Let me pray and then we'll turn our attention
to Haggai 1. Our Father, all good gifts come
from above and so we pray in your kindness you
would give us a good gift now of your spirit
in order that through him we might see your son,
that we might know more of his grace, more of
the faith and hope to which we're called. And
for this we pray with more zeal in the building
of your kingdom wherever our callings take us.
And this we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. I want
to suggest to you this morning that one of the
seven deadly sins has gone missing. One of the
seven deadly sins has gone missing and Haggai
has found it. Now I realise the seven deadly
sins are probably not quite where you might expect
a kind of reformed Presbyterian pastor to begin.
I realise they're not a strictly biblical concept
and yet there's much wisdom in them. There's
much wisdom in them. Pretty early on in the church's
history in the fourth century. There's a man
called Evagrius. And it was he who first came
up with a list. He had eight, in fact. And one
of them, one of Evagrius' list has more or less
disappeared from our kind of Christian vocab
in a way that the others, lust and gluttony and
pride, have survived. Evagrius noticed, particularly
when he walked among the desert fathers, those
strange characters who went out into the desert,
lived in cells and devoted their lives to reading
and meditating on scripture to prayer. He noticed
there was a particular demon that plagued him.
He became known after a while as the Noonday
Demon, because the middle of the day was a time
when this demon particularly struck. The Noonday
Demon was known as Acadia, or sometimes called
Acedia. It literally means lack of care. Down
the centuries, it turned into sloth. We now speak
of sloth, but that's not how it began. Acedia
struck these desert fathers when they were trying
in the morning to wake up and turn straight away
to prayer and meditation, and yet almost instantly
beginning to get distracted. So Vagris writes
about them being able to think about more or
less anything apart from the scriptures they've
just read. They'd get to the end of a section
and already the words had gone. They turned to
pray and they could think about anything except
what they were trying to pray about. And it's
almost comical if you read him. He describes
how they would look out the window in the hope
that someone might walk past their cells so they
could have a chat. He describes them dreaming
of where else they might be doing ministry. He
talks about them longing, if only I could be
doing a funeral, anything would be more interesting
than this. It's not that monks were lazy. That's
what sloth brings to mind, isn't it? It's not
quite laziness as apathy. A kind of spiritual
weariness. Spiritual weariness, apathy, acedia,
acadia, can strike even the busiest of people.
And that takes us, I think, to the world of Haggai
1. In this gathering, particularly given our
time constraints, I don't want to spend too much
time this morning on the context and the cast,
but just very briefly, so we're somewhere in
the right zone. We're there, verse 1, in the
second year of King Darius. It's actually 520
BC. So Haggai usually dates his prophecies very
specifically. That's the 29th of August, 520
BC. And God's people have returned from exile.
Remember the great commission of the Old Testament
at the end of the book of 2 Chronicles, where
in that great edict of return, the Jewish people
are sent back to rebuild the temple. That's extraordinary
language, actually. Very reminiscent of the end
of Matthew's Gospel. As the exiles return to
Jerusalem, what are they told to do? Well, here's
the words of King Cyrus, king of Persia. The
Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the
kings of the earth. And he's appointed me to
build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah.
Any of his people among you may go up and may
the Lord their God be with them. See the echoes
of the Great Commission? The Lord, the God of
heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the
earth. All authority in heaven and earth has
been given to me, Sir Jesus, centuries later.
Because I have this authority, what is Cyrus
sending the people to do? Go and build the temple.
What does Jesus send his disciples to do? Go
and build the church. Go and make disciples of
all nations. Go and build the temple of the Holy
Spirit. And even the promise. Or at least the
blessing. May the Lord their God be with him.
It turns into a promise with the Lord Jesus.
And I will be with you to the end of the age.
Those words should have been ringing in the ears
of the exiles as they returned home. But actually,
as the book of Haggai begins, we're maybe 16
or so years later. And although they've laid
the foundations, they've quit the job. They've
quit the job. And so we get the charge in verses
two through four. This is what the Lord Almighty
says. These people say the time has not yet come
to rebuild the Lord's house. Not yet, they say.
The Lord's house is the temple, obviously. We're
not ready yet to put our hands to the plough
and build his house. What have they been doing?
Verse three, the word of the Lord came through
the prophet Haggai. Is it a time for you yourselves
to be living in your paneled houses while this
house remains? 16 years or so of not laziness,
but apathy. They have been busy, haven't they?
The people of Haggai's day. They've been busy
building. They've been working hard. They've
been in many ways a success. They're living in
paneled houses. Almost every time that word comes
elsewhere in the Old Testament, it's used to
describe the temple, the building that Solomon
constructed. It's almost as if they built their
own temples and poured heart, soul, sweat into
that, but neglected the one temple that God called
them to build. Lazy? No. Apathetic? At least
to the things of God, yes. Underneath, Haggai
diagnoses their problem. Verse 7 and 8. This
is what the Lord Almighty says, give careful
thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains
and bring down timber and build my house so that
I may take pleasure in it and be honoured. Kind
of reverse engineer that verse a little bit.
What's it telling us? I mean, there's a command,
go get the timber, get building again, that's
obvious. But why haven't they been building?
Well, because they haven't been concerned, verse
8. with the glory of God and the pleasure of
God. But the whole point of building the temple
was it was meant to bring pleasure to God and
honour or glory to him. These things clearly
haven't been high up the priority list of God's
people. Not lazy, but apathetic, spiritually,
listless. There are a few ways to ruin a garden,
aren't there? I'm no gardener. And I think I've
probably done both ways of ruining the garden.
As a kid, I remember playing football with my...
sort of buddies over the road, constantly getting
told off by the neighbor for kicking football
into the daffodils. You can ruin a garden by
trampling all over the flowers. And actually
as an adult, I don't do that. I've not trashed
my own garden by running outside when my wife's
not looking and kind of shredding the roses and
skipping through the tulips. The way I ruin my
garden nowadays is just by ignoring it. Letting
the weeds grow, not mowing the lawn, leaving
it be. It's that problem that is infected. Haggai's
contemporaries. They're not anti -God. Haggai
is not a prophet like Jeremiah who has to rail
against idolatry. He's not like Hosea who has
to call out sexual immorality. Haggai's not like
Amos who has to put his finger on social injustice
in the nations around and even in God's own people.
Rather, Haggai looks at God's people and just
sees a kind of meh. Who cares? I've got things
to do. It's not high -handed rebellion, is it?
Verse two, it's not, we will not rebuild the
Lord's house, but not yet. Not yet. One of the
very few talks I can remember as a teenager,
to be able to go to Christian meetings, was part
of one talk I can remember. A little illustration,
obviously apocryphal, of... Three junior demons
at Temptor's College got a screw tape situation.
And the senior devil says, right, you're each
going out from here soon. You're graduating.
What are your plans? So the first devil puts
his hand up. The little junior demon puts his
hand up and says, well, I'm going to go and tell
my patient that there is no God. And the instructor
says, useless, useless. Deep down, everyone knows
there's a God. Fail. The second one says, well,
I'm going to tell my patient that there is no
hope. And the instructor says, well, it's better,
but still not great. The third devil puts his
hand up and says, I'm going to say there's no
hurry. Brilliant, says the senior devil, top
of the class. There's no hurry. There's no urgency.
Not yet. Not now. They're busy, but building
the wrong thing. If you've got children or maybe
just a grown up child and you're into Lego. My
kids are obsessed with Lego. There's a lot of
Lego masters in there, the TV show. You've seen
this bit like Bake Off, but with Lego. So the
beginning of every program, a challenge to say
you've got to build maybe an underwater scene
or a space station, whatever it may be. And over
the course of the next ridiculous number of hours,
10, 12 hours, whatever they get, the different
contestants construct these models. How do you
fail at Lego masters? You can fail just by building
a rubbish model. You could also fail by building
a brilliant model of the wrong thing. If the
judges asked for a Western scape and you build
a seaside scene, however brilliant it is, you
wasted your time and you will fall short. Of
course, people in Haggai have built busily, but
they're apathetic to the things of God. We're
going to minister very lightly to busy people.
Well, the two most common answers, whenever you
ask people, how are you doing? Two answers come
back so quickly. Either tired or I'm busy. Almost
always, isn't it? I'm tired or I'm busy. And
in some way, that's just kind of English, British
social discourse. That's fine. You don't have
to pick it all up. But we will minister to busy
people. We will be busy people. Part of our challenge
is to encourage people to be busy about the right
things. And not neglect. A concern, or rather
not to suppress, not to lose, that underlying
motivation for the honour of God and the pleasure
of God as his church is built. I think the strange
thing is that even ministry can do that to us.
Even ministry can do that to us. We can become
incredibly busy. We can be very hard working
at building ministries and yet have lost that
underlying desire to see God on earth. and to
bring in pleasure. There are many critiques of
modern ministry, aren't there? And sometimes
it feels like anybody feels like it can kind
of put their boot into ministers with soft targets
you can't strike back. But think of how the pastor's
study has become an office. Think of how much
easier you find it to answer emails than to pray.
Even ministry, building a slick ministry, putting
together a good CV, keeping the whole show on
the road, can slowly dull our appetite for seeing
God honoured and seeing God glorified. There
can be activity and busyness yet without the
Lord. Spiritual apathy, lack of zeal, infects
pastors and youth workers and missionaries as
much as it does congregation members. One of
the signs that very likely the Lord gives in
his kindness is a lack of fruit, a lack of watering.
Now, clearly, we're in the days of the old covenant.
And so for them, it's very literal. Verse six.
Keep careful thought your ways. Examine yourselves.
You planted much, but harvested little. You eat,
but never have enough. You drink, but never have
your fill. You put on clothes, but you're not
warm. You earn wages only to put them in a purse
with holes in it. Red Fed exhausted me earlier,
didn't we? Some of the laying out of the old
covenant, the Mosaic covenant. The blessings
are not coming in part because of Israel's unfaithfulness.
Verse 10. Therefore, because of you, the heavens
have withheld the dew and the earth its crops.
I call for a drought on the fields, the mountains,
on the gray, the new wine, the produce, on people
and livestock, on all the labor of your hands.
I don't need to tell you that they're under a
different covenant era, that things don't work
as literally with crops and grain and all the
rest. But a kind of dryness, a lack of fruit,
a lack of refreshing from heaven often comes
on the back of this acedia, this spiritual apathy.
And so how does the Lord use Haggai to change
them? How does he move them from A to Z, as it
were, from apathy to zeal? If you know the story
of Haggai, by the end of the book, they are building
again. The project gets back on the road. It
probably doesn't surprise you that part of the
reason for picking this passage this morning
is I've been thinking about Haggai a little bit
recently. I can't say it's totally fresh material,
I'm afraid, prepared for Oak Hill Chapel. But
one of the things I noticed in trying to do a
bit of work on Haggai is that I've got the impression
that people preach Haggai. in one of three, or
often three situations, A, B, C, or I started
to think there was A, B, C, let me skip A straight
to B, building project. You've got a building
project on, okay? And perhaps your congregation
are wealthy and you really want to go for it.
Okay, we need money. I've seen the hot tub on
your back lawn. Yeah, I've seen the nice carpet.
Give, give, give, give, give. When I was a curate,
my boss told me about his time actually as a
curate. And he said the vicar had sat at the
table in the PCC meeting and said, we need to
refurbish the church. And a congregation member
had said, oh, we're putting new carpets down
in our house. You can have the old ones. And
the vicar had said, oh, you're putting new carpets
down. Tell you what, you keep the old ones, we'll
have the new ones. Punchy. Not recommended, by
the way. Building projects. But you know, as
well as I do, that Haggai does not call us directly
to build physical buildings. That's the B, the
C. Crusades. Evangelistic crusades. It's getting
closer to the truth, isn't it? We build the church
as we do evangelism. We preach the gospel. Billy
Graham's in town and you want to whip everybody
up. Put your hands together. Come on, serve.
Put church higher up your priority list. It's
getting closer. I'm sure we're not totally sure
we're there. What about the A? I think sometimes
ministers preach Haggai when they're just angry,
just fed up with congregation. Come on, I've
asked for volunteers for the youth work and we
haven't got any. I've been preaching my guts
out and nothing. Why are you never inviting people
to Christianity Explored? Why is church half
empty on a Sunday? And Haggai becomes a book,
a useful tool for lashing the congregation. And
of course there is a call to repent in Haggai.
We don't want to avoid that. But Haggai 1 is
not just command. not just commands. And Haggai
1 is not just a story of apathy, is it? Haggai
1 is as full of zeal as it is apathy. The apathy
sits with God's people, but the zeal sits with
the Lord. The zeal sits with the Lord. If you
step back and say, what is it that God wants
building? He wants the temple building. What
is the temple? The temple, of course, is the
meeting place between heaven and earth. It is
a place where God and his people will meet. It
is a place where he will be able to gather his
people and they will be able to worship him.
Who desires that temple most in Haggai's one?
Not the people, but God. Heaven's desire to come
to earth far exceeds earth's desire to ascend
to heaven. And that's where we start seeing grace
in Haggai, isn't it? God desires to come down
and meet with this apathetic people. He could
have said to them, look, I've called you back
from exile. You've had this huge warning. I've
got you freed. You started and now yet again
you've turned your back on me and so I'm going
to leave you. But he doesn't. He calls them back
again. Why? Because he wants to dwell with them.
His desire for them far exceeds their desire.
For him. It's bizarre, isn't it? The one who
has nothing to gain has all the zeal. And the
ones who have everything to lose have sort of
apathy. But thank God it's that way around. God
is full of zeal to come and meet with his people.
We know how the story goes on. The temple is
built and it's no great shakes. And by the time
the Lord Jesus comes. God's people is every bit
as apathetic as ever they were in the days of
Haggai. And yet God's zeal remains, doesn't it?
The father's zeal to meet with his people, the
father's zeal for heaven and earth to be reunited
is shown in his sending of his son to earth.
The Holy Spirit's zeal to fill a people is seen
as he prepares a better temple, a true temple,
prepares. the body, the flesh of the Lord Jesus
in the womb of Mary, in order that there might
be a true, holy dwelling place on earth for God.
And God, the son of the Lord Jesus, his zeal
is shown, his passion for his people is shown
as he descends from on high and tabernacles among
us, dwells among us, as he assumes that flesh
to himself. Haggai is a Christmas reading. It's
not quite as out of place as it might be. Haggai
points us to the great temple. On it, the Lord
Jesus. Appropriately, Haggai's name means something
like my feast. If you were to read through the
rest of the book, there's all sorts of kind of
interesting crossovers with the feasts of the
Old Testament. Haggai speaks of Christmas. And
of course, Christmas, as ever, leads to Easter.
Even when the true temple comes, the holy temple
of the Lord Jesus himself, what do we do? We're
not just apathetic. But we destroy the temple.
Nebuchadnezzar destroyed one temple. The Romans
destroyed another temple in 70 AD. But all of
humanity gathers together in 33 AD to destroy
the real temple. It wasn't the nails and hammers
of the Romans in 70 AD, but the nails and hammer
of the centurion in 33 AD that tries to destroy
the real temple. Or it's apathy, but hatred.
And yet God's zeal to meet with his people continues.
The Lord Jesus, knowing what will happen, perseveres,
lays down his life. The temple is destroyed,
but yet built up again and built up again in
order that it might become far greater, in order
that the temple might be not simply his earthly
physical body, but might be the temple that stretches
to the ends of the earth, the temple of the Holy
Spirit, the church of all nations. And so. The
commands of Haggai 1 come to us, not as simply
go build the church, brute commands from heaven,
nor just a kind of, hey, sit back, I've got this,
but rather a promise of the Lord Jesus that I
will build through you. Matthew 16 comes before
Matthew 28, doesn't it? There's an insight for
you. Matthew 16 comes before Matthew 28. Matthew
28, we know, go make disciples of all nations,
but Matthew 16, I will build my church. And the
gates of Hades will not overcome it. Not go build
it for me. I will build. Now, he'll do it through
his church. But it's always the Lord Jesus who
is active in mission, in building, in any kind
of strengthening of the great structure that
is his church. God desires to be with his people.
If you want to move yourself from apathy to zeal,
if you want to spur your congregations and youth
groups and families. from apathy to zeal, then
we need to see his zeal every bit as much as
we need to hear his rebuke. Rebuke without the
passion, without the love, is just going to strike
fear. But when we see it in the context of his
overwhelming desire to descend, to dwell with
us, to call us to himself, we remember that this
is Yahweh, the Lord of hosts, the one who needs
nothing from us and can gain nothing from us.
And we know that... All he's doing ultimately
is giving. Yes, the glory is his. But it's not
an actual gain for God, is it? He is the blessed
God. He needs nothing from us, can gain nothing
from us. Who can give to God? The glory, the
praise, the honour is his, but the gain is all
ours. And so however hard your temple building
work is at the moment, ultimately, even the difficult
tasks are for your good. They're part of his
gift to you. And the reason he's called you to
it is because he knows and he desires to spend
eternity with you and with the people you serve
in order that it might be a blessed temple stretching
from east to west, north to south, with every
nation bowing before the Lord Jesus. Let's pray.
Father in heaven, we confess that very quickly
we move from zeal to apathy. It can't honestly
be said of us that zeal for your house consumed
us. Forgive us our sins, we pray. And we praise
you that we're saved, not by our zeal for you,
but by yours for us. So our hearts, this Christmas
again, we pray with the joy and wonder of seeing
the Lord Jesus coming to tabernacle among us.
And we pray that that love might drive us with
joy to call others to join this great temple
project. and to motivate those who are already
a part of your kingdom to work with ever more
zeal and to see your temple built and the nations
reached. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.