Walking and Working by Faith (Haggai 1–2)

Neglected worship rarely starts as open rebellion. More often, it looks like a busy schedule, a comfortable home, and a quiet decision to delay what God told us to do. As we open the Book of Haggai, we watch that exact drift happen in post-exilic Judah and then hear God confront it with a surgeon’s precision: you can panel your house while His house lies in ruins, but you cannot do it without spiritual cost. 

We trace the setting in 520 BC under Persian rule, with Zerubbabel leading and Joshua serving as high priest, and we follow Haggai’s four sermon messages as the work of rebuilding the temple restarts. There is rebuke for wrong priorities and the drought-like effects of disobedience, but there is also strong encouragement for weary hands: “Be strong… work, for I am with you.” That promise of God’s presence is the engine of perseverance when results feel small. 

Then Haggai lifts our eyes to the long view of biblical prophecy. The promised glory, the peace that has not yet come, and the signet-ring promise to Zerubbabel all point forward to Jesus Christ, the Messiah from David’s royal line, and to His future reign. If you’re trying to stay faithful in ordinary work that feels like “no glory,” this wisdom journey reframes your labor with eternal weight. 

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Transcript

Rebuke And Encouragement

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The Apostle Paul once wrote to his co-worker and spiritual son in the faith, a young pastor named Titus, and he told him to exhort and rebuke with all authority in Titus 2.15. Now, Paul was reminding Titus that the work of the ministry involves boldly confronting people for their disobedience, for their indifference, but it also involved exhorting, encouraging people to keep going, to continue on in their service for the Lord. The truth is, we need both in our lives today, don't we? In fact, God's people have always needed both rebuking and encouraging as they walk with God. Well, today in our wisdom journey we come to the little prophecy of Hagai, and we find this prophet practicing those very things in his ministry. He lived nearly six hundred years before the apostle Paul wrote that letter to Titus, but he's about to say essentially the same thing. Here's how the book begins in verse 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 Hagi the prophet, to Zerubbabel, the son of Shaltiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehosadak, the high priest. There's a lot of information crammed into that opening verse, isn't there? So let me try to simplify it. Darius here is the Persian king Darius II. The date is very specific. It's the first day of the sixth month. It's in the year 520 BC. Now this tells us that Haggai's ministry is taking place after the Babylonian exile. Remember, the southern kingdom of Judah had been conquered by the Babylonians, and most of the people had been taken into exile there in Babylonia. Well, the Persians eventually conquered the Babylonians, and they encouraged the Jewish captives to go back to their homeland. They'd been away from Jerusalem now for around seventy years. So the first group of people returned under the leadership of Zerubbabel, whom the Persians had appointed governor of the land. The Book of Ezra, by the way, fills in all those details for us, telling us how under Zerubabel's leadership the construction of a new temple in Jerusalem began. It isn't long before the surrounding people begin opposing this project, and the work on the temple stops. Well, fifteen years go by, and now the prophet Haggai begins to preach. He's calling the people to go back to work on rebuilding the temple of God. So here we are now at the book of Haggai, which gives us the sermon transcripts of his messages. Now Haggai is going to deliver four sermons, and the first one is a message of rebuke. The people are neglecting the temple construction, and here in verse 2, Haggai quotes the Lord who says, These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord. Verse 4 is a stinging rebuke as God says, Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies in ruins? Well, they had evidently decided comfort was more important than temple worship. Worship should have been their priority, and the Lord is now disciplining them for their wrong priorities. Verse 6 tells us that they are suffering now from lack of food and water and clothing and money, God says here in verse 11, He called for a drought on the land and hills. So by withholding his blessing, these physical blessings, God Himself is rebuking them for giving priority, you know, to paneling their living rooms while ignoring the house of God. And let me tell you, you know, we we see that same attitude to this very day, don't we? I can resist that in my own life, having wrong priorities. Now, verse 8 sums up this first sermon from Haggai. 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. Now Haggai actually has a responsive audience here. Verse 12 tells us the people obeyed the voice of the Lord their God. So now with that we have Haggai's second sermon. This comes a month and a half later. It's one of encouragement for those who've returned to the work. Listen to these words of the Lord through Haggai, chapter two and verse four. Be strong, O Zerubul, declares the Lord. Be strong, O Joshua. Be strong, O you people of the land. Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts. I love this picture here. The Lord is cheering them on in their efforts. He's encouraging them with a promise of his presence so that they don't give up again. And with that, the Lord is going to make some amazing prophecies concerning the temple. Now they are, they're going to be distant. This is a distant future promise. They have yet to be fulfilled, beloved, to this day. But he begins here in verse six with this promise I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land, and I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory. Verse nine. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts, and in this place I will give you peace. Did lasting peace come to the Middle East? No. Has it come yet? No. This is a promise of the coming millennial kingdom and that glorious temple that will be rebuilt in that day. So the Lord is encouraging these people with the assurance that this temple they're working on isn't just for them. Ultimately, it points to the coming of Christ and his future kingdom, which will be a kingdom of peace. Well, now the third message of Haggai has a similar theme. It begins here in verse ten, and it reminds the people of the consequences of disobedience. Then here in verses twelve through seventeen, he draws an illustration from the ceremonial system in which an unclean person pollutes everything he touches. In other words, he's telling them to be careful of compromise, be careful of sin as they serve the Lord. You know it's especially easy to walk away from the Lord when you're discouraged by the lack of results like these people here struggled. Here are these people working on the temple, they're not seeing much progress at all. This is a big task. So the Lord encourages them that while they don't yet see the reward of their labor, they need to keep pressing on, and they press on with this promise from the Lord. Here it is in verse 19. The Lord says, I will bless you. In other words, I am with you. And that's a lesson for us all today. We walk by faith. We even work by faith for the Lord, even if sometimes we don't see many results, and frankly, often we don't. Well, let me tell you, beloved, there's something to remember. The work you're doing today for Christ, no matter how small or insignificant it might seem, it will have an eternal impact for his glory in ways we can't see either. Frankly, most of the time it just seems like work and no glory, just more dirty dishes or runny noses or one more lesson planned. But God's word promises in 1 Corinthians 15 58 to be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. Now with that the fourth sermon begins, and it's here in the closing verses of the book of Haggai. Here's God's message through his prophet. It concludes here in verse 23. On that day declares the Lord of hosts, I will take you, O Zerubul, my servant, and make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you. Again, this looks forward to the future when Jesus Christ returns to earth, when the kingdoms of this world will be overthrown. But there's also a promise here to make Zerubabel on that day like a signet ring. A signet ring refers to the authority of a king. But how is Zerubabel going to have royal authority way into the future of the millennial kingdom? He ain't gonna live that long, and besides, isn't Jesus Christ the one who reigns as king? Yes. Well here's the answer. Zerubabel is a descendant of David. He's in the royal family tree. Zerubbabel's descendant is Jesus, the Messiah. So Zerubbabel here becomes a representative of that royal messianic line. See, this is a promise that Zerubbabel's descendant, the Messiah, will reign as Israel's future king. This is an amazing prophetic encouragement to these people rebuilding the temple in Haggai's day. They are participating in something that will reach its final glory in the future reign and rule of the descendant of Zerubbabel, the Messiah. See, the promises of God reach all the way out into eternity, but they motivate us to serve him today, to serve him as our king today. May our hearts be his palace grounds today. Until our next wisdom journey together, beloved, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.