Text:  Haggai 1: 2-14

There are times in our lives when people who care call on us to stop and think about what we’re doing or not doing.  Maybe our mom or dad, a close friend, or someone we work with.  They speak up because they care.  Son, think about what you’re doing.  Here is such a time described in the book of Haggai.

This past week our Meditations were based on this reading.  We don’t hear much from the prophet Haggai.  Some of us may not even know it’s a book in the Bible.  But it is.  Haggai is one of the minor prophets, not minor because of its importance.  We call it minor because the book is shorter than say Jeremiah.

Well here the Lord urges his people through Haggai. He urges them to stop, think, look around and reflect.  Give careful thought to your ways.  Good advice for us all these years later.  Good advice for us Christians who can also fall into the same rut as these folks.  So today we sit at the feet of God’s prophet whose words we do well to listen to.  Maybe we’re not so glad to hear them, but they come to us from God’s own heart, He says to us:

“Give careful thought to your ways”

            Seventy years of exile in a foreign land called Babylon.  Seventy years in captivity the people had brought on themselves.  But now God’s sentence had run its course.  In 536 before Christ, God arranged the pieces on the world’s chessboard so his people could return home.

The first sight of Jerusalem must have been a terrible disappointment to those returning.  The once proud walls of the city were now a heap of rubble.  The temple, a massive pile of blackened stones and debris.  But they got to work.  They gave both the sweat of their brow and money from their pockets.  By the seventh month they had done enough to set up the altar of burnt offering.  And soon they would rejoice that the foundation of God’s house was laid.

We meet these same people fifteen years later.  What progress have they made?  None.  They are still not worshipping in a temple.  Everything had ground to a halt.  They lost their desire, their zeal to build that temple of the Lord. They were neglecting God’s church.

The Lord was not at all pleased.  Listen to how he speaks  of them.  These people, he calls them. “These people say, ‘The time has not yet come for the Lord’s house to be built.’ And remember they had done nothing for 15 years.

Well not quite nothing.  ³ Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: ⁴ “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your panel houses, while this house remains a ruin?”  It seems they had their priorities turned around.  They had all kinds of time to feather their nest, to build the dream home, but no time to rebuild the temple.  They were neglecting God’s church.

⁷ This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. ⁸Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the Lord. Think about what the Lord says there. When I read that verse the word pleasure stands out for me.  What does our Lord take pleasure in?  Let him tell us.  I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that they turn from their evil ways and live.  Let our Lord tell us.  There is great rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents.  Well the temple was the place where sinners like you and me could return to the Lord.

And more than that God tells his people here in Haggai:   the temple was to be the place where the Christ, our Savior would come and fill his house with glory.  He did.  The Son of God did when he came to the temple especially the last time.  For he had come to Jerusalem not just to celebrate the Passover.  He had come to go to a cross where he would lay his life for you and me.   But there needed to be a temple

And in this place, the Lord says, I will grant peace. Think of that peace the Lord wanted to give there.  Peace to weary souls.  Peace to broken hearts.  Peace to those afraid of death.  Peace in the Savior to come, the Savior who has come.   But they were neglecting God’s church.  They were too busy with their own homes, their own lives.

It seems to me there is something to be learned here.  I remember my professor talking about growing up in a farm town of Minnesota.  He said, back then the homes were modest.  But the church was the nicest building you ever entered.  One day, word came that aunt so and so had installed wall to wall carpeting in one of her rooms.  And everyone wondered if Aunt so and so had lost it.  The only place that had carpeting then was God’s house, God’s church.

What’s my point?  Not that carpeting is wrong.  Not that living in a nice house is wrong.  But what about God’s house?  Are we neglecting God’s house?  For our building and grounds make a statement.  What do they about us?  But more important what do they about our Lord and what happens here? So give careful thought to your ways.  Are we neglecting God’s church?

Yet there’s something even more important than a framed building.  There something more important than neat, well kept grounds.  For God’s church is about people.  People that Jesus shed his blood for.  People in here who know the Lord and people who don’t yet know him.  God’s church is about people, sometimes very broken people who need the hope that only the Lord can give. God’s church is about people who we are to love and serve.  It’s about people who need you to lead them to know what Jesus has done for them. That’s the real building God wants us to do.  So give careful thought to your ways.  Are we/you neglecting God’s church?

It was easy to see that neglect in Jerusalem.  A foundation and nothing more for fifteen years.  It’s easy to see that neglect among us.  When the grounds look bad and worse than that when we say nothing of Jesus to our friends and our community.  When we have no mission, no purpose, no zeal to reach the lost.

Well just like anything else.  Neglect has consequences.

We see it here with these people.  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 his own house.  Neglect has consequences.  Here the Lord made those consequences felt in their everyday life.  The rains did not come.  The fields did not produce what they hoped for.  Their money did not go very far.  It was never enough.

What about us?  Have we become like these people?  Too busy for God’s church.  Too caught in our own lives to serve our brothers and sister in Christ. Have we lost the zeal we once had to hold up Jesus to this dying world? When was the last time you invited someone to God’s house?  You can probably remember when you invited someone to your house.  What about God’s?

Neglect has consequences.  In our lives, in our church.  God is not absent or indifferent.  Neglect has consequences.  Whoever sows sparingly will reap sparingly.  And one consequence I pray is never the case.  What Jesus warned the church in Laodicea. I am about to spit you out of my mouth.  So let us give careful thought to our ways.

It’s a wonderful story of what followed.  Things turned around.  Then Zerubabel, we‘re told.  Can you say that?  Then Joshua.  I know you can say, Joshua.  They had been the leaders when the temple was begun 15 years before.  I wonder how it felt to see that project lay undone day after day, year after year. Just a foundation and nothing more.

But what are we told?   The people, their leaders feared the Lord.  They received Haggai’s message as God’s Word. The Holy Spirit stirred their hearts to believing action.  So they got back to building God’s church after that long lay off. They realized: now is the time to build.  Now is the time to build God’s house, God’s church.

Notice what the Lord said to encourage them. I am with you.  One reason the people had stopped was that they feared their enemies. Their enemies wanted the Jews to remain weak. But the Lord almighty promised them, I am with you.  His temple would stand to assure them that the Lord of heaven and earth was with them.

We have no temple to remind us that the Lord is with us. We have something far better.  We have the Son of God who became our human brother.  The Lord is with us.  As our brother, He lived for us, then suffered and died for us.  Yes, his enemies destroyed that temple of his body.  But then, then he rose from his grave.  He raised that temple.  And now we can know:  our sins are forgiven.  Heaven is our home.  Yes in Christ, our God and brother, the Lord is with us.

So give careful thought to your ways.  Your life, your priorities, the use of your time and money. For now is the time to build. Not a building here in Windsor/Petaluma.  For the church is about people.  Reaching people in the same condition as we once were.

A nurse told me this story some time ago. A person came into the hospital for care.  She had cancer and part of her leg amputated.  But that wasn’t the worst of it.  There were maggots crawling out of the bandage on her leg.  Could anything be worse than that?

Yes, the lost, broken, dying people all around us.  People with souls, souls meant to live, but now infested with the maggots of sin and unbelief.  Are we reaching them with Jesus?  Are you reaching them with Jesus?  Give careful thought to your ways.  For it’s time, the Lord tells us.  Now is the time to build.   Amen.

May it be said of you.  They feared the Lord and He stirred their hearts to serve.  Amen