Today is the second Sunday of…  Advent.  Which for a lot of us means we’re trying to cram more stuff into our already overcrowded schedules and trying stay within budgets that are already overspent.

The reason that’s stressful is because it’s... stressful.  We know this.  It gets said because it’s true.

Someplace in all of that in the back of our overstressed minds - is the thought that we ought to be more focused on God and the real meaning of Christmas.  And when we can slow down enough to actually do that then we will.  So the last thing we need to hear is another guilt inducing sermon about messed up priorities and what we really should be focused on at Christmas.  Amen?

Point being - forget about guilt - is there any real help for us the midst of all that? 

Which is why last Sunday we began to talk about the sovereignty of God and stewardship. 

A steward being someone who manages someone else’s stuff.  God being the sovereign creator who entrusts us with His stuff - resources - to be used for His purposes.  Resources that get really stretched at this time of the year.  The big three resources that God entrusts to us:  our time, talent, and treasure.

Meaning that when we come to understand stewardship - to live as stewards of what the sovereign God entrusts us with - stewardship helps us to sort through all that and brings us to the kind of life that we long for.  The quality of life that can only be found when we’re living life God’s way - trusting God for everything and God is glorified.  Are we together?

Last Sunday we looked at the stewardship of time.  Today we’re coming to the stewardship of talent - what we do with who we are - our skills and talents and smarts.  Our brains and brawn or beauty.  Take your pick. 

We’re looking at the first chapter of Haggai - which is three books from the end of the Old Testament and three books before the New Testament.  Haggai is such a great book with a lot to say about trusting God and using our God given abilities. 

Group One:  In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest:  “Thus says the Lord of hosts:  These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.”

Group Two:  Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?

Group One:    Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts:  Consider your ways.  You have sown much, and harvested little.  You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill.  You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm.  And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.

Group Two:  Thus says the Lord of hosts:  Consider your ways.  Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord.  You looked for much, and behold, it came to little.

Group One:  And when you brought it home I blew it away.  Why?  Declares the Lord of hosts.  Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house.

Group Two:  Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce.  And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors.

Verses 1 to 11 are God’s Response To His People.  God evaluating and responding to how His are doing life.

Coming to verses 1 and 2 we need to get current with what’s happening with Haggai and God’s people.  

In 586 BC Nebuchadnezzar - Book of Daniel Nebuchadnezzar - in 586 BC Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem - destroyed the city - destroyed the temple Solomon had built - hauled God’s people off into exile - mostly to Babylon.

In 536 BC - 50 years after Nebuchadnezzar got through tearing up the place - 50 years later Cyrus - the Persian Emperor - who’d conquered Babylon - Cyrus issued a decree that allowed the Jews to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple.  We’re together?

The prophet Ezra - who lived at the same time as Haggai - Ezra - in Ezra chapter 1 - Ezra recorded Cyrus’ decree.  Follow me through this.  This puts in perspective a lot of what we’re looking at this morning. 

Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, “The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of earth and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.  Whoever there is among you of all His people, - meaning the Jews in exile - may his God be with him!  Let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel; - the Temple - He is the God who is in Jerusalem.  Every survivor, at whatever place he may live, let the men of that place support him with silver and gold, with goods and cattle, together with a freewill offering for the house of God which is in Jerusalem.”  (Ezra 1:2-4 NASB)

When God’s people were getting hauled off to Babylon God spoke through His prophet Jeremiah.  God told His people that 70 years would go by and then He - their God - was going to bring them back to the Promised Land.   Which God who is sovereign did - through Cyrus - exactly 70 years later.

God - Who is sovereign - gets a hold of the heart of this unbelievably powerful pagan emperor - gets Cyrus to acknowledge God’s sovereignty in front of his whole Empire - moves Cyrus to issue this decree to send God’s people back to Jerusalem to rebuild God’s Temple - and even gets Cyrus to call on people to finance the thing.

We’re together?  We need to be impressed by this.  This is a totally huge God is sovereign moment.  A huge moment in the history of God’s people.

And we know from history that God’s people responded how?  Mostly by choosing to stay in Babylon.

In 70 years of exile they’d gotten pretty comfortable in Babylon.  Set up businesses - built homes.  Only a handful of people went back.  Only a few priests.  Barely enough to run the temple even if they’d got it built.

Point being - the response of God’s people to this incredible movement of the sovereign God was a pretty pathetic - self-focused - rejection of what God had for them in favor of what they’d carved out for themselves in Babylon. 

So, looking at verse 1 - the Zerubbabel mentioned there would have been the civic leader of the group.  Joshua would have been the religious leader.  These are leaders of the group that goes back to Jerusalem to start working on the burned out shell of what was left of God’s Temple.  All of which takes place about 536 BC.  Hang on to that date.

That’s the back story.  The sovereign God is moving and only a few people are kinda following God’s lead.

So, moving forward in verse 1 - Darius is now the king.  The first day of the 6th month of the second year of Darius’ reign we know from historical records outside of the Bible - that date is August 29, 520 BC - a little over 2,536 years ago.

Doing a little math.  Group Zerubbabel and Joshua go back in 536 BC - subtract 520 BC - and 16 years have gone by since Zerubbabel and Joshua and company had returned to start work on the temple. 

Let’s process that.  16 years go by after this amazing decree by Cyrus - 16 years go by and now the sovereign God speaks to His people through Haggai - verse 2:  “These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.”

In fulfillment of His prophetic word - the sovereign God moves Cyrus - king of the known earth - to make this incredible decree - giving God’s people absolute freedom to return from exile and to rebuild the temple.  Puts at their disposal all the resources necessary to get the job done.  God enabling His people.

All that the sovereign God would be glorified - that the awesomeness of God would be declared through the work of God’s people.  16 years go by and the people are saying, “It’s not time to build yet.”

Question:  If not now, when? 

In verse 3 God goes on speaking through Haggai:  “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?” 

Reading through Ezra’s record of what was going on - probably - when God’s people first got back to Jerusalem - there was probably some initial excitement about rebuilding.  “It’s great to be in Jerusalem.  Let’s go build God’s Temple!” 

Maybe even there's some spiritual pride.  "We went back.  We're the one's who obeyed God."
 

But Ezra records - as the cost in materials went higher - as the resources dwindled - as the opposition from the people around them grew stronger.  As the reality of the task began to weigh them down.  Economically - politically - spiritually - as things started to get more difficult for them - and as they got more settled in Jerusalem - that initial excitement started to wane.

It wasn’t like they set out to stop working on God’s Temple.  It’s just that slowly other things became more important.

It’s not like any of us would deliberately choose to not obey God.  To not serve Him or use our abilities - brains and brawn or beauty - for His purposes and glory.  But, let’s be honest - sometimes slowly other things become more important.  We tend to get distracted.

It’s not like those other things are really bad things.  They could be really good things.  But if they’re distracting us from what God has for us then that’s not a good thing.

“Paneled” - verse 4 - paneled has the idea of wood paneling on the walls inside the house.  In a culture of homes built primarily out of rocks wood paneling would have been a pretty sweet upgrade.  Paneling also has to do with roofing - well constructed roofs on their houses - another upgrade.

These are pretty nice houses for people who arrived 16 years earlier as refugees coming to a decimated city.

Meaning they’d started building their own homes instead of God’s house.

There’s a rationality to that.  We can hear their brains spinning.  God certainly doesn’t wanting us living outside and maybe getting sick or worse and that all is going to keep us from building His Temple.  After all we gotta have a place to live. 

Which is true.  But, in contrast God describes His Temple as a ruin - an archeologist’s playground.  Indiana Jones and the Temple of God.

God’s people are working at upgrading their standard of living while 16 years later God’s temple is still a roofless burnt out shell.  God’s people are whining about how hard it is do what God sent them to do.  There’s other stuff that we need to take care of.  When the situation is right we’ll get to the temple.  But they never do.

We’re together?  They have all the sovereign God given skills and resources - the talents and abilities - to do what God enabled them to do.  Which is… build the temple.  But they’re not.  Why?  Because they’re focused on themselves - not God.

Looking around us - politically - economically - even spiritually - based on what can be our self-comfort focused assessment of our lives - with all the things that require our effort - our commitment - our talents and abilities - with all the options and opportunities that we can involve ourselves with and pour our brains and bodies into - sports - recreation - work - family - and so on - even church.

Honestly thinking all that through:  Question:  Is it ever the right time to do what God calls us to do?  Where what we commit ourselves to do - pour our energy into - is all about God and not us?

When God calls us to serve Him, He doesn’t need to first check and see if we have the brains and body to make that happen.  He’s already supplied the time and treasure and talent for whatever we need to do what He calls us to do - regardless of what we may run up against or have to run through or what pulls us in other directions. 

Just like God’s people back then - there will always be opposition against us - the struggle will always be too great - the funds in the bank account too meager - the outlook is grim - other matters that require our attention.  There will always be distractions - what too easily focuses our effort on us - and not God.

We need to be honest with ourselves.  It is way too easy for us to get off track distracted from living our lives focused on what God has enabled and called us to do.  To get focused on what’s tearing us a part - and stressing us out - and not on God and the life that He has for us to live.

So we all need to hear this - a great reminder reality check:  The stewardship of talent is the sacrificial surrender of all of our God given abilities to God in order for Him to accomplish through us what He has enabled and called us to do.

Verse 5.  Now therefore - because you guys have gotten way distracted by focusing on yourselves - Now therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, “Consider your ways!

“Consider your ways” is a Hebrew saying that means something like:  “Put your heart on your road.”

“Heart” in Hebrew is the word… “lebab.”  Let’s say that together:  “lebab.”  Both chambers engaged.  Heart meaning the core of who we are - what moves us deep within.

To put our heart on our road means - from the core of who we are - as we’re going down the road of life to think seriously about the road we’re on - the direction of our lives.  Where are we at?  Where are we going in life?  How’s that going?

Verse 6 is God’s “heart on the road” evaluation:  “People, let’s think seriously - honestly - about how your self-focused lives are going”

You have sown much, and harvested little.  You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill.  You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm.  And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.

Five points of evaluation:  First evaluation:  You have sown much, and harvested little.  A harsh reality check for an ag dependent people.  Lots of seeds being planted.  You’re working hard.  But the crop is really poor. 

Second evaluation:  you eat, but you never have enough - at least not enough to be satisfied.  You’re eating.  But you’re still hungry.

Third:  you drink, but you never have your fill.  Literally - it’s not enough to get drunk on.  No buzz.  The idea is that they got wine but it’s watered down.  Meaning they’re stretching it with water because there isn’t enough of it.

Fourth:  You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm.  What clothing you have doesn’t keep out the dampness of winter - the chill. 

Fifth:  he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.  Holes in the pockets that money slips through.  Whatever you’re earning you’re spending.  Your income is barely meeting expenses.

You’re living in really nice paneled houses but you’re coming up empty.  You’re working hard at working hard and going no where.

The point of God’s heart to heart with His people is that while God’s people are focusing on themselves - working hard at what they see as crucial to work hard at - tons of effort - talent - poured into what’s important to them - which are not bad things.  But they're coming up empty.  Nothing satisfies. 

“Consider your ways.”  Meaning:  “Think about it.”  “How’s that going for you?”  It’s not hard to imagine - because it would be so true for us - it’s not hard to imagine that God’s people coming up short are just feeling more frustrated - more depressed - more anxious - more stressed.

Like being in line of slow moving cars and all we want to do is to get where we’re going and we gotta deal with this one thing - we’re working hard at passing just one more car - dealing with one more issue - and then we can be cruising like we want to be.  But the head of the line some Eskimo with a dog sled up in Alaska.

There’s always one more thing.  No matter how many cars we pass we’re still not enjoying the ride.   

And even if we pass the Eskimo what’s the point?  So many people today are asking, “What’s the purpose in all this?” 

No wonder we’re stressing.

When we’re pouring our efforts into what we think satisfies us - working for ourselves and not God - focused on self - even if we get the great job and the paneled house - if our kids win the championship of the world - if our family and friends think well of us - if we meet everyone’s expectations - ultimately how satisfying is that?  Is that the direction of life we really want to keep going after?

God’s heart on the road with us.  How’s that going?

Verse 7:  Thus says the Lord of hosts:  Consider your ways.  Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord. 

God’s response?  “Get wood and start paneling My house.”  Put your efforts into what pleases God - what glorifies God.

Verse 9:  You looked for much, and behold, it came to little.  And when you brought it home I blew it away.  Why?  Declares the Lord of hosts.  Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. 

Some poor Hebrew farmer coming home with the harvest - a whole seasons worth of hard sweat and labor.  All the grain has been separated from the chaff.  Its all there ready to be put in the barn.  Then this amazingly powerful wind comes and in an instant just blows it all away.  Lot's of work coming up empty.

The farmer asks, “God why?  How could you let this happen?” 

Answer:  “Because My house is a ruin while you’re working at expanding yours.  You’re blowing it.  Pun intended.”

God’s response bottom line comes in verses 10 and 11:  Therefore because you’re working for yourself rather than working for Me - because of the emptiness of what you’re pouring yourself into - the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce.  And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors.

It’s because of us - working so hard to achieve what is so worthless - empty - fruitless - that God has called for all this to happen.  It’s harsh.  But it’s honest.  If it seems empty and stress inducing ongoing craziness - it is.  God is using that - trying to break though to our hearts and get our attention.

Bottom line of God’s response to His people:  Consider what you’re pouring your life into.  Pouring our lives into what is about us will never gain for us anything of lasting value.  It only produces what cannot satisfy our deepest needs.  Can we say massive stress?

But pouring ourselves - our God given abilities and talents - into what God gives for us to do - serving God - pleasing God - glorifying the sovereign God - all that produces what really is worth producing - what gives value and purpose and meaning to our lives.

Verses 12 to 15 focus on The Response Of God’s People To God. 

How did Gods’ people respond to God?  How should we respond?

Two responses...

First response:  They obeyed. 

Verse 12:  Then they what? obeyed the voice of the Lord their God.

“The Lord their God” is a phrase that contains two names for God:  “Lord” - “Yahweh” - “God” - “Elohim.” 

Yahweh is the name of God that was so holy that the Hebrews never wrote it down in case someone would read it and accidently speak it. 

Yahweh was originally written only with the consonants YHWH.  They left out the vowels so no one could correctly pronounce the name.  Which is why in years back it was mispronounced as Jehovah.  Today we know - because of later scholarship that the more probable pronunciation - adding the vowels - is Yahweh.

But back then the Hebrews - even though they wrote YHWH - when they came to those letters they would read it “Adonai” - which is Hebrew for Lord - which is how our English translation renders it.  And in caps so that when we read it Lord - “Adonai” - we know it’s really YHWH - “Yahweh”.

So “Lord” here is Yahweh - the name of God that describes the God who has always existed and will always exist.  The eternal self-existent holy God.

The name Yahweh also speaks of intimacy - relationship.  The always existing - eternal - God who has chosen His people - who chooses to reveal Himself to His people - who cares in a very special way for His covenant people - who redeems His people - out of their sins.

So the name Yahweh - brings to mind the awesome self-existent God - who has chosen to enter into an ongoing love relationship with His people.

Elohim - “God” - is the name describing God as the sovereign God of creation.  The God who speaks all things into existence by the power of His word.  He speaks and it is.  The God who created Adam and Eve.  Who - before creation was creation - knew each one of us - the days of our lives.  Who before creation was creation purposed to give us our abilities and skills - even the very purpose for our lives.

Elohim is the God who gives to His people all that they need to serve Him - enables and empowers them to service.  Who speaks to His people and calls them back to pour their lives out into the purposes for which He has created them.  To steward their lives according to what the sovereign God has called and enabled them to do. 

Putting those two names together is a reality check for doing life.  “Yahweh Elohim.”

“I am the self-existent eternal holy sovereign God who has created you and who has revealed Himself to you.  Who saves you and who gives meaning and purpose to your existence.  What do you mean by we’ll serve you as long as it doesn’t conflict with what else we’ve got going?”

Verse 15 tells us that on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month in the second year of Darius - which is barely three weeks after Haggai first hits them with God’s word - God’s evaluation - God’s people - civic leadership - spiritual leadership - everyone - big shots - little shots - double shots - they all come and work on the temple.

Why it took them three weeks we don’t know.  Probably it took that long to inventory their supplies - to assess and assign jobs - to dust off the plans.  Maybe it was basic getting organized.  Maybe they repented - prayed - worshiped.  We don't really know all of what they did.  But 3 weeks is a whole lot shorter than 16 years.  Yes?

Point was that they obeyed.  They did a 180° turn of direction - without hanging on to bits and pieces of what they’d been working at.  “Well maybe God wouldn’t mind if I gave Him 80% of my life.  I’m still waxing the chariot on Tuesday even if it does conflict with setting up the scaffolding.” 

They gave themselves totally to serving God - Yahweh Elohim - with their lives - all that He had given them - according to His purposes.

Second response - verse 12 - They showed reverence.  Reverence is honor - respect - worship - coming from the heart.

Verse 12:  “And the people feared the Lord.” 

“Feared” translates the Hebrew word “yare”.  It has the idea of standing in awe of - of reverence - honor - praise - surrendered worship - standing in awe before God.  Literally in astonishment of the unproccessable majesty of Who God is.

The Hebrew name for Lord - all caps - is... Yahweh.  They obeyed Yahweh Elohim - the Lord their God.  But notice - they had reverence for Yahweh - emphasis Yahweh.  Do you see the difference there?  That difference is significant.

Rebuilding the temple is a whole lot more than just arranging rocks and installing wood paneling.  Even more than doing all the sacrifices and offerings.  The temple is about our hearts - “lebab” - about relationship.  God’s people in relationship with Yahweh - the eternal God who chooses to bring glory to Himself by forgiving and caring for and enabling His covenant people.

Notice verse 13.  When God’s people obey God and show Him reverence the Lord - Yahweh - declares, “I’m with you.”  “With” means together “with” them - location.  Yahweh right there with His people.  And in the Hebrew “with” also means to protect and provide for.  These are Yahweh’s people that He’s with.  That’s a tight intimate relationship.

Are we seeing together what we’re being shown here?

God’s people - when we - from the heart - pour out our lives into what God gives us to do - regardless of what the opposition - the obstacles - or other opportunities - regardless of the distractions - when we will use the abilities and skills that God has given to us - trusting God by pouring out our lives into what God has for us to do - God is pleased - God is glorified.  And we experience life lived tight - intimately - with the living God.  A totally satisfying life full of what we crave in life at the deepest heart level.

Processing all that… 

Last week I had lunch with a friend of mine who’s father passed away recently.  My friend was sharing that after his mother had passed his father had poured himself into the Bible - reading and studying.  Over and over reading through and studying through the Bible.  What for 10 years had kept him focused on his relationship with Jesus.  What God has used to help him to go forward in life - even after the loss of his wife.

A few months before my friend’s father passed he was told that he could no longer live on his own.  So he moved into an assisted living home where he had a roommate.

His roommate’s understanding of Christianity was more cultural rather than relational.  His understanding of being a Christian was because of the family that he’d been born into and because of doing some Christian religious things.  Meaning his roommate had yet to come to a personal saving faith relationship with Jesus.

My friend’s father’s eyesight being really bad at this point gave his roommate his Bible to read to him.  Which he did.  The roommate reading through the Bible out loud to my friend’s father.  Over and over again. 

One day my friend’s sister and her husband came to visit their father and the roommate wanted to talk to them.  So they turned from talking with their father to listen to the roommate who told them, “When your father first got here and asked me to read his Bible to him I didn’t believe in what the Bible said.  It was just stories to me.  I want you to know that now I believe what it says about Jesus and what He’s done for me.”

The sister and her husband turned to backed to their dad.  Praise God!  Right?  But, he’d already passed.  Just maybe, what God had for him to do there was done.

“Vocation” comes from a Latin verb that means “to call.”  Each of us has a vocation given to us by the sovereign God.  He calls us to be His people - to obey Him - to reverence Him - to glorify Him - pouring ourselves into serving Him with our lives - stewardship of who we are. 

We may be a student - or a teacher - or a wife - a mother - a husband - a father - a sibling - a whatever.  We may have 30 kids or 300 grand-kids or be a single adult.  We may be old.  We may be young.  Or someplace in between.  Our job may change.  Or we may move someplace else far away from here.  Our situation may change economically.  Something may happen to us physically.  We may be in an assisted living place.  But our vocation is always the same.

God’s call to serve Him isn’t about professional Christians.  Super equipped and called Christians.  God’s call is to people like us.  And let’s be honest the reason that makes us squirm just a tad and we might allow ourselves to be distracted is because we know that what God calls us to is not easy and we got nothing.

Except what God has enabled us with.

And that’s huge.  God knows what we got.  He gave it to us.

Here’s the take home:  God has called you to great opportunities to serve Him - opportunities that are way more significant and satisfying than the stuff we get caught up with at this time of the year - or any time of the year.

So, will you?  Will you trust that God is sovereign and pour yourself into serving Him with everything that He has purposefully blessed you with?

_________________________

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®  (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.