A New House, A Fresh Start

0 · The preacher greets the congregation, provides personal context about his ministry role and ordination journey, invites prayer, and transitions the congregation into the sermon by framing the service as formative discipleship shaped by Scripture

Good morning, Cross of Grace Church. So good to be with you all today. My name is Sal Valenzuela, and I have the privilege of serving on staff full time here as a church plant resident. I'm continuing my journey through the ordination process and preparing for my next two exams. So thank you so much for just all the encouragement and prayers and support you guys have poured out on me and my family. Please continue to pray for us. We definitely need those prayers. And before we jump in, I was just thinking this week about how much I personally have been discipled. Just by showing up on Sundays to Cross of Grace, the word of God has shaped our services in a very real way.

And it's not just through the sermon, but through the whole flow of. Of the service from start to finish, from our call to worship to the songs we sing, to how we're sent out. I just really appreciate, and I'm deeply grateful that it's the scriptures that are doing the forming in our lives and not our preferences or personal ideas. And I'm just. I was just meditating on that this week, and I'm so grateful for it.

So with that being said, if you could take your copy of God's Word and open it up to the book of Haggai, chapter 2, verses 10 to 23, as we'll be looking at this morning, to bring our time together in Haggai to a close. And if you don't have a Bible, you know, at Cross of Grace, we believe in being generous and we have Bibles that you can take advantage of and don't feel bad to get up once they start reading. You can get up so nobody will look at you. But we have Bibles in the connect room over there on the back table that are free. You know, you're not checking them out like a library or renting them.

We'll gift them to you. So if you want to join along and you don't want to have to mooch off your neighbor, you can go grab a Bible. If you don't know what that means, it's like when you're stealing people's WI Fi, park outside your neighbor's house and just got an unsecure network. Start mooching off their WI Fi. Get your own connection to God's word.

Grab a copy over there. All right, so Haggai, chapter two, verses 10 to 23. And as we read this, let's remember that this is God's word, verse 10. On the 24th day of the ninth month in the second year of Darius. The word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, Ask the priests about the law. If someone carries holy meat in the fold of his garment and touches with his fold bread or stew or wine or oil or any kind of food, does it become holy? The priests answered and said, no. Then Haggai said, if someone who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean? The priests answered and said, it does become unclean.

Then Haggai answered and said, so it is with this people and with this nation before me, declares the Lord. And so with every work of their hands, and what they offer there is unclean. Now then, consider. From this day onward before stone was placed upon stone in the temple of the Lord, how did you fare? When one came to a heap of 20 measures, there were but 10. When one came to the wine vat to draw 50 measures, there were but 20. I struck you and all the products of your toil with blight and with mildew and with hail, yet you did not turn to me, declares the Lord.

Consider, from this day onward, from the 24th day of the ninth month, since the day that the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid. Consider, is the seed yet in the barn? Indeed the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate and the olive tree have yielded nothing. But from this day on, I will bless you. The word of the Lord came a second time to haggai.

On the 24th day of the of the month, speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I am about to shake the heavens and the earth and overthrow the throne of kingdoms. I am about to destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations and overthrow the chariots and their riders, and the horses and their riders shall go down everyone, by the sword of his brother on that day, declares the Lord of hosts, I will take you, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel, declares the Lord, and make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you, declares the Lord of hosts.

1 · The preacher addresses God directly in an opening prayer, acknowledging total dependence on God for effective preaching and asking for blessing on both the proclamation and reception of the Word

Father, I humble myself before you and ask for your help to preach today. I recognize that apart from you, I can do absolutely nothing. We are totally dependent on you. Please bless the hearing of your word and the preaching of your word in the strong name of your son Jesus. Amen.

2 · A personal story establishes the sermon's central analogy: the preacher's attempt to build a brick walkway during the pandemic, which required expert correction from his wife's uncle when he discovered he was working hard but building misaligned

Well, during the pandemic, like a lot of people, I caught the home improvement bug. Yeah, everyone was upgrading their backyards, building things, fixing things, and I decided I was going to do a little DIY landscaping project myself. I wanted to build a brick walkway in our backyard. Nothing fancy, just a clean, solid path. My wife's uncle is an expert landscaper and bricklayer. He's really good at it.

And so there was this pile of bricks at my mother in law's house. It has like an acre and a half or something like that. She had a big pile of bricks, pretty nice and like, we should do something with those. They've been sitting there for years. And she's like, you can take them, you can have them.

So we loaded them up in my father in law's truck, drove it over to my house and thought, this is perfect, we'll make a little brick pathway. So with him being an expert and my wife's uncle being really good at all this, he would come after working full days in the heat and he would still come over in the evenings and stand in the yard with me and just tell me how to get started. And just so you know, it's really hard work if you've never done that before. I was thinking I just put the bricks on the ground and we're good to go. But apparently I had to dig out.

I can't remember the exact measurements don't come for me. Landscapers. I don't know if it was a foot or two feet, but I was like, I have to dig. So I had to measure the path of my walkway, dig out all this dirt, and then kind of use this big old square stamping thing. And after that I had to go get sand.

And I'm pretty sure I broke something on my father in law's truck. I'm not an expert mechanic either, so I don't know if it was the shocks or the strut. I don't know what it was, but it was broken. After they loaded that sand in the back of his truck, took it over to our house and then started pouring the sand in the path that I had dug out. And then I got to water it and then I got to take that big old square thing and go at it again.

And it's quite a process. So he was coaching me though, the expert, and he was telling me what to do and I was following his instructions. And almost immediately I ran into a problem. Several problems, One of them being my knees. As I was on the hot ground in my elbows and I would wearing shorts.

This was like in June or July and I'm just like cutting up, bleeding, bruising, getting calloused out there trying to lay the bricks and. And I realized getting a brick path straight and level is harder than it looks, especially level. It's not just left and right for the brick. It's not just front to back. It's depth, it's slope, it's three dimensional.

But I'm working hard, I'm sweating, I'm making progress because, see that brick path coming along, brick after brick. And a few days in, maybe a day or two in, he comes to check on me in the evening, and he's like, what are you doing? Do you need knee pads? Do you not have knee pads? And I'm like, this is great.

I didn't know how I was going to continue working on this path, so I put on knee pads. Like, wow, this is great. I can really go at it now. I was just, you know, need to ground here. Then a couple days later, he comes and checks again.

He looks at the path and he kind of starts squinting. He doesn't. He's looking at it, and he doesn't raise his voice. He doesn't shame me, thankfully, but he stops me and very kindly says, you know that it's not straight or level, right? And I'm like.

I'm thinking, and I've done a pretty large chunk of this. What do you mean? It's not straight and it's not level? So I'm thinking, oh, man, I've done quite a bit of this. I'm gonna have to undo some of it.

So he starts showing me the things that he does that I wasn't doing. How he checks for alignment, how he checks level, other tools that he's using that he uses, and the angles that he watches. And so I really promise you I wasn't being lazy and I wasn't rushing. I wasn't even ignoring his instructions. I just didn't know what I didn't know.

I was working hard, but I was building it wrong. And the longer I kept going like that, the worse the problem was going to be. So that moment taught me something that goes far beyond landscaping. You can work hard, you can make progress and sincerely try to build something good and still be fundamentally misaligned. And when that happens, the most loving thing an expert can do is stop you.

Not to shame you, but to save you.

3 · The preacher pivots from the brick walkway illustration to the sermon's main text by summarizing the narrative arc of Haggai 1-2: God exposed misplaced priorities, stirred hearts, commanded building, and now interrupts the work three months in to address a deeper heart problem beneath their obedience

That's what's happening in our text today in Haggai 2, the portion we just read. But let's quickly recall, since we're closing out the book, I think it'd be helpful to retrace what we've seen so far. At the beginning of the book, God's people are functionally oblivious They've returned from exile. They're building their own homes, they're settling their lives.

And the house of the Lord sits unfinished. So God speaks. He exposes their misplaced priorities, and the people listen. Then something remarkable happens. The Lord, the Lord stirs their hearts.

Leaders and people respond together. They pick up tools, they start building. But as the work goes on, discouragement sets in. The house looks small. The glory seems unimpressive.

So God speaks to them again and says, be strong, work. I am with you. And now here in this portion of haggai, the people are doing exactly what God told them to do. God's people are rebuilding the house of the Lord, and they've been at it for about three months. So thankfully, my wife's uncle didn't come at me three months later and was checking on me periodically.

They've been working for three months. Stones are being stacked. Progress is visible. Worship is happening again. And yet God interrupts them because something deeper is still wrong.

They've changed their behavior, but God is after something deeper than and behavior. They've returned to the work, but they still need renewal at the level of their heart.

4 · This unit establishes the sermon's controlling theological claim through exposition of Haggai 2:10-14

And what I hope we see in the text today, that only God can make us clean and give us a fresh start in true blessing. And that's what haggai is getting at in our portion of the text today. Only God can make us clean and give us a fresh start in true blessing.

So let's take a look at our text this morning in three sections. First section we'll look at is in verses 10 to 14, new house that they're building. Same problems. Look at verse 10 and hopefully you don't get lost here. Stick with me.

On the 24th day of the ninth month in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet. Thus says, lord of hosts, ask the priests. Lord goes to the leadership of the people, ask the priests about the law. If someone carries holy meat in the fold of his garment and touches his fold, bread, or stew or wine or oil or any kind of food, does it become holy? The priests answered and said, no.

Then Haggai said, if someone who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become clean? The priests answered and said, it does become unclean. And then Haggai answered and said, so it is with this people and with this nation before me, declares the lord. And so with every work of their hands, and what they offer is unclean. Okay, so what's, what's interesting here?

About this is that we might be thinking, well, we've never put holy, you know, meat in our, in the fold of our, of our garments. I don't think I could fit a, a piece of steak in here if I, if I tried, right? So don't get, don't get lost with what the word of the Lord is saying. As the people are rebuilding the house of the Lord, God interrupts them with a surprising question. He tells Haggai to ask the priests about the law.

And this is something that they're well versed in because they know if you read Leviticus, chapter 11 to 15, you'll find all the stresses and importances of clean versus unclean. So these guys are experts at the law, or should be. And he's basically getting at this. If something holy touches something common, does holiness spread? And the priests answer, no.

And that answer is correct. If something unclean, though, touches something else, does uncleanness spread? And the answer is yes, uncleanness does spread. And then God delivers the diagnosis of the deeper heart level problem. Verse 14.

So it is with this people. The point is basically that holiness does not transfer by being close or by proximity. Being near sacred things does not undo sin. Religious activity cannot cleanse a heart. Only God can do that.

They are doing the right work, but they are in danger of trusting the work itself. And this is not a new danger for the people. If you recall, before the exile, God confronted the same mistakes to the prophet Jeremiah. The people stood in the temple and assumed that because God's house was there, they were safe. They trusted the presence of the building instead of a right relationship with the Lord himself to make them right.

That false confidence led them into judgment. So here we are now, after the exile, as the temple is being rebuilt, God sees that same assumption starting to form again. They have a new house going up, but the same old temptation underneath it. And God loves them enough and is kind enough to interrupt them. The portion of the text presses on us as well.

It dismantles at least three dangerous assumptions. This portion we just read, it dismantles three assumptions. Number one, obedience without repentance is acceptable. Obedience without repentance is acceptable. Before the Lord.

Obedience is important. Don't hear me say obedience is not important. It is, but without repentance, it's not acceptable. Assumption number two, proximity to holy things will produce holiness in us.

Proximity to holy things will produce cleanliness. That's a false assumption that this text is getting at. A third one. Religious effort can make us clean before God. It cannot Religious effort does not have a cleansing power.

And this is what the Lord is getting at in this text. So maybe according to the Sal living translation, which is not the best translation or to be recommended, but I'll take a stab at it. Maybe the question for us would be like this, church involvement automatically make us faithful. What is my response to the wonderful ministry of the church? Whether it's the ministry I sit under or the ministries I serve in, what is the fruit that that is producing? And I remember when I was in my early twenties and the Lord first arrested my heart and I got into reformed theology, I wasn't saved in my twenties, but the Lord did a big reforming work in my early 20s. And when I was all into it and I had my favorite preachers lined up and stacked up, I was like, john Piper is my man, and R.C. sproul and Sinclair Ferguson and Kevin DeYoung.

These are my boys. These are my teachers. I would say Paul, but that doesn't count because he's in the Scriptures. But I remember comparing notes with other people, with other Christians, with other guys, and be like, yeah, that's who I listen to. This is the teaching I listen to.

It's good and it's sound and it's solid and these guys are awesome. And I was really proud of that. I was really proud to have my doctrine dialed in because it hadn't been dialed in for a long time. And I was really happy. And I used to wear that as a badge of honor.

But you know what I realized is that, man, what fruit is that producing though?

What kind of fruit is that producing? That's great that I'm listening to solid teachers again. It's not a knock against them. I still love those brothers and I still listen to them a lot. But what is the fruit that is being produced in my life from listening to them?

The Lord would challenge me. That's not a badge of honor that you're under their teaching. The badge of honor is that you're aligned with me. Brothers and sisters, we must be aware that it is possible to have all the right forms and to yet have hearts given to idolatry. The Apostle Paul reminds us, second Timothy three, five, when he's diagnosing a problem in his day, that we can have the appearance of godliness but deny its very power.

Right? I think that's what the Lord is getting at here. And once God exposes the danger of their heart level problem, he invites reflection. Because after reading a portion like this, the real question is, are we content with external Formality? Or are we looking for real renewal from God himself?

5 · The preacher exposes Haggai 2:15-19, tracking the threefold repetition of 'consider' (a Hebrew idiom meaning 'set your heart on this') and God's invitation to look backward at covenant discipline (frustrated harvests, barren labor) in order to understand the present rightly

And to answer that question, God calls his people to look honestly at their past so they can understand why life has been barren and why real blessing must come from him alone. So let's look at the second section, verses 15 to 19. A new house, a fresh start. And count with me how many times you see the word. Consider there, verse 15.

Now then, consider from this day onward, before stone was placed upon stone in the temple of the Lord, how did you fare? When one came to a heap of 20 measures, there were but 10. See, they were expecting more. They came for 20. They there was only 10 measures.

When one came to the wine vat to draw 50 measures, there were but 20. So they came expecting more. 50 measures, but it's like there's only 20. And this is something the Lord addressed in chapter one. It's like you have holes in your bags, right?

I struck you and all the products of your toil with blight and with mildew and with hail, yet you did not turn to me, declares the Lord. Consider from this day onward, from the 24th day of the ninth month, since the day the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid. Consider is the seed yet in the barn indeed the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate and the olive tree, they've yielded nothing. When the Lord is giving them this word, there's still no yield that they're looking for. But from this day on, he makes a declaration.

I will bless you. Now, what happens in this sec. This section of the text is simply amazing. And it's amazing because we see the purpose behind why God exposes their condition and their error. And this is something we need to be convinced of when we preach the gospel too.

I don't want to jump too quickly to that, but it's helpful for the Lord to do this. It's kind. When the Lord exposes us, it's not like it sounds so bad, right? Got exposed. That should be ashamed.

I should. You know, when the Lord does that, that's the Lord being kind. How unkind of Christie's uncle to have watched me do the whole path and be like, well, that's wrong. I'm grateful for that interruption. And we should be, too.

And in this portion, it highlights the heart behind God's exposing that they're unclean. He exposes them for the sake of blessing them. And man, who in this room does not want a blessing? If you raise your. You don't want a blessing.

Because if you don't man, let's meet. Please, let's meet over here. I think everybody wants a blessing, right? And you know what's amazing? You want a blessing for your life.

God wants to bless you more than you want a blessing.

God does something very, very pastoral with his people here. He tells them at least three times to consider. He means to tell them to pay attention and look carefully. Now, in English, this could get lost. So I think it'd be helpful to clarify because we just read the word consider, right?

But it's a. It's actually a Hebrew idiom that means set your heart on this. And you would never get that from consider, right? But it's a Hebrew idiom that that means set your heart on this. He invites them to look backward honestly, so they can understand their present situation rightly and just start meditating even now.

In your heart and your mind, what have you set your heart on, friend? What are you considering in your life? What are you paying attention to?

Before they began rebuilding the temple, life was marked by frustration. Their labor didn't produce what they expected. And in verse 17, God makes clear, I struck you, yet you did not turn to me. This was not by chance. It wasn't random hardship that they were suffering.

It was covenant discipline meant to bring his people back to Him. But notice what God is doing here. He's not rubbing their failure in their faces. He is reinterpreting their own idea of their obedience. He is helping them see that rebuilding the temple was never a way to.

To earn blessing, but a response to grace. And that is why verse 18 is so important from this day onward. This is a covenant turning point. Nothing in their circumstances has changed just yet. The seed is still in the barn.

The trees are still barren. But God declares a fresh start that only he can give. And it's so kind that the Lord does this before he blesses them. He. He sets their.

Their. Their. Their way of thinking in their hearts, in the right place, lest they think something differently. And then comes one of the most gracious promises in the book. But from this day on, I will bless you.

Blessing here is not defined by immediate prosperity, but by restored relationship. It flows from God's initiative, not their effort, from his promise, not their performance. Because they've had effort at building the temple. They've been laying the stones. They have performance there in their minds.

And recall that from the beginning of this book, it's the Lord that's stirring them. Had the Lord not stirred them, they would have never begun to build in the first place. You see, God's desire to bless them. It's the reason why he began to stir them from the very beginning of this book. It's important to remember as we look at this again and I'm not knocking obedience, I'm putting it trying to frame it biblically. Obedience is the response to grace.

It's not the currency that earns it.

Obedience is an expression of trust in God and it's not a bargaining tool.