sermon 8-29-10

Last week I talked about how the work of the Lord often times stops and starts. Chapter 4 of Ezra talked about the 25 year span of time that God stopped the reconstruction of the temple. From a New Testament perspective we can see that there are times when God does very little in the church. There is no rebuilding, the kingdom does not advance. In those times it feels as if God has abandoned his people, doesn’t it? I mean you have all this bondage and you want to be free from it and you pray about it but nothing happens. And the voice of the false prophets whisper in your ear: you don’t have enough faith. Or the enemy whispers in your ear: God doesn’t really love you, God has given up on you. Things like that can drive you to despair if you aren’t careful.
What does cause God to stop working in his people? Well, in Ezra chapter 5 verse 1 we read this: At that time the prophets Haggai and Zechariah son of Iddo prophesied to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem. They prophesied in the name of the God of Israel who was over them. That really doesn’t tell us anything but when I saw it I thought we had better go there and see what the prophets said to them. I find it interesting that there are so many books of the bible focused on this period of Old Testament history: Parts of second kings and second chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and now Haggai and Zechariah. There may be more but this is what we have uncovered so far.
I want to look at the book of Haggai today, to see what God had to say about why he wasn’t allowing his church to be built. So if you will turn to Haggai which can be found by turning to Matthew and going back three books. It’s a short book only two chapters. As you go backwards from Matthew it will be Malachi, Zechariah and then Haggai.
I will read it out of the new Living Translation. After finding such translation problems with the NASB I thought I might as well give this a try. I really like its readability, especially in these Old Testament texts. I will do like I usually do; read some verses and then make some comments. I think it is rather appropriate that we read these verses today on August 29th because the book of Haggai begins like this:
On August 29 of the second year of King Darius’s reign, the Lord gave a message through the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Jeshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest.
It blows my mind that somewhere around 2500 years ago on this very date the following message was given by God to his people: “This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: The people are saying, ‘The time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.’” After 25 years of silence the congregation is beginning to doubt whether the move out of Babylon to come rebuild the temple was of God or not. Maybe we got it wrong. Maybe God didn’t bring us here. Maybe God doesn’t want to rebuild the temple. Do you ever feel like that? Maybe God didn’t really save me. Maybe I’m not really a Christian. Maybe I’m not good enough for God. Maybe this or maybe that and what is happening is that doubt is beginning to creep into your head. Maybe I just didn’t hear God right to begin with. I thought he called me here but now I just don’t know. If he called me here why isn’t he doing anything? Why hasn’t the church grown in 25 years? Why are people still drinking milk? Why are our families in such a mess? Those are the kind of doubts that go through my head when I’m wondering where God is.
God knows the way our minds work and the doubt that can assail us so he sends the following message through the prophet Haggai: 4 “Why are you living in luxurious houses while my house lies in ruins? 5 This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: Look at what’s happening to you! 6 You have planted much but harvest little. You eat but are not satisfied. You drink but are still thirsty. You put on clothes but cannot keep warm. Your wages disappear as though you were putting them in pockets filled with holes! 7 “This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: Look at what’s happening to you! 8 Now go up into the hills, bring down timber, and rebuild my house. Then I will take pleasure in it and be honored, says the Lord. 9 You hoped for rich harvests, but they were poor. And when you brought your harvest home, I blew it away. Why? Because my house lies in ruins, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, while all of you are busy building your own fine houses. 10 It’s because of you that the heavens withhold the dew and the earth produces no crops. 11 I have called for a drought on your fields and hills—a drought to wither the grain and grapes and olive trees and all your other crops, a drought to starve you and your livestock and to ruin everything you have worked so hard to get.”
I think it was last Sunday morning that I talked about the fields not always being ripe for harvest and this passage is directly related to that. Here God is saying the fields are not ripe for harvest, from a New Testament perspective people aren’t coming to the Lord, people aren’t getting saved because HE has called for a drought. Why? To ruin everything that we have worked so hard to get.
That is a concept that is rarely talked about these days. Who wants to hear that God will bring to ruin everything the church tries to do when the church does it out of selfish motives or is more concerned about the houses that they live in than their own spiritual condition.
I know this is striking a little too close to home for me. I get so caught up in working on my house, going to my day job, paying my bills, getting out of debt and I say I’m doing it for the Lord but where is my heart really at? What am I sacrificing in order to advance the kingdom? Not much when it comes down to it.
I realize that in many churches these words of prophecy would be written off as not applicable to us because they are Old Testament. Some would even say: oh that was when people were saved by works. I’m here to remind you that from a biblical perspective people have never been saved by their works of righteousness. We can be saved by grace alone from the time that Adam and Eve sinned until the day we all find ourselves in glory. There are not two modes of salvation.
If we understand that we can only be saved by grace then we must conclude that the quality of our salvation, the depth of our salvation or better yet the depth of our walking in righteousness and life is a prime factor in what God does in the world in which we live. In this passage God is clearly saying that he has stopped work on the temple, the body of Christ for 25 years because of the hearts and actions of the people.
It sounds to me like they have taken the things that the Babylonians gave them to rebuild the temple and spent in on their own houses. Now I want you to understand that I believe that many of us here have already started turning the focus away from ourselves and toward building ourselves up in Christ Jesus. I know that some of you are working hard to walk in Christ and I commend you for that. Keep it up. Don’t get discouraged because as I see the Lord work in your lives I see the ground beginning to get rain. I can see the fields of your lives being plowed and I am greatly encouraged by that.
At the same time on a national level, even on a community level I see the ground is parched and not ready for planting and yet I see the church driving the combines around as fast as they can trying to look like they are harvesting crops. But the truth is we have planted much but harvest little. We eat but are not satisfied. We drink but are still thirsty. we put on clothes but cannot keep warm. Our wages disappear as though you were putting them in pockets filled with holes! We hoped for rich harvests, but they were poor. And when we brought your harvest home God blew it away.
Let me put that in the context of my own experiences in the church. You start your bus ministries and your VBS outreaches and your youth groups and you bring all these kids in and you hope to get them all saved and many professions of faith are made but when they grow up and go to college they leave the church and never come back. And years later you look back on all the people that made professions of faith over the years and you rejoice in all your labors but you have nothing to show for all the work you did: Because God blew them away.
If we are honest about our situations we can see this in our children’s lives. It is not an accident that the majority of kids that are raised in the church leave the faith by the time they go to college. It is a reflection of our own hearts toward God. Our salvation is about us. I get saved so that I can get to heaven. Salvation is about me. What can I get out of it? I do it to make me happy. I’m saved by grace so now I can do what I want and still go to heaven when I die. Salvation becomes the house that I build for myself and I make it a very luxurious house with pictures of me all over the walls. It’s time we stopped working on our own houses and making salvation about us and began to focus our salvation toward the one who saved us. That is the core of this passage for New Testament times.
Look at verse 12: Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the whole remnant of God’s people began to obey the message from the Lord their God. When they heard the words of the prophet Haggai, whom the Lord their God had sent, the people feared the Lord.
I must tell you that I am a blessed man to be the pastor of this congregation. I am blessed because I see you all beginning to obey the message, the word of God. I see you beginning to learn to fear the Lord. I see you beginning to embrace parts of the word of God that in the past you would have preferred to ignore. That is a blessing. I still have to pinch myself some days because I can’t believe it is happening. I can’t believe that you are embracing the word of God the way you do because before I came here I was at the place where I didn’t think there was any hope of that happening in my lifetime.
To be around people that are learning to fear the Lord and apply his word is a wonderful thing because the church as a whole in our country doesn’t even know what fear is when it comes to God. Most would say God is our best bud that would never ever discipline us because he loves us too much to spank us. He wants us to grow up wild and free. So to be here in a place that is going against the grain of culture is a glorious thing.
I want you to know that if you are learning to fear the Lord and humble yourself before him then God says to you through Haggai: “I am with you.” Take those words to heart to continue on the path of humbleness before God. He is with you. The very fact that you are embracing his word, submitting your heart to him, and are beginning to remodel your heart to be more like Jesus proves that the Lord is with you. You can’t do that stuff in your own power.
The book of Haggai tells us that the Lord sparked the enthusiasm of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the enthusiasm of Jeshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the enthusiasm of the whole remnant of God’s people. I believe that is what is happening in my own heart. That word translated enthusiasm by the new living is translated stirred up by the New American. It means to rouse up, to wake up, to be excited and triumphant. You see, I was and can be, dismayed by the slowness of God’s work. I’ve told you that before. I was grumpy. I was thinking maybe God wasn’t going to do anything here but then God sparked my enthusiasm. He woke me up to see how he is doing things. He let me refocus my vision so that I could see what was going on in your lives. He let me begin to see that we are going to be triumphant if we stay humble. I pray that he lets that enthusiasm be sparked in you as well so that we can begin to work on rebuilding our hearts to be more like Christ instead of focusing on our selves and what we need.
Notice also that this didn’t happen the same day they heard the word of God. This change of heart took some time. Verses 14 and 15 tell us that: They began to work on the house of their God, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, on September 21 of the second year of King Darius’s reign. So it took almost a month for them to hear the words of God and for those words to begin to soak down into their hearts and begin to wake them up and grow enthusiasm and excitement for what God was going to do. It took them a month to begin to work out their repentance into real action. You see their repentance meant that they had to stop working on their own houses and focus their attention on working on the house of the Lord. In our era that translates as: It takes time to stop living with your focus on you and start living with your focus on God.
A couple of weeks after that move toward repentance God sends another message to the people through Haggai. 3 ‘Does anyone remember this house—this Temple—in its former splendor? How, in comparison, does it look to you now? It must seem like nothing at all! 4 But now the Lord says: Be strong, Zerubbabel. Be strong, Jeshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people still left in the land. And now get to work, for I am with you, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. 5 My Spirit remains among you, just as I promised when you came out of Egypt. So do not be afraid.’ 6 “For this is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: In just a little while I will again shake the heavens and the earth, the oceans and the dry land. 7 I will shake all the nations, and the treasures of all the nations will be brought to this Temple. I will fill this place with glory, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. 8 The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. 9 The future glory of this Temple will be greater than its past glory, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. And in this place I will bring peace. I, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, have spoken!”
We like to think of this passage as an end time passage. I’m afraid our focus on end times over the last 100 years has really warped our perception of reality. This is a picture of the church and God promises that he is going to shake the heavens and the earth and the church is going to be filled with his glory. The church in the future, maybe in our future will be greater and more glorious than it ever was in the past. It will be more glorious that the time of the Apostles. We have yet to see what the church filled with the glory of God will look like, how powerful it will be. The spirit of God will be so strong and so mighty in the church of this age, where we are now that it will cause the heavens and the earth to shake. And in the church there will be peace like we have never known before. I know that goes against all that we have been taught. We have had a lie shoved down our throats our entire life time that has told us that the world is going to get more and more wicked and the church is going to get weaker and weaker until we will be so pitiful and wickedness so great and mighty that Jesus will have to come and rescue us or he won’t get a bride. I am hear to tell you with the utmost clarity that is a lie. Jesus has been given all authority in heaven and earth. We are Christ’s body and therefore we have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Just because we are so focused on ourselves that we have neglected the things of God doesn’t mean that we are weak. Satan was DEFEATED at the cross. He wasn’t just badly wounded: HE WAS DEFEATED. How long are we going to let him walk all over us. How long are we going to give him a foot hold in our lives by toying with sin and death? How long are we going to moan about how hard things are instead of walking in the authority that we have already been given? If the people in the Old Testament could turn from their selfish ways and see God do mighty things in their lives why should we be settling for less? Why should we be walking around like we are poor beggars when Christ has already paid for our sins and the holy spirit already lives inside us? Why do we believe lies instead of the truth?
I don’t know. I do it as much as anyone. I think we can get a glimpse of what we need to be doing to change that in the next few verses starting with 10: On December 18 of the second year of King Darius’s reign, the Lord sent this message to the prophet Haggai: 11 “This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says. Ask the priests this question about the law: 12 ‘If one of you is carrying some meat from a holy sacrifice in his robes and his robe happens to brush against some bread or stew, wine or olive oil, or any other kind of food, will it also become holy?’” The priests replied, “No.” 13 Then Haggai asked, “If someone becomes unclean by touching a dead person and then touches any of these foods, will the food be defiled?” And the priests answered, “Yes.” 14 Then Haggai responded, “That is how it is with this people and this nation, says the Lord. Everything they do and everything they offer is defiled by their sin. 15 Look at what was happening to you before you began to lay the foundation of the Lord’s Temple. 16 When you hoped for a twenty-bushel crop, you harvested only ten. When you expected to draw fifty gallons from the winepress, you found only twenty. 17 I sent blight and mildew and hail to destroy everything you worked so hard to produce. Even so, you refused to return to me, says the Lord. 18 “Think about this eighteenth day of December, the day when the foundation of the Lord’s Temple was laid. Think carefully. 19 I am giving you a promise now while the seed is still in the barn. You have not yet harvested your grain, and your grapevines, fig trees, pomegranates, and olive trees have not yet produced their crops. But from this day onward I will bless you.”
I believe this passage is very clear: the church in our day and age is weak and pitiful because it is in sin. We have rejected the law of God, we have believed lies instead of truth, we live for ourselves. It doesn’t have to be that way. If we will continually humble ourselves God promises to restore us to the place where we can once again rule and reign over the enemies of God. Notice that he tells them that the seed is still in the barn. It’s not time for planting, it is a time to break up the fallow ground of our hearts and of our communities so that it will receive the seed when it is planted. The hard times we are in are because of our sin as a whole. If we want to change those hard times then we must humble ourselves.
If we will do so I believe that the next prophecy of Haggai will begin to unfold around us. Listen to what God says he will do if we humble ourselves before him: I am about to shake the heavens and the earth. 22 I will overthrow royal thrones and destroy the power of foreign kingdoms. I will overturn their chariots and riders. The horses will fall, and their riders will kill each other. 23 “But when this happens, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, I will honor you, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, my servant. I will make you like a signet ring on my finger, says the Lord, for I have chosen you. I, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, have spoken!”
God promises to destroy the powers of wickedness that are holding us back if we turn to him. He doesn’t say that he will do it overnight, it will take time and we will have to be vigilant in keeping our feet on the path of righteousness but he promises to make us into true leaders. He promises to make us his signet ring so that everything we do will have his mark on it. Everyone will be able to look at us and say That is what God is doing in our midst.
How long are we going to believe the lies that the church is supposed to be weak and defeated? How long are we going to expect things to get worse all around us. Things are only getting worse in this nation because the church has stopped being salt and light. We have buried our heads in the sand and loved darkness more than light. It is time for us to turn from that way of thinking and begin to wake up to who we are in Christ Jesus. We are the body of Christ. We have been forgiven of all our sins and we have been given the righteousness of Christ. We have all the authority in heaven and earth at our disposal because we are the body of Christ. Jesus is sitting on the throne of Power right now ruling and reigning. He will continue to rule and reign until every enemy is made his footstool.
May God let that soak into our heads and hearts and may the truth set us free from our cowardice and unbelief.
Let’s pray. Oh father, beat these truths into our lives. Let us begin to come to grips with reality and not with the things that we see around us. Help us to embrace the reality that Jesus your son has been given all authority in heaven and earth and that he is ruling and reigning over it all right now. Cause us to recognize that we are in Christ Jesus and we are ruling and reigning with him now as we walk in obedience to his commands. Be merciful to us oh God. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.