Man’s Mundane Work and God’s Glorious Promises

Haggai 2:1 In the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet: 2 “Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to all the remnant of the people, and say, 3 ‘Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? 4 Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the LORD. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the LORD. Work, for I am with you, declares the LORD of hosts, 5 according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. 6 For thus says the LORD of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. 7 And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the LORD of hosts. 8 The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the LORD of hosts. 9 The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the LORD of hosts.’” Good morning, we are continuing in the book of Haggai. If you missed last week’s sermon, I am spending three weeks working through this book. It’s a small book written during the post-exillic time. The time when the remnant of Israel has returned to Jerusalem from captivity. If you heard last week’s sermon, Haggai confronted Israel on their mixed-up priorities. He called them to consider their ways and order their lives around Yahweh’s priorities. God’s priority was calling the people to resume building the temple so that they could offer right worship and dwell in the presence of God. So we looked at how this relates to our priorities and ensuring that we line up with what God sees as best. And maybe if the sermon landed, you were fired up Sunday afternoon. You were motivated to put things right, create new habits and goals and take dominion of all areas of life. And Monday you crushed it. It was glorious. But then by Wednesday, maybe things got harder. It was more of a grind and harder to see the glory of it all. Your checklist didn’t get crossed off as swiftly, you missed Family worship. And you already broke your resolution to wake up daily at 5am. Maybe you did get everything crossed off your list, but it didn’t bring immediate and glorious results. You were present more with the kids, but they still disobeyed! You talked to your relative about Jesus and it still ended in conflict. Remember last chapter, God sent a drought on the people. It takes awhile for new fruit to grow. Turning a large ship around is a slow process. Just like putting our priorities right in our own lives can be a slow, arduous process. How do we keep that momentum? How do we continue even when the results aren’t immediate? Is anyone noticing whether I discipline my child or not? Is the laundry folding truly reaping cosmic rewards? Does it have any earthly affects, let alone heavenly? That person you are discipling just isn’t bearing fruit. This is where Israel found themselves in chapter 2 of Haggai. As Israel began to rebuild, they run into discouragement. The glory of the former temple had not returned. It wasn’t as spectacular inside or outside. And they saw how unimpressive it was. And yet the Lord spoke to the people and reminded him that he was still with them. And then he gave them several commands to continue the hard and inglorious work of rebuild. And on top of that, the LORD of Hosts also made several glorious promises about future glory of the temple, the nations, and a place of peace, w