Latest / Chapel Talks / From Apathy to Zeal | Haggai 1:1-11 | Jonty Rhodes

Transcript

From Apathy to Zeal | Haggai 1:1-11 | Jonty Rhodes · Chapel Talks

0:00
Let me pray and then we'll turn our attention
0:01
to Haggai 1. Our Father, all good gifts come
0:04
from above and so we pray in your kindness you
0:06
would give us a good gift now of your spirit
0:09
in order that through him we might see your son,
0:12
that we might know more of his grace, more of
0:15
the faith and hope to which we're called. And
0:21
for this we pray with more zeal in the building
0:24
of your kingdom wherever our callings take us.
0:27
And this we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. I want
0:33
to suggest to you this morning that one of the
0:34
seven deadly sins has gone missing. One of the
0:37
seven deadly sins has gone missing and Haggai
0:39
has found it. Now I realise the seven deadly
0:42
sins are probably not quite where you might expect
0:45
a kind of reformed Presbyterian pastor to begin.
0:47
I realise they're not a strictly biblical concept
0:49
and yet there's much wisdom in them. There's
0:51
much wisdom in them. Pretty early on in the church's
0:55
history in the fourth century. There's a man
0:57
called Evagrius. And it was he who first came
1:01
up with a list. He had eight, in fact. And one
1:05
of them, one of Evagrius' list has more or less
1:07
disappeared from our kind of Christian vocab
1:09
in a way that the others, lust and gluttony and
1:11
pride, have survived. Evagrius noticed, particularly
1:15
when he walked among the desert fathers, those
1:18
strange characters who went out into the desert,
1:20
lived in cells and devoted their lives to reading
1:24
and meditating on scripture to prayer. He noticed
1:27
there was a particular demon that plagued him.
1:30
He became known after a while as the Noonday
1:33
Demon, because the middle of the day was a time
1:35
when this demon particularly struck. The Noonday
1:39
Demon was known as Acadia, or sometimes called
1:47
Acedia. It literally means lack of care. Down
1:50
the centuries, it turned into sloth. We now speak
1:53
of sloth, but that's not how it began. Acedia
1:57
struck these desert fathers when they were trying
2:01
in the morning to wake up and turn straight away
2:03
to prayer and meditation, and yet almost instantly
2:06
beginning to get distracted. So Vagris writes
2:10
about them being able to think about more or
2:13
less anything apart from the scriptures they've
2:14
just read. They'd get to the end of a section
2:17
and already the words had gone. They turned to
2:20
pray and they could think about anything except
2:22
what they were trying to pray about. And it's
2:25
almost comical if you read him. He describes
2:28
how they would look out the window in the hope
2:30
that someone might walk past their cells so they
2:32
could have a chat. He describes them dreaming
2:36
of where else they might be doing ministry. He
2:40
talks about them longing, if only I could be
2:42
doing a funeral, anything would be more interesting
2:44
than this. It's not that monks were lazy. That's
2:48
what sloth brings to mind, isn't it? It's not
2:51
quite laziness as apathy. A kind of spiritual
2:55
weariness. Spiritual weariness, apathy, acedia,
3:02
acadia, can strike even the busiest of people.
3:07
And that takes us, I think, to the world of Haggai
3:10
1. In this gathering, particularly given our
3:15
time constraints, I don't want to spend too much
3:17
time this morning on the context and the cast,
3:20
but just very briefly, so we're somewhere in
3:22
the right zone. We're there, verse 1, in the
3:25
second year of King Darius. It's actually 520
3:27
BC. So Haggai usually dates his prophecies very
3:31
specifically. That's the 29th of August, 520
3:33
BC. And God's people have returned from exile.
3:37
Remember the great commission of the Old Testament
3:39
at the end of the book of 2 Chronicles, where
3:42
in that great edict of return, the Jewish people
3:47
are sent back to rebuild the temple. That's extraordinary
3:52
language, actually. Very reminiscent of the end
3:55
of Matthew's Gospel. As the exiles return to
4:01
Jerusalem, what are they told to do? Well, here's
4:04
the words of King Cyrus, king of Persia. The
4:07
Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the
4:09
kings of the earth. And he's appointed me to
4:13
build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah.
4:16
Any of his people among you may go up and may
4:19
the Lord their God be with them. See the echoes
4:23
of the Great Commission? The Lord, the God of
4:26
heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the
4:28
earth. All authority in heaven and earth has
4:30
been given to me, Sir Jesus, centuries later.
4:35
Because I have this authority, what is Cyrus
4:37
sending the people to do? Go and build the temple.
4:40
What does Jesus send his disciples to do? Go
4:42
and build the church. Go and make disciples of
4:44
all nations. Go and build the temple of the Holy
4:46
Spirit. And even the promise. Or at least the
4:49
blessing. May the Lord their God be with him.
4:51
It turns into a promise with the Lord Jesus.
4:53
And I will be with you to the end of the age.
4:57
Those words should have been ringing in the ears
4:59
of the exiles as they returned home. But actually,
5:02
as the book of Haggai begins, we're maybe 16
5:05
or so years later. And although they've laid
5:07
the foundations, they've quit the job. They've
5:10
quit the job. And so we get the charge in verses
5:14
two through four. This is what the Lord Almighty
5:17
says. These people say the time has not yet come
5:21
to rebuild the Lord's house. Not yet, they say.
5:27
The Lord's house is the temple, obviously. We're
5:30
not ready yet to put our hands to the plough
5:34
and build his house. What have they been doing?
5:39
Verse three, the word of the Lord came through
5:41
the prophet Haggai. Is it a time for you yourselves
5:43
to be living in your paneled houses while this
5:46
house remains? 16 years or so of not laziness,
6:00
but apathy. They have been busy, haven't they?
6:03
The people of Haggai's day. They've been busy
6:05
building. They've been working hard. They've
6:07
been in many ways a success. They're living in
6:09
paneled houses. Almost every time that word comes
6:12
elsewhere in the Old Testament, it's used to
6:14
describe the temple, the building that Solomon
6:16
constructed. It's almost as if they built their
6:19
own temples and poured heart, soul, sweat into
6:23
that, but neglected the one temple that God called
6:26
them to build. Lazy? No. Apathetic? At least
6:35
to the things of God, yes. Underneath, Haggai
6:40
diagnoses their problem. Verse 7 and 8. This
6:46
is what the Lord Almighty says, give careful
6:48
thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains
6:52
and bring down timber and build my house so that
6:55
I may take pleasure in it and be honoured. Kind
7:00
of reverse engineer that verse a little bit.
7:02
What's it telling us? I mean, there's a command,
7:04
go get the timber, get building again, that's
7:05
obvious. But why haven't they been building?
7:10
Well, because they haven't been concerned, verse
7:13
8. with the glory of God and the pleasure of
7:16
God. But the whole point of building the temple
7:19
was it was meant to bring pleasure to God and
7:21
honour or glory to him. These things clearly
7:24
haven't been high up the priority list of God's
7:26
people. Not lazy, but apathetic, spiritually,
7:30
listless. There are a few ways to ruin a garden,
7:34
aren't there? I'm no gardener. And I think I've
7:38
probably done both ways of ruining the garden.
7:39
As a kid, I remember playing football with my...
7:41
sort of buddies over the road, constantly getting
7:43
told off by the neighbor for kicking football
7:44
into the daffodils. You can ruin a garden by
7:46
trampling all over the flowers. And actually
7:49
as an adult, I don't do that. I've not trashed
7:51
my own garden by running outside when my wife's
7:52
not looking and kind of shredding the roses and
7:55
skipping through the tulips. The way I ruin my
7:59
garden nowadays is just by ignoring it. Letting
8:02
the weeds grow, not mowing the lawn, leaving
8:05
it be. It's that problem that is infected. Haggai's
8:12
contemporaries. They're not anti -God. Haggai
8:17
is not a prophet like Jeremiah who has to rail
8:21
against idolatry. He's not like Hosea who has
8:24
to call out sexual immorality. Haggai's not like
8:28
Amos who has to put his finger on social injustice
8:31
in the nations around and even in God's own people.
8:34
Rather, Haggai looks at God's people and just
8:36
sees a kind of meh. Who cares? I've got things
8:42
to do. It's not high -handed rebellion, is it?
8:45
Verse two, it's not, we will not rebuild the
8:49
Lord's house, but not yet. Not yet. One of the
8:54
very few talks I can remember as a teenager,
8:57
to be able to go to Christian meetings, was part
9:01
of one talk I can remember. A little illustration,
9:03
obviously apocryphal, of... Three junior demons
9:07
at Temptor's College got a screw tape situation.
9:10
And the senior devil says, right, you're each
9:13
going out from here soon. You're graduating.
9:15
What are your plans? So the first devil puts
9:17
his hand up. The little junior demon puts his
9:18
hand up and says, well, I'm going to go and tell
9:20
my patient that there is no God. And the instructor
9:23
says, useless, useless. Deep down, everyone knows
9:26
there's a God. Fail. The second one says, well,
9:30
I'm going to tell my patient that there is no
9:33
hope. And the instructor says, well, it's better,
9:38
but still not great. The third devil puts his
9:42
hand up and says, I'm going to say there's no
9:44
hurry. Brilliant, says the senior devil, top
9:47
of the class. There's no hurry. There's no urgency.
9:51
Not yet. Not now. They're busy, but building
9:55
the wrong thing. If you've got children or maybe
10:00
just a grown up child and you're into Lego. My
10:03
kids are obsessed with Lego. There's a lot of
10:05
Lego masters in there, the TV show. You've seen
10:07
this bit like Bake Off, but with Lego. So the
10:09
beginning of every program, a challenge to say
10:12
you've got to build maybe an underwater scene
10:14
or a space station, whatever it may be. And over
10:18
the course of the next ridiculous number of hours,
10:20
10, 12 hours, whatever they get, the different
10:22
contestants construct these models. How do you
10:26
fail at Lego masters? You can fail just by building
10:28
a rubbish model. You could also fail by building
10:31
a brilliant model of the wrong thing. If the
10:34
judges asked for a Western scape and you build
10:39
a seaside scene, however brilliant it is, you
10:42
wasted your time and you will fall short. Of
10:46
course, people in Haggai have built busily, but
10:49
they're apathetic to the things of God. We're
10:56
going to minister very lightly to busy people.
10:59
Well, the two most common answers, whenever you
11:01
ask people, how are you doing? Two answers come
11:03
back so quickly. Either tired or I'm busy. Almost
11:07
always, isn't it? I'm tired or I'm busy. And
11:10
in some way, that's just kind of English, British
11:12
social discourse. That's fine. You don't have
11:15
to pick it all up. But we will minister to busy
11:16
people. We will be busy people. Part of our challenge
11:21
is to encourage people to be busy about the right
11:24
things. And not neglect. A concern, or rather
11:29
not to suppress, not to lose, that underlying
11:32
motivation for the honour of God and the pleasure
11:35
of God as his church is built. I think the strange
11:40
thing is that even ministry can do that to us.
11:42
Even ministry can do that to us. We can become
11:45
incredibly busy. We can be very hard working
11:51
at building ministries and yet have lost that
11:56
underlying desire to see God on earth. and to
11:58
bring in pleasure. There are many critiques of
12:05
modern ministry, aren't there? And sometimes
12:06
it feels like anybody feels like it can kind
12:08
of put their boot into ministers with soft targets
12:10
you can't strike back. But think of how the pastor's
12:16
study has become an office. Think of how much
12:18
easier you find it to answer emails than to pray.
12:23
Even ministry, building a slick ministry, putting
12:25
together a good CV, keeping the whole show on
12:27
the road, can slowly dull our appetite for seeing
12:31
God honoured and seeing God glorified. There
12:35
can be activity and busyness yet without the
12:38
Lord. Spiritual apathy, lack of zeal, infects
12:45
pastors and youth workers and missionaries as
12:48
much as it does congregation members. One of
12:52
the signs that very likely the Lord gives in
12:56
his kindness is a lack of fruit, a lack of watering.
13:01
Now, clearly, we're in the days of the old covenant.
13:02
And so for them, it's very literal. Verse six.
13:06
Keep careful thought your ways. Examine yourselves.
13:09
You planted much, but harvested little. You eat,
13:11
but never have enough. You drink, but never have
13:14
your fill. You put on clothes, but you're not
13:15
warm. You earn wages only to put them in a purse
13:18
with holes in it. Red Fed exhausted me earlier,
13:25
didn't we? Some of the laying out of the old
13:29
covenant, the Mosaic covenant. The blessings
13:31
are not coming in part because of Israel's unfaithfulness.
13:37
Verse 10. Therefore, because of you, the heavens
13:40
have withheld the dew and the earth its crops.
13:44
I call for a drought on the fields, the mountains,
13:46
on the gray, the new wine, the produce, on people
13:51
and livestock, on all the labor of your hands.
13:55
I don't need to tell you that they're under a
13:58
different covenant era, that things don't work
13:59
as literally with crops and grain and all the
14:01
rest. But a kind of dryness, a lack of fruit,
14:04
a lack of refreshing from heaven often comes
14:08
on the back of this acedia, this spiritual apathy.
14:14
And so how does the Lord use Haggai to change
14:19
them? How does he move them from A to Z, as it
14:21
were, from apathy to zeal? If you know the story
14:24
of Haggai, by the end of the book, they are building
14:26
again. The project gets back on the road. It
14:32
probably doesn't surprise you that part of the
14:34
reason for picking this passage this morning
14:36
is I've been thinking about Haggai a little bit
14:37
recently. I can't say it's totally fresh material,
14:40
I'm afraid, prepared for Oak Hill Chapel. But
14:42
one of the things I noticed in trying to do a
14:46
bit of work on Haggai is that I've got the impression
14:49
that people preach Haggai. in one of three, or
14:54
often three situations, A, B, C, or I started
14:57
to think there was A, B, C, let me skip A straight
14:59
to B, building project. You've got a building
15:01
project on, okay? And perhaps your congregation
15:04
are wealthy and you really want to go for it.
15:07
Okay, we need money. I've seen the hot tub on
15:09
your back lawn. Yeah, I've seen the nice carpet.
15:12
Give, give, give, give, give. When I was a curate,
15:15
my boss told me about his time actually as a
15:20
curate. And he said the vicar had sat at the
15:24
table in the PCC meeting and said, we need to
15:28
refurbish the church. And a congregation member
15:30
had said, oh, we're putting new carpets down
15:33
in our house. You can have the old ones. And
15:35
the vicar had said, oh, you're putting new carpets
15:36
down. Tell you what, you keep the old ones, we'll
15:38
have the new ones. Punchy. Not recommended, by
15:44
the way. Building projects. But you know, as
15:48
well as I do, that Haggai does not call us directly
15:50
to build physical buildings. That's the B, the
15:53
C. Crusades. Evangelistic crusades. It's getting
15:56
closer to the truth, isn't it? We build the church
15:58
as we do evangelism. We preach the gospel. Billy
16:00
Graham's in town and you want to whip everybody
16:02
up. Put your hands together. Come on, serve.
16:05
Put church higher up your priority list. It's
16:09
getting closer. I'm sure we're not totally sure
16:13
we're there. What about the A? I think sometimes
16:17
ministers preach Haggai when they're just angry,
16:19
just fed up with congregation. Come on, I've
16:23
asked for volunteers for the youth work and we
16:24
haven't got any. I've been preaching my guts
16:27
out and nothing. Why are you never inviting people
16:29
to Christianity Explored? Why is church half
16:30
empty on a Sunday? And Haggai becomes a book,
16:35
a useful tool for lashing the congregation. And
16:39
of course there is a call to repent in Haggai.
16:41
We don't want to avoid that. But Haggai 1 is
16:43
not just command. not just commands. And Haggai
16:48
1 is not just a story of apathy, is it? Haggai
16:53
1 is as full of zeal as it is apathy. The apathy
16:58
sits with God's people, but the zeal sits with
16:59
the Lord. The zeal sits with the Lord. If you
17:02
step back and say, what is it that God wants
17:04
building? He wants the temple building. What
17:06
is the temple? The temple, of course, is the
17:08
meeting place between heaven and earth. It is
17:09
a place where God and his people will meet. It
17:12
is a place where he will be able to gather his
17:14
people and they will be able to worship him.
17:18
Who desires that temple most in Haggai's one?
17:23
Not the people, but God. Heaven's desire to come
17:27
to earth far exceeds earth's desire to ascend
17:30
to heaven. And that's where we start seeing grace
17:33
in Haggai, isn't it? God desires to come down
17:37
and meet with this apathetic people. He could
17:41
have said to them, look, I've called you back
17:44
from exile. You've had this huge warning. I've
17:48
got you freed. You started and now yet again
17:52
you've turned your back on me and so I'm going
17:53
to leave you. But he doesn't. He calls them back
17:55
again. Why? Because he wants to dwell with them.
17:58
His desire for them far exceeds their desire.
18:02
For him. It's bizarre, isn't it? The one who
18:04
has nothing to gain has all the zeal. And the
18:08
ones who have everything to lose have sort of
18:10
apathy. But thank God it's that way around. God
18:14
is full of zeal to come and meet with his people.
18:19
We know how the story goes on. The temple is
18:22
built and it's no great shakes. And by the time
18:25
the Lord Jesus comes. God's people is every bit
18:28
as apathetic as ever they were in the days of
18:31
Haggai. And yet God's zeal remains, doesn't it?
18:36
The father's zeal to meet with his people, the
18:40
father's zeal for heaven and earth to be reunited
18:42
is shown in his sending of his son to earth.
18:46
The Holy Spirit's zeal to fill a people is seen
18:51
as he prepares a better temple, a true temple,
18:54
prepares. the body, the flesh of the Lord Jesus
18:57
in the womb of Mary, in order that there might
18:59
be a true, holy dwelling place on earth for God.
19:04
And God, the son of the Lord Jesus, his zeal
19:06
is shown, his passion for his people is shown
19:08
as he descends from on high and tabernacles among
19:12
us, dwells among us, as he assumes that flesh
19:15
to himself. Haggai is a Christmas reading. It's
19:18
not quite as out of place as it might be. Haggai
19:21
points us to the great temple. On it, the Lord
19:24
Jesus. Appropriately, Haggai's name means something
19:30
like my feast. If you were to read through the
19:33
rest of the book, there's all sorts of kind of
19:35
interesting crossovers with the feasts of the
19:36
Old Testament. Haggai speaks of Christmas. And
19:43
of course, Christmas, as ever, leads to Easter.
19:46
Even when the true temple comes, the holy temple
19:48
of the Lord Jesus himself, what do we do? We're
19:50
not just apathetic. But we destroy the temple.
19:55
Nebuchadnezzar destroyed one temple. The Romans
19:57
destroyed another temple in 70 AD. But all of
20:00
humanity gathers together in 33 AD to destroy
20:04
the real temple. It wasn't the nails and hammers
20:07
of the Romans in 70 AD, but the nails and hammer
20:10
of the centurion in 33 AD that tries to destroy
20:14
the real temple. Or it's apathy, but hatred.
20:19
And yet God's zeal to meet with his people continues.
20:23
The Lord Jesus, knowing what will happen, perseveres,
20:25
lays down his life. The temple is destroyed,
20:30
but yet built up again and built up again in
20:33
order that it might become far greater, in order
20:35
that the temple might be not simply his earthly
20:39
physical body, but might be the temple that stretches
20:40
to the ends of the earth, the temple of the Holy
20:42
Spirit, the church of all nations. And so. The
20:49
commands of Haggai 1 come to us, not as simply
20:53
go build the church, brute commands from heaven,
20:56
nor just a kind of, hey, sit back, I've got this,
21:02
but rather a promise of the Lord Jesus that I
21:05
will build through you. Matthew 16 comes before
21:08
Matthew 28, doesn't it? There's an insight for
21:10
you. Matthew 16 comes before Matthew 28. Matthew
21:12
28, we know, go make disciples of all nations,
21:15
but Matthew 16, I will build my church. And the
21:18
gates of Hades will not overcome it. Not go build
21:21
it for me. I will build. Now, he'll do it through
21:23
his church. But it's always the Lord Jesus who
21:25
is active in mission, in building, in any kind
21:29
of strengthening of the great structure that
21:31
is his church. God desires to be with his people.
21:40
If you want to move yourself from apathy to zeal,
21:42
if you want to spur your congregations and youth
21:45
groups and families. from apathy to zeal, then
21:49
we need to see his zeal every bit as much as
21:54
we need to hear his rebuke. Rebuke without the
21:57
passion, without the love, is just going to strike
21:59
fear. But when we see it in the context of his
22:02
overwhelming desire to descend, to dwell with
22:05
us, to call us to himself, we remember that this
22:08
is Yahweh, the Lord of hosts, the one who needs
22:11
nothing from us and can gain nothing from us.
22:14
And we know that... All he's doing ultimately
22:17
is giving. Yes, the glory is his. But it's not
22:21
an actual gain for God, is it? He is the blessed
22:25
God. He needs nothing from us, can gain nothing
22:26
from us. Who can give to God? The glory, the
22:30
praise, the honour is his, but the gain is all
22:31
ours. And so however hard your temple building
22:36
work is at the moment, ultimately, even the difficult
22:41
tasks are for your good. They're part of his
22:43
gift to you. And the reason he's called you to
22:48
it is because he knows and he desires to spend
22:52
eternity with you and with the people you serve
22:55
in order that it might be a blessed temple stretching
22:58
from east to west, north to south, with every
23:02
nation bowing before the Lord Jesus. Let's pray.
23:07
Father in heaven, we confess that very quickly
23:12
we move from zeal to apathy. It can't honestly
23:17
be said of us that zeal for your house consumed
23:20
us. Forgive us our sins, we pray. And we praise
23:24
you that we're saved, not by our zeal for you,
23:25
but by yours for us. So our hearts, this Christmas
23:31
again, we pray with the joy and wonder of seeing
23:36
the Lord Jesus coming to tabernacle among us.
23:39
And we pray that that love might drive us with
23:42
joy to call others to join this great temple
23:45
project. and to motivate those who are already
23:48
a part of your kingdom to work with ever more
23:52
zeal and to see your temple built and the nations
23:57
reached. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.