)
who teaches him things like “following God is simple, even if it’s hard”. The angel tells him that God is going to give
him a chance to see what his life would have been like if he had made the right
choice fifteen years ago.
He suddenly finds himself married to his old girlfriend,
has two kids, and is now the new pastor of a little church. At first he fights what has happened to him,
but eventually begins to realize that following God was indeed a better path to
follow, even if he didn’t make tons of money.
Towards the end of the movie, he is asked by the angel to
visit a wealthy man in the hospital who is about to die and it all comes
together…
Play “What
If…” (clip starts about around 1:30)
Jesus said,
(Matthew 6:33 NKJV) But seek first the kingdom of God and His
righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
Our priority needs to be putting God first.
For some of us, the big issue is time.
We will give God an hour and a half on Sundays, but He better not expect to get
any more time out of us because we’re busy!
And to be honest,
some of us have trouble getting to church every week. If we get to church once a month, that’s good
enough for us.
We can tell
ourselves that we don’t have time to go to church or time to read our Bible.
For others, it might be money.
You can tell a lot
about a person by looking at how they spend their money.
I’ve heard it said
that if you looked at a person’s check register or bank statement, you would
know who their “god” really is.
Martin Luther wrote, “There
are three conversions necessary: the conversion of the heart, mind and the
purse.”
Illustration
I like the bumper
sticker that reads:
“Tithe if you love Jesus! Anyone can honk!”
We tell ourselves
that we can’t afford to give to the things that God is prompting us to give to
because we can hardly afford the things we already spend our money on.
I’d like to suggest that when you put God first in your life, you will see
your needs fall into place.
1:12-15 Obedience
:12 Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and
Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with
all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him; and the
people feared the presence of the Lord.
:13 Then Haggai, the Lord’s
messenger, spoke the Lord’s
message to the people, saying, “I am with you, says the Lord.”
:14 So the Lord stirred up
the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel,
governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak,
the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came
and worked on the house of the Lord
of hosts, their God,
:15 on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, in the second year of King
Darius.
:15 on the twenty-fourth day
It seems it didn’t happen overnight. The message came on the first day of
the month, but they didn’t respond until the 24th. But it did
happen.
Sometimes we look for instant, overnight successes. But sometimes it takes
some time for the Word to take effect.
:12 obeyed the voice of the Lord
their God
Lesson
Speak up
Sometimes it seems there’s a fine
line between a prophet of God and someone with mental illness.
There are folks who “hear
voices”.
There are others who say that God
has spoken to them, but it’s just an excuse because they are afraid that if
they just speak their mind you won’t pay attention, but if they are supposedly
speaking for God, you have to listen.
Sometimes God has things for us to say.
Sometimes people pay attention to what we might say, sometimes they don’t.
Video: Funny Baby Talking to Dog
Hopefully when we speak up, we will make a little more
sense than this baby…
God described the prophet Ezekiel’s role (Eze. 3)
as being something like a “watchman”, someone whose job is to sit up in the
watchtower and keep a lookout for invading enemies.
God told Ezekiel that a watchman’s job is to simply speak up when he sees
something that needs to be reported.
It’s not the watchman’s responsibility to make the people heed the warning,
it’s just his job to give the warning.
(Ezekiel 3:17–21 NKJV) —17 “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of
Israel; therefore hear a word from My mouth, and give them warning from Me: 18
When I say to the wicked, ‘You shall
surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his
wicked way, to save his life, that same wicked man shall die in his
iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. 19
Yet, if you warn the wicked, and he does
not turn from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his
iniquity; but you have delivered your soul. 20 “Again, when a righteous man turns from his
righteousness and commits iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he
shall die; because you did not give him warning, he shall die in his sin, and
his righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood I
will require at your hand. 21 Nevertheless
if you warn the righteous man that the righteous should not sin, and he
does not sin, he shall surely live because he took warning; also you will have
delivered your soul.”
(Ezekiel 33:2–6 NKJV) —2 “Son of man, speak to the children of your people, and say
to them: ‘When I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a
man from their territory and make him their watchman, 3
when he sees the sword coming upon the
land, if he blows the trumpet and warns the people, 4
then whoever hears the sound of the
trumpet and does not take warning, if the sword comes and takes him away, his
blood shall be on his own head. 5 He heard
the sound of the trumpet, but did not take warning; his blood shall be upon
himself. But he who takes warning will save his life. 6
But if the watchman sees the sword coming
and does not blow the trumpet, and the people are not warned, and the sword
comes and takes any person from among them, he is taken away in his
iniquity; but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand.’
We know very, very little about the prophet Haggai.
For all we know, he could have been a pizza delivery man.
But when God gave him something to say, he spoke up.
How do I know when God is prompting me and when it’s just the pizza from
last night?
I’ve learned that it’s something that just takes a lot of practice.
I’m reluctant to say, “God wants me to tell you…”.
Instead, I will simply speak up and share.
A cool thing about what happened with Haggai is that the people didn’t just
obey by restarting the construction project, they also prospered.
(Ezra 6:14a NKJV) So the elders of the Jews built, and they prospered
through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo.
Earlier in the chapter we saw how they were not prospering
because of their slowness to obey.
Now we see that God is responding to their obedience.
Learn to speak up.