Leader's Guide 1/25/09

Small Group Leader's Guide
Jan. 18, 2009

Series: Our House
Message: Avoiding Discouragement During a Spiritual Remodel
Haggai 2:1-9

1) Verse 3 includes three rhetorical questions that God asks the people. What the questions, and why do you think God asks these questions?

2) Read verse 4 – there is an exhortation to be strong. This exhortation is accompanied by a promise of God’s presence. How do spiritual strength and God’s presence go together? Read Joshua 1:9, it includes several elements found in Haggai 2:4-5 – a command to be strong, a promise of God’s presence and a warning to not fear.

3) Verse 5 ends with a simple sentence – “Do not fear” How does faith in God help you personally as you face fear. What about who God is, or what He has said helps you stand strong in the face of fear. Can you share an example of when that happened?

4) Verse 5 refers to a covenant that God made. What is the covenant that He is referring to?

Leader’s Note: God was not only faithful to bring them out of Egypt, He was faithful to bring them back out of captivity a second time from Babylon. This captivity was fresh enough on their minds. The general listening to Haggai had first-hand memories of Babylon. This reminds them of God’s power and faithfulness. An implication for this project is that God is powerful enough to finish what He starts.

As a supplementary verse, here is a prophecy from Jeremiah before the Babylonian captivity, that deliverance from this second captivity would be more on the forefront of their thinking than deliverance from Egypt.

Jeremiah 16:14 "However, the days are coming," declares the Lord, "when men will no longer say, `As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt,' 15 but they will say, `As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them.' For I will restore them to the land I gave their forefathers.


5) In verses 6-7 God talks about shaking the heavens and the earth and filling his house with glory. Is this passage talking about the soon to be completed temple in Haggai, or does it also point to some larger spiritual truths?

6) The book of Haggai is quoted in only one other book of the Bible – in Hebrews 12:26. What portion of Haggai is quoted, and what seems to be the point of the Hebrews passage?

7) In verse 8 God talks about silver and gold. What is the purpose of letting people know that the silver and gold belong to the Lord?

Leader's Note: The silver is mine and the gold is mine’. We serve a powerful God who is able to provide any resources needed to accomplish His purposes. This is helpful when engaging in an expensive building project. This reminds us that, financially, God is in control. God actually does move on the hearts of foreign kings to provide for this building project.

First Cyrus, King of Persia

Ezra 1:3 “In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, issues a decree to “provide him (the remnant returning to Jerusalem) with silver and gold, with goods and livestock, and with freewill offerings for the temple of God in Jerusalem.'"

Later, Artaxerxes, King of Persia, provided resources for the building the temple:

Ezra 7:19 Deliver to the God of Jerusalem all the articles entrusted to you for worship in the temple of your God. 20 And anything else needed for the temple of your God that you may have occasion to supply, you may provide from the royal treasury. 21 Now I, King Artaxerxes, order all the treasurers of Trans-Euphrates to provide with diligence whatever Ezra the priest, a teacher of the Law of the God of heaven, may ask of you-- 22 up to a hundred talents of silver, a hundred cors of wheat, a hundred baths of wine, a hundred baths of olive oil, and salt without limit. 23 Whatever the God of heaven has prescribed, let it be done with diligence for the temple of the God of heaven. Why should there be wrath against the realm of the king and of his sons?


8) Put yourself in the place of these people. If you were working hard to build God’s house, what in this message from God (Haggai2:1-9), would you find most encouraging?

9) In verse 9 he lets them know that glory of the new temple would be greater than the former. Can you think of a time in your life, when it seemed like the best was in your past, but then God surprised you by doing something even better.