Sermon Central
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Everyday Prophets - Haggai Series
Contributed by Brady Boyd on Mar 4, 2021 (message contributor)
Summary: Haggai is written 60 years after the Israelites have been in captivity in Babylon. The Babylonian empire was in decline and now the Persians were the dominant force. The Persians allowed the Jewish people to return to Jerusalem, which was in ruins.
Everyday Prophets – Haggai
March 7, 2021
Haggai is written 60 years after the Israelites have been in captivity in Babylon. The Babylonian empire was in decline and now the Persians were the dominant force. The Persians allowed the Jewish people to return to Jerusalem, which was in ruins.
Haggai 1:3-9 NIV
Then the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai: 4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?” 5 Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. 6 You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.” 7 This is what the LORD Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. 8 Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the LORD. 9 “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?” declares the LORD Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house.
Haggai is a prophecy about misplaced priorities.
Haggai 1:14 NIV
“So the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of the whole remnant of the people. They came and began to work on the house of the LORD Almighty, their God.”
When the Spirit stirs us, we start working on the right things.
The Spirit helps us reshape holy and healthy habits.
In a sense, we’re returning from our own exile.
What are the priorities for us today?
1. Pay attention to the health of our souls.
We’ve all experienced fatigue this past year.
We’ve all experienced loss this past year.
2. Come alongside God in his work through the local church.
Story of us vigilantly guarding Sundays for church.
Every Christ follower mentioned in the New Testament belonged to a church.
We cannot be fully mature followers of Christ without the community of the church.
Every church is incomplete. All congregations are broken and sometimes messy.
“The fleas come with the dog.” Eugene Peterson
The world divides us into opposing groups, but the church unites us.
Sin separates us, fragments us, sentences us to isolation and solitary confinement. The Church restores us, unites us and sets us in community.
Galatians 3:28 NIV
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave or free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
We instead of me.
Us instead of I.
Our instead of mine.
We, Us, and Our.
Haggai 2:4b-5, 9 NIV
Be strong, all you people of the land,’ declares the LORD, ‘and work. For I am with you,’ declares the LORD Almighty. 5 ‘This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt. And my Spirit remains among you. Do not fear.’ 9 ‘The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,’ says the LORD Almighty. ‘And in this place, I will grant peace,’ declares the LORD Almighty.”
