This is your daily reminder. God has not run
out of mercy, not for you, not today. Welcome
to the New Mercies Podcast. Welcome back. Haggai
2 is once again our reading. It's the last time
we will read Haggai 2 together in this series
of our podcasting and our time together. I want
to encourage you today. You've been in Haggai
for the last couple of weeks. We've read chapter
1. We've read chapter 2. You've heard sermons
on chapter 1 and chapter 2 if you've been a part
of our church family and hearing it from the
pulpit. One of the things I want to encourage
you with today is something that is bigger than
maybe even our understanding. I'm going to share
some things today that I hope is encouraging
but also challenging. So I'm going to read just
a little bit of Haggai today, chapter 2. I encourage
you to read the whole thing one more time. I
know you say, well, I've read it three or four
or five times already. Can you not just let it
go? I want to encourage you today in specifically
a couple of verses, from verses 14 to 19. Now,
I've shared last week. that there's a moment
where he talks about, can one clean thing make
an unclean thing clean, right? Can a holy thing
make an unholy thing holy? We talked about some
of that. I share the analogy of two glasses of
water, right? One is muddy and dirty, one is
clean. Just because I pour clean water into the
muddy one doesn't make the muddy one clean. But
if I pour a dirty one into the clean one, the
clean one is now dirty, right? I'll give you
one other illustration today just because I like
illustrations. So imagine if you are sick and
I am healthy. If I come up and hug you, it doesn't
make you healthy, right? But what happens? It
could make me sick, right? It's just because
something is good doesn't mean you can be around
something that's bad. So here's what I want to
say. in our understanding of the scripture today.
As Haggai is delivering this message, from verses
10 to 19 specifically, there's another declaration
that God gives through Haggai. First off, I want
to say, when the word of the Lord showed up,
it's a huge deal. You always should pay attention
to it. We have this word with us. We have this
scripture that is sitting in all of our houses.
It's available to us on every device that we
have, and yet we just don't pick it up. We just
don't look at it. This is a big deal. Every scripture
is God -breathed. Whenever he opened his mouth
and he spoke through a prophet, it's a big deal.
We should always pay attention to it. So it says
he did this on this day. He named the day. Again,
I told you I love how he gives some dates. There's
some that correspond with Solomon's temple. There's
some that correspond with Leviticus and the feasts
that happen. All that is kind of wound tightly
through here. I shared a little bit of it yesterday
from the pulpit. Ultimately, what I want you
to see today is when Haggai starts talking about
this clean, unclean, holy, unholy, all those
pieces, he says this from verses 14 to 19. Listen
to what the Bible says. Then Haggai answered
and said, So is it with this people, and with
the nation before me, declares the Lord, and
so with every work of their hands. And what they
offer there is unclean. Now then, consider from
this day onward. Before stone was placed upon
stone in the temple of the Lord, how did you
fare? When one came to a heap of twenty measures,
but there were ten. When one came to the wine
vat to draw fifty measures, there were but twenty.
I struck you and all the products of your toil
with blight and with mildew and with hail, yet
you did not turn to me, declares the Lord. Consider
from this day onward, from the twenty -fourth
day of the ninth month, since the day the foundation
of the Lord's temple was laid, consider. Is the
seed yet in the barn? Indeed, the vine, the fig
tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have
yielded nothing. But from this day on, I will
bless you. I am very challenged, encouraged,
and convicted all at the same time by that text.
Here's why. He's just given an explanation, Haggai
shared, about the clean unclean, right? And the
people, no doubt, were saying, what does this
mean to us? Why does this matter to us? We understand
that whenever a garment that is holy or set apart
for a priest carrying something unclean, and
if it touches something else unclean, it's going
to make it unclean. We get that. What does that
mean to us? And here's what I think God is trying
to make sure the people understand. Haggai says,
that's what you're doing. Being unholy, you and
your sins are not going to allow something holy
to happen. He says, I want you to build this
temple, and I want you to build it in a way that
is holy. We sometimes will look and see. I will
share this, and I probably shouldn't, but I'm
going to anyway. A lot of times in churches,
we separate things a lot. For instance. we will
say, well, if it's something about the maintenance
of a building, that's not a spiritual thing.
So we're going to put that over to somebody else
that is an expert in that level, but it's not
spiritual. or we'll say if it's about this, it
is spiritual, so we need the people that are
really spiritual on this. We need the prayer
team to focus in on this, like this evangelistic
crusade or this thing that we want to do, this
missionary that we want to send out. That's a
spiritual thing, so we're going to put the prayer
and the emphasis and the fasting and all that,
we're going to put into that stuff because it's
spiritual and it's holy. But whenever it comes
to... painting a wall or upgrading something
or changing this or changing that or whatever.
Those aren't holy things. Those can be done by
absolutely anybody. Here's what the Bible is
saying. You realize this? Before stone was laid
upon stone. It all matters. Every bit of this
is spiritual. Now, I will say this. Last week,
we shared about how the Son of God was going
to walk through this temple, right? This is the
second temple. of the Jewish people. Now, Herod's
temple is the one in the New Testament that we
read of. It was this temple in another fashion,
and so it was the second temple. Most Jewish
people believe that. So here's what I know. The
Son of God is going to walk through this temple.
He's going to walk through this area, this place,
and the labors of these people are going to be
seen. Now, if you know that, my guess is you
should probably put some extra spiritual emphasis
into this. Here's what the Scripture teaches
from cover to cover. Seek first the kingdom of
God and His righteousness. righteousness. That's
what it said. Now, I know I'm quoting Matthew
chapter 6, but here's what the Bible is teaching.
Everything is spiritual. Everything. Now, you
may say, well, but me paying my taxes isn't a
spiritual thing. Me having to work on my car
is not a spiritual thing. Or me having to do...
Everything needs to be focused. You need to have
your heart in the right place whenever you do
anything. Anything. I try my best. If there's
something that needs to happen at the church
or if there's something that needs to happen
in somebody's life that seems a secular thing,
I pray about it. I do. Why? Because it matters.
Imagine this. You've got a job where you go and
you just do the same thing over and over again.
You work in a factory. You work at a machine
shop. You sell something. You name whatever it
is. Now imagine this. What if the presence of
God was with you while you did it? That changes
everything. It now becomes important. It now
becomes valuable. And you may say, well, the
presence of God really doesn't need to be in
this. Well, then you don't know what the presence
of God is. He tells his people, listen, is there
seed in the barns? Is there produce in the barns?
And you may say, well, but what does that even
mean? It means this was right after he's dating
it, right? This is right after a harvest time.
The barn should be full. Why are they not? Because
they've tried to separate God's work and their
obedience and their heart, right? So here's what
God's saying. I don't want you just to work on
my house. I want you to be in right relationship
with me while you work on this house. I want
you to be holy while you work on this house.
I want you to every morning when you wake up,
I want you to have your life aligned with mine
before you go and do these things. Is that how
we live our life today? I want to encourage you
in this. Haggai 2 is a beautiful chapter of Scripture.
It's a challenging chapter of Scripture. As we've
looked this text, if you read Haggai 2 again,
he tells us to kind of look back a little bit
at the Feast of Tabernacles and the time and
look back and see what's happened. Now he's telling
us to look within. He's saying, why are you doing
what you're doing? And are you doing it in a
way that honors me or not? Or are you just doing
it because it's the task? Look within. Look within
your heart and in your mind and the way your
motives are, the way your heart is aligned. Look
within. Now, as we keep reading in Haggai 2,
which we've done already this past last week
and did a little bit yesterday in our sermon
time together. But there's also a looking forward,
right? There's also a great blessing that comes.
And even this moment, he says, from this day
onward. I'm going to bless you. Why? Because
you're going to do it the right way. It's not
just about getting the right thing done. It's
about doing it the right way. The method matters.
And our method needs to be honoring to the Lord.