Deo Gloria
Sermon for November 3, 2024
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: Haggai 1:1-11
Theme: Giving to God Doesn’t Make a Bit of Sense!
- God makes “much” into “little.”
- God makes “nothing” into everything.
“It just doesn’t make sense.” We know 1+1=2, but there are plenty of times in life when the numbers just don’t seem to add up. “He was a good kid from a good family. How did he end up strung out on drugs?” It just doesn’t make sense. “He was a hardworking, family man. They just celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary. How could he just walk out on his family like that?” It just doesn’t make sense. “She took such good care of herself—no family history of cancer. And yet, now she’s been diagnosed with breast cancer.” It just doesn’t make sense.
We like to think, especially when we’re young, that life makes a lot of sense. We like to think that there is a law of nature, a scientific breakthrough, or a Google search that will make everything make sense. The older we get, though, the more we come to realize that there are plenty of times when life doesn’t make sense at all.
No doubt some of the Old Testament Israelites were thinking that when they were carried away into captivity in Babylon—the city of Jerusalem besieged and demolished by an enemy army, their homes ransacked and destroyed, their beloved temple burned to the ground. Weren’t they supposed to be God’s chosen people? Why the war, the destruction, the death, the deportation? It didn’t make a bit of sense.
70 years later when the Israelites returned to Jerusalem from captivity, they were probably thinking the same thing. The Holy City of Jerusalem looked like a ghost town—the city gates and walls were broken and crumbling, the temple courts, instead of being filled with worshippers, were filled with rubble and weeds. It just didn’t make sense.
The Israelites in the days of the prophet Haggai decided to roll up their sleeves and put some sense back into life. They rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem. They built a new altar on the temple mount. Soon they would dig a little deeper and lay the foundations for a brand-new temple.
But you know how people are. All too soon they lost interest in rebuilding the temple and began working on projects that made a little more sense: like their own houses. Why should they spend precious time and money building a house for God when their own houses needed work too? After all, it makes a lot of sense that if the Mrs. is happy, then everyone is happy. And this makes sense too: We’ll take care of ourselves right now, so that we’ll be in a better position to take care of God’s house later. But you know how people are. The “later” never came. After laying the foundation, almost 15 years went by without any real progress on the temple.
That’s where the Prophet Haggai comes in. Though his book is only two chapters long, he proclaimed a powerful message to God’s people, a message that at first doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense:
“Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?”
Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”
This is what the LORD Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. Go 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. “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. Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the oil and whatever the ground produces, on men and cattle, and on the labor of your hands.”(vv. 4-11)
The Israelites, it turns out, were preaching a sermon about personal priorities with their paneled houses and their neglect of God’s house. And the message was clear: self first, God second. In other words, “Giving to God first just doesn’t make sense to us.”
Do we ever think that way? Charles Schwab tells me that if I “pay myself first” and invest it carefully, I will have more money. But if I give money away, then I have less. That’s the way money works, right? Or if I prioritize the work of the Lord with firstfruits giving, then every other area of my life will have to suffer, right? Or if I give my time and talents and treasures away, that means I’ll have less for myself and what I love, right? And that just doesn’t make sense at all because we all know that the American dream is that we should have more than our parents did.
It’s true: Humanly speaking, giving doesn’t make a bit of sense. It’s also true that our sinful nature is not a fan of giving. It would much rather see us keep and store and stockpile and hoard. After all, we have to look out for #1. We call it the good life. God calls it greed. We call it being sensible. God calls it sin.
Did you notice in Haggai’s sermon how the Lord turned their excuses not to give upside down? “You plant much, and harvest little…You eat and drink, and are never satisfied. You put on clothes, but can’t stay warm. You earn lots of money and put it in purses with holes.” Much turned out to be little for them. Translation: The people had less because they gave little. And God himself was making sure of that. He was seeing to it that they had little one drought and one holey purse at a time. Stop and think about that for a second: the God who once fed more than 5,000 people from 5 loaves of bread and 2 small fish is the very same God who can insure that a whole stockpile of stuff won’t be enough to make ends meet.
Does Haggai’s message sober us up a bit this morning? Does it hit us right between the eyes? We’re a lot like the people back in Haggai’s day, aren’t we? As Americans we have been blessed with so much, and in many cases God is blowing it away with inflation and taxes and wars and crime. Earlier in October the stock market hit an all-time high and people’s retirement accounts are up significantly this year, and yet giving to the church is down rather significantly. In spite of 2 droughts—one in the spring and another in the fall—the crop harvest this year has been pretty good. But don’t expect me to put an extra nickel in the offering plate. It seems to me that we too are preaching a sermon with our paneled houses and our neglect of God’s house and God’s work. We’re saying, “Giving to God first doesn’t make sense to us either.” Is that really what we want to say? Lord, have mercy on us and forgive us for the sake of Jesus Christ, our Savior!
Now think of this: Do you think that the people who gave generously to the temple in Haggai’s day went home and God let them freeze to death? After hearing Haggai’s rebuke, why could the Israelites give so confidently to the Lord and his work? Because they believed in a God who gave himself completely for them.
You see, it really isn’t our giving that makes no sense. It’s God’s giving that makes no sense. That the Holy One of Israel would give himself completely for sinful Americans like us makes no sense whatsoever. That’s why it’s called grace. And God’s grace is simply amazing. Jesus didn’t give 10% of himself for you. He gave 110% of himself for you and your salvation. It’s amazing, is it not, that he left behind the streets of heavenly gold for the smell of cow manure and sheep dung in a stable in Bethlehem? It’s amazing, is it not, that he left behind the mansions of glory and didn’t even have a house to call his own or a pillow on which to lay his head? It’s amazing, is it not, the sacrifice that he was willing to make for our forgiveness, that he would go all the way to the cross for you and for me? He didn’t swipe a Visa card for you. He shed his own blood so that you might be his dearly loved child both now and forever.
On top of that, the one who willingly made himself nothing for us on the cross is now our everything. In Christ, God graciously gives us all things. The one who said, “I thirst,” has satisfied our thirst for forgiveness and filled our hearts with the waters of salvation. The one who cried out, “Why have you forsaken me,” has promised to never leave us or forsake us. The one who prayed, “Give us this day our daily bread,” is the same one who opens his hand and satisfies our every need, day in and day out. Can we trust a God like that? Can we put ourselves and our families in his hands and know that he will never, ever let us down? We absolutely can.
The real issue for us is this: Is our relationship with our Savior our life’s top priority? Or is it just another one of life’s hobbies? How can you tell? Well, try this: Set aside a little time this week with your last bank statement and do a little self-examination. Look at the numbers and see what they tell you about your priorities. The numbers don’t lie. Take time to pray about what you find and about what you don’t find.
Let’s open our eyes and see the harvest. The blessings are right there in front of us, both for ourselves and for the Lord’s work. The question is not one of resources. The question is one of priorities. Is the Lord and his work on our list of personal priorities? Is he our firstfruits priority? Or is he just one of the leftovers? Will we settle for our nice, paneled houses? Or will we dedicate ourselves to making an eternal difference for God’s house and for his kingdom?
My prayer is that Haggai’s message will touch each of our hearts today. We worship a God who knows how to make much into nothing because of our greed and a God who can make very little into an abundance because of his grace and power. We worship the ultimate Giver, the God who gave his first and best to us in his Son, Jesus Christ, and who graciously promises to give us all that we need. In response I pray you’ll give your best to him as well. After all, in light of all that he has given us, giving back to God makes all the sense in the world. Amen.