Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Happy Sunday to you all. Before we get into the rest of the things in our service, I want to invite someone up here in a minute. One of the things that we do here at Living Hope, with every dollar that you give to the general fund, we have different missions organizations that we set aside a percentage of to partner with them in the ministry going on around the world. And one of those ministries that you regularly give towards when you give towards the life and ministry at Living Hope and called Whitefields. And the president of Whitefield, Steve Wheeler, is here with us today and we just came back from the Philippines and I just invited him to come and share with you for a couple minutes about his recent trip and just to express his appreciation for you and your faithfulness in giving. So if you would welcome up Steve this morning.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: Good morning. It is great to be with you. I am Steve Wheeler and I do. I happen to be the grandpa of Zoe and Jaden, so I get to come and hang out with them, too. But I'm glad to be here with you and glad to share with you a thank you. Just like the Apostle Paul thanked the church in Philippi because they had been a partner with him and helped him in proclaiming the gospel. And you are doing that through your offerings. As Pastor Duba just shared. I just came back from the Philippines. I spent two weeks with them there. We got to celebrate one of our pastors who's a little older, he was just turning 40, but he finally found a girl that he decided to get married to. And so we took all the rest of our pastors, we gathered together and we celebrated that wedding. It was a great time. And then I got to spend two days with our pastors and their wives and my wife kind of hanging out in some of the Filipino spots. And we would sit and eat meals together. And we would have, okay, we're going to have an hour right now, then we are going to go snorkeling. But before we snorkel, we're going to talk about things. And I got to hear all kinds of stories from them that typically in a formal setting, we didn't. Didn't get to hear. And so this morning I wanted to share with you. I'm just kind of sharing a little bit right now. Every one of our pastors shared other church places that need a church that don't have an evangelical witness. Most of those are the most impoverished places. And I walked into those, one of those with Pastor Chris where you're walking on these wood slats and you're wondering if I'm going to fall through. And the just tide zones over here and the people live there. Right over there there's a big shopping mall where all the rich people go. They never come into those places. And one of the things that I was excited about, your partner, because Pastor Chris, as we walked in, he's talking to guys and they're going, oh, yeah. And they're jumping up out of their little chair area and coming and giving him a greeting and a hug. And I thought, man, that is the kind of guy I want to walk into one of those impoverished places with. And then he got to a spot and he said, right here, Pastor Steve, right here. And I'm looking at this wooden slat building over there, this gigantic pile of trash where the tidewaters have washed it up. And he goes, right here, the barangay captain has said I can have a church building.
And so I started saying, right here, I can see that church building already in my mind. We've done it multiple times before. And you're a partner in all of that. So thank you very much. If you are not familiar with Whitefields and would like to be able to pray more Effectively, our website, whitefields.org and you can get one of these brochures from me and you can just click on there and go to the website and pray for one of our pastors or right there on the website. So thank you very much for letting me come and share a little bit with you and I look forward to talking to you afterwards.
[00:03:56] Speaker C: Thank you, Steve.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: Thank you and thank you, church, for your partnership there. I'm going to read one verse from the book of Matthew. It says this. In chapter, chapter five, it says this, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. Let's pray, Church.
Lord God, thank you for your love and your care for us.
Because of what you have done, we're able to seek you and to know you and to seek your righteousness and know your righteousness because of the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf, we thank you that we're able to be known by you as your children.
As we spend time this morning worshiping you in song and in the word, I ask that you would continue to shape our hearts to be more like you. For those here today who maybe don't have a relationship with you, Lord, I pray that today would be the day they would seek you. And we know that when they seek you, they will find you in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:04:55] Speaker C: Well, good morning, everybody.
It's great to see everybody here. And as the children head off for their time of worship and yeah, you are.
And learning and teaching.
Thank all those who are heading back. I just sitting here just listening and watching.
It's humbling to realize that there's a lot that goes on for each Sunday. Not just this right here.
The people who practice, the people who prepare for Sunday school, those brave souls who spend two hours in nursery.
You guys need to love on those people.
All that is done, the cleaning, the janitorial stuff, the people who go back and count the blessings of offering that happen every week. It's just an amazing thing that God does when he brings people together for his glory. They serve him in the context of the church. So thank you, I guess is what I wanted to say before we get started for all you guys do.
We're going to be in haggai and so we're almost done Haggai. And then is there one or two? I don't know my Old Testament. There are two more after this. Just one, two.
So we're almost done.
All right, well, we should be there now.
Let's pray before we get started. Heavenly father, we thank you so much for today. It's the day that you've ordained, the day that you have given us to come together to worship you, Father and Lord, we just want your word to speak clearly to us so that we would love you more, our faith in you would grow and Lord, that we would walk away just resembling Christ that much more for your glory. So Lord, help me today to speak clearly and to present your word as best I can. Today, Father, we ask these things in Jesus name. Amen.
Haggai.
If you look at the outline, anybody know where I stole the outline from?
This is like bonus whole lot of bees, right?
There was a guy named Warren Wiersbe who wrote a whole series of commentaries. And each book said be, be faithful, be, whatever. So I stole it from Warren Wiersbe. So I gotta say that out loud.
The outline is different, but it's an interesting series he wrote. And just to begin with, the word be that he used and what it means basically is who you are.
So as we look at this outline and you see the word be, kind of imagine say, this is who I am in Christ.
Anyway, that's how we're going to be. Kind of fashion his books. After every book in the Bible, he condensed some. But think about that idea. Be who you are.
We have been saved.
[00:08:04] Speaker A: This is who we are.
[00:08:05] Speaker C: We've been saved by grace, right? We are no longer Bound to wander aimlessly and hopelessly in this world.
Through life, we have been given a new, restored life in Jesus Christ. Correct.
The question is, what are you doing? With our newfound freedom, are we intentionally pursuing and doing the things that God loves or instead allowing ourselves to be content with what the world has to offer?
It's kind of like the problem we see here in Haggai.
So as we go through this series, and we were here at this point, we realize now that God promised the exile of these people. It was their judgment for worship idol, for rejecting him, for ignoring his truth, not living, not being the witness in that land as God called him to be. Right. Nothing different for us. As you go through this book of Haggai, it was not hard, but it's like there's so, so much similarities, there's so much parallelism between these people and what we at the church kind of struggle with today.
And so we're going to see that and hopefully bring that to light throughout.
So what brings us to this point?
That Haggai, the author, you can fill that in really quick here. The author, Haggai means festal one. So he's born on a feast day.
It was written around 5:20. They're already back in Jerusalem as God promised, and that's where he's writing from. So we have the location, we have the date.
Pretty simple stuff there. But what is this setting? Why is Haggai having to write this?
And you think about it, it's like,
[00:09:56] Speaker B: really,
[00:09:59] Speaker C: why do they have to be corrected so soon?
In 5:39 or 5:38, Cyrus releases them, right? They're joyous. They're coming back. They're making that trip from Babylon all the way across the Fertile crescent back into Jerusalem. And you got to think they're happy, right?
They get to go back and worship God and be with their father and have that unity that they had. They're probably coming back. You know, if they had Spotify back then, they would probably have the songs of ascent, psalms of ascent, like, what is it, 1:15 through 135, and just that playlist over and over again. We're going back to worship. There's going to be unity, there's going to be fellowship. We get to be with God again. We get to sacrifice again. We could do all these things. And they're just stoked to get back to Jerusalem, Right?
Have you guys read Haggai yet?
Were they stoked to be back in Jerusalem?
Not really. Okay. It's sad, but this is what it is. So about 50,000 Jews made this trek. They're returning in ways, back to Jerusalem again. Their Spotify list going. They're excited to be back and to be where? The place that God had given them in 536. A couple years later, the temple construction began with the foundation being laid. And we know that from Ezra 3:12 through 16, that they were, like, not happy because why they weren't happy because this is nothing like we had before all the older generation. And we, you know, I'm. That I can't say that anymore because I'm there now. But we always say, well, that's not how it used to be, right? Or we never did it that way before. There's always these fights and turmoil because we always compare the past to the present.
And that's what these. This older generation was doing. They were weeping that this foundation is like, it's nothing like Solomon's temple.
How can we worship God when this is going to be a so. So type of building?
And because of this mounting negative feedback and plus, not to mention the samaritans were just like hounding them day and night to stop building because they were afraid of what God was going to do to them and a lot of opposition.
And so they abandoned work.
There's just too much, okay, too hard to get to church, even to build a church.
And then 16 years later, Haggai and Zechariah were commissioned by God to, like, you guys, let's get going here, to stir them up and to say, we need to get things done and reprioritize your life.
And then four years later, about 516, 515, the temple was done.
And you got to think about the hearts and just singing these songs.
Did God need this temple?
Did God need this whole sacrificial system in order for them for him to have fellowship with the people?
No.
How many times do we see written that, you know, God says, go ahead and sacrifice your thousands of cattle and your thousands of sheep. I don't care. I just want your hearts.
I just want you.
I don't want you going through the motions.
Don't want you showing up for church every Sunday.
Same seat, same pew, same Bible study class. That's good.
But do I have your heart while you're doing all that?
And we see this picture play out here in haggai as we read through this. There's four different messages that haggai is going to give to the people.
And there's six points or so that kind of fill out within this, these four messages. That we're going to glean, hopefully glean. And for myself, convicted, that there's lots of times that there's a lot of paneling going up in my own house, in my own life, misdirected priorities, misdirected energy, misdirected anxiety, worries about life, when all that could be spent on my relationship with God.
So let's read and go through this. The first point, as we will see, is be faithful.
If you go back to remember that be means that's who you are.
Because we are different. Because Paul tells us in Second Corinthians that we are new creations and part of that new creation and a new spirit that God has given us in a new heart. He's given us all the potential to be as faithful as we can be.
Right? But we all know that we don't always live up to that potential, do we?
If you're a scientist, that potential energy is like a clock wound up as tight or a machine wound up as tight as it can be. And you're holding onto that handle and you know as soon as you let it go, what's going to happen.
Something big is going to happen. Right.
But for whatever reason, we like to, like, slowly undo that handle again and that potential comes out, sometimes not at all or very little when it can be very powerful.
Unfaithfulness is one of those. And we'll probably have the same discussion as we go through Haggai, chapter one, verses two through seven. What's the issue going on here? Thus says the Lord of hosts. These people. These people. You guys say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord. Now, how do you say that to God?
[00:15:48] Speaker B: We're done.
[00:15:49] Speaker C: God, we don't have time for you.
We're going to pull down the timber from Lebanon and we're going to build our own houses. But yours, it can wait. Because we have other important things to do in life besides worship you.
Is that what they're saying here?
Pretty much.
It's like, wow, it's pretty brave. Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet.
Is that highlighted? Oh, it didn't come out. Highlighted. Good God.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: Highlighted.
[00:16:18] Speaker C: Here you can see my cheat notes. It is time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while the house lies in ruins. Question. Like, really?
You have all this time to worry about yourself, to help yourself, to fix yourself up, to set yourselves to be comfortable in this land while our relationship is. What he's saying our relationship is in ruins.
Can we Say that here, our relationship, because there is no relationship.
You're not worried about what I've commanded you to do, to have this place that we can interact through. What I've set up to interact with says now. Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. Think about what you're doing.
Evaluate your life, evaluate our relationship and what needs to happen.
You have sown, and this is what has happened. You have sown much and harvested little. You eat, but you have never enough. You drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm.
And he who earns wages does so to put them into bags with holes.
So all your work is basically, as Solomon would say, is just meaningless, right? There's nothing to it.
There's no fulfillment and you're gaining nothing. But while you're ignoring me.
And again, verse seven, Again he says, thus says the Lord of hosts, consider. Think about your ways.
So being faithful, as his first point is trusting what is promised and responding to that call, trusting in God and responding to the call that what he's called you to do.
God is worthy of our faithfulness because why? Because he reigns. He is God. He is worthy because he examines our hearts and he knows exactly what we are doing and thinking about all the time.
You can't hide from Him.
He's worthy because he loves righteousness.
And in this passage, Haggai exposes the people's misplaced priorities.
And we'll look at Psalm 11 and kind of alludes to this as God always has his eyes looking and evaluating what we are doing as well.
The response to this is to examine our lives and bring our priorities into alignment with his will.
So what's his will?
Just to love Him? Does that sound too easy?
To love him and give him your heart unconditionally, without any strings attached, without any side agendas? Well, let me do this first. Let me go here first. Let me take care of this first.
He just wants our full attention, our full hearts and our full love.
Do we share our love with God with something else?
Do we share our love with God with somebody else?
Does God have your full love as he gives you his full love, which enables you to do all the other things that you need to do first or not before Him?
And the question is, who or what have you misplaced your heart to?
What has caused your heart to be divided?
And we all know Jesus says that a divided heart will not last, a divided house will not stand.
And that was the issue. That's why they ended up in Babylon. To begin with, right? Because their hearts were divided.
God didn't have their whole heart.
Monday through Friday or Sunday through Friday, they were worshiping whatever idol they had in their house. And on Saturday they would go and sacrifice and say, I'm sorry, God, I'll try again better next week.
Then their hearts went out to something else.
And we know that all the way through the Old Testament, we learned from these prophets in God's admonishment that his chosen people that he loved, they were worshiping sticks and stones.
And we laugh at that. And we can almost mock them and say, how could any rational person worship a totem pole?
How could any rational person put a rock in their windowsill and worship that and pray that God that rock will give them rain?
Why would any rational person watch men dressed up as crash test dummies hit each other at 20 miles an hour?
Pretty irrational, isn't it?
Why would a rational person spend hours and hours and hours of time watching something that has no social redeeming value?
And where it hit home for me, and I wrote this on our website at school, and I'm going to step on toes maybe, but why is it rational for parents to take their children to a place on Sunday to worship themselves instead of worshiping God?
And it's deep.
I had a parent come back to me and says, Ms. Tolan, I appreciate your article, your letter, it was a great message. And he goes, he said the word but stop, right? Don't just stop, don't say it.
He says, but, you know, we just figured this is a great time to invest in this right now while they're young.
There's a lot of sticks and stones that we worship in our lives, things that we would mock at as they did, but at the same time, we do it the same thing.
But here Haggai is saying, stop loving yourselves more than you love God. And that's basically what it came down to.
They were loving themselves more than they loved God.
And when we love ourselves more than we love God, we're going to do things that make ourselves feel good.
We're going to do things that entertain us.
We're going to do things because we want to do that.
And in reality, it goes back to what in the judges, what did God have against the people in the judges time?
They did whatever on their minds that please themselves.
I know it's hard, but again, God is calling us to consider our ways.
He wants us to love God. He wants us to love the one who created you, the one who restrained and had Noah Build an ark. Because he loved him so much. He could have just wiped everything out and started over, but his love for his creation was so, so strong.
He loved the ones who he saved through the waters of the Red Sea because he made a promise.
The one who was patient with the judges and the kings all that time of the ebbs and flows of their hearts.
The one who just kept his promise and delivered them out of exile and brought them back to Canaan.
That's the one that should have our hearts.
That's the one who should have had Israel's hearts as well.
All for what purpose?
To be faithful in your love and worship of the One who loves you that much.
Let our actions each day speak volumes of our love for. For God. But for us today, that was them.
I mean, God just promised them and he delivered on his promise 100%. He brought them back and it's like all they could do was worry about themselves.
For us, Jesus died for us. He took upon every sin. He saved us from the wrath of God. And all we can do sometimes is think about ourselves.
See, there's not much difference than us and them.
The people were saying essentially, it's just not the right time to prioritize God because. Or God's house.
Yet they were quite capable of prioritizing their own houses.
Very powerful application today. What receives our time?
What receives our money? What receives our attention?
What receives our energy?
It can be church sometimes, right? We spend so much energy on church, so much time given up, which is great, but how does that tap into your own personal time of just worshiping God, you and him?
Can we do both? Of course we can do both.
But we're human and we sometimes can't multitask.
So I guess all the women in here can do it. Well, and the men? You can't.
Because men, we cannot multitask.
Is that an overgeneralization?
I don't know. It may just mean I can't multitask.
What do we pursue when nobody is watching?
What do we instinctively protect and prioritize?
Those questions aren't simply about stewardship. They expose our heart of worship.
[00:26:54] Speaker A: Duff
[00:26:58] Speaker C: that we would seek just the face of Jacob.
So what was the result of their misplaced faith?
God told them to think about it.
He's saying these misplaced priorities and misplaced worship will always leave you empty.
When we make our comfort the center of our lives, we pursue but cannot ultimately satisfy us. We know that.
Haggai shows us that misplaced worship has consequences, that God calls his people back to Himself. And he tells them that in verse six, you have sown much and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough. You drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm.
And he who earns wages does not put them, or he puts them in the bag with holes.
We are left feeling empty and in the need of some testing and refinement. God is going to test us. And God is going to refine us.
Psalms 11, 4, 7. I think this is up there. Oh, it is. Thank you.
So the Lord in his holy temple, the Lord's throne is in heaven. His eyes see his eyelids test the children of man.
And there's two things going on. The Lord tests the righteous, and thank God for that, because the next part of that sentence says something really the opposite. But his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence. So thank God that he just test us, right?
Because we are His.
We are righteous because of Christ. But he's going to test us. He's going to refine us, because he wants us to be the very best we can be now, for. For his glory.
That's what's happening here with the people of Israel.
Go down to verse seven. For the Lord is righteous. He loves righteous deeds.
The upright shall behold his face.
And I guess the question from this, and we go back to see what happened with Israel, is like, do we love doing righteous deeds?
Do we love living out with the fruit of the Spirit?
Is that our first love?
Or is our first love us? And what protects us and what makes us happy?
He goes on in verse nine to talk about this idea. You looked for much and behold, it came to little.
When you brought it home, I blew it away. Why again this refinement? Why, declares the Lord of the Host, because of my house that lies in ruins while each of you busies himself with his own house.
Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, the earth has withheld its produce. And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain and the new wine the oil on the ground brings forth on man and beast, and on their labors.
God just wants us to seek him first.
We read Matthew, Pastor duber in Matthew 6:33, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things you worry about and plan for and do. He will take care of those.
You don't have to worry about that.
You don't have to make that your God, because I am your God.
And when you worship me as your God, you will Be taken care of.
Another B. It's not on the outline because this happens when you go back over and look at it and you add things after you submit the outline.
Be obedient. Just put that in the in between.
And that's what happened in Zuberbl. Verse 12. The son of Shaatiel and Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent them and the people feared the Lord.
We have this reverent, holy fear of God.
Not that it makes you, but because you love this God, you're going to obey this God. That's our response.
Verse 13. Then Haggai, the messenger of the Lord, spoke to the people with the Lord's message.
I am with you, declares the Lord. The Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shatil, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and worked on the house of the Lord of hosts and their God.
Great things.
When we love God to that extent, our response is obedient servitude to our Father in heaven.
Why obedient?
James tells us faith without works is dead, right?
We can say we love God, but our response needs to be actively showing that love for God and doing righteous deeds, as the psalmist says.
So they worked about a month and a little progress was made. And because of that little progress, they, you know, they kind of cried again. This isn't very good, you guys.
Compared to Solomon's, this is nothing.
And they kind of stopped working.
Little progress was made, just enough to cause discouragement among the people, especially those who were alive at the time.
So what does Haggai do? Another message. He addresses them again.
Chapter two, verses one through five.
Starts off in chapter or verse three. Says again, addressing this idea of people crying about, I guess we can say, complaining about how small this temple was.
We all know that complaining doesn't do anything, does it?
Because when we're complaining, we're just complaining that God is not good enough, then he is great.
Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now?
Is it not as nothing in your eyes?
He says, yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all of you people of the land declares the Lord.
[00:33:47] Speaker A: Why?
[00:33:48] Speaker C: Because you're going to work as I am with you. What else do you need? You don't need this building you're making. I am with you.
Just give me your hearts according to the covenant that I made with you when you first came out of Egypt. Now, going back, way back, I saved you from slavery. I freed you from slavery so you can come to this promised land and serve and love me.
I am with you.
What else do we need as his people? When God says, I am with you, what can we add to God to make our lives any more efficient, any better, any easier?
When God says, I am with you, Paul tells us in Colossians that we are made complete.
We're filled to the brim and there's nothing more that we can add, nothing more we need.
We've been given every spiritual blessing in order to walk each day as he's called us to walk.
God had to get their attention again.
He renewed their focus and the means for being back in Jerusalem. The worship of God and their faithfulness amongst the opposition would bring glory to God. Why? Because he deserves it.
Self worship can bring instant gratification, but it leaves you empty and scrambling for more and more and more.
Yes, there is fear of the nations. They're within striking distance. There was threats to their lives. But when God says, I am with you, do you need to worry about the enemy?
No.
But the real threat and the real roadblock to God worship was themselves.
They were more worried about themselves and worshiping themselves.
So he tells them, going on the next point, be strong.
Basically, to grip tightly, to catch hold.
The definition means to bind fast, grip tightly, or attach oneself to something securely.
It's a word used when someone grabs onto a handrail to keep from falling.
When a warrior firmly locks a hand around their hilt and sword before battle. Almost like white knuckles, right? Just hang on. Hang on. And who are we to hang on to?
Lock your hands onto me, lock your heart onto me, steady your knees, fortify your resolve and put your hands to work. Because my spirit is right here with you.
Now, here's the difference. When I wrote that, I go, gosh, they had the Spirit with them, they. But today we have the Spirit in us.
Isn't that a huge difference?
The Spirit is in all of us collectively.
When Jesus says, you're gonna do greater things, right? Because we've multiplied. Not just him filled with the Spirit and the Spirit the Trinity, but all of us filled with the Spirit, hanging on and doing what the Spirit can lead us to. Do if we would just trust that.
Don't get hung up on the past.
Don't compare with the old. Don't get caught up with the externals. When God desires the heart for worship.
Don't live in the past.
You can remember what God has done and he trusts who he is today and hope in what he has promised for tomorrow. And that's the idea, is that our eyes are always on tomorrow. As far as his promise and the expectation of his return.
Another part of Message two, the next point be amazed.
And that's the promise of tomorrow. It kind of moves into this.
It flows very nicely in this progression of where our hope is. And again, as we've walked through all of the Old Testament, everything points to Jesus.
Verse 6, chapter 2. For thus says the LORD of hosts, yet once more in a little while I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land, and I will shake all nations so that the treasures of the nation shall come in or come in. I will fill the house with glory, says the Lord of hosts.
The silver is mine, the gold is mine, declares the LORD of hosts. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the LORD of hosts.
Just love that progression of where he's going with what brings peace.
The latter is going to be much better than what you see right now.
My covenant, my promise has not changed with you.
That Abraham's seed Jesus will be a great nation of believers and people the church and will move to see that we are that temple yet once more in a little while. Hebrews quotes this same passage in Hebrews 12:26. At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but but also the heavens.
Christ is going to come back
[00:39:26] Speaker A: and
[00:39:26] Speaker C: he will take us home.
That is our.
That's what our eyes should be fixed on.
There's where our energy beast should focus on his return and us preparing for his return.
God's redemptive plan is much bigger than what we presently see in Christ. We look toward the glory of his kingdom and the peace and his promises.
For them they were promised again at that time.
What they were looking forward to was what we're going to celebrate in December is that little baby in a manger, the Christ, the anointed one that would come and take away the sins of the world.
They were promised the anointed one, the Christ the Redeemer, Jesus, the Lamb of God.
King Jesus would come, he would die. He would rise again the third day, establish his kingdom, of whom we today are living citizens and living sacrifices.
He reigns today. His footstool is the heavens.
And we serve a risen Savior today, don't we?
In his kingdom, this idea of living sacrifices, it's like no sacrifice was offered halfway. It was like complete death and submission.
And for us, as Jesus says, each day we arise and we say, we pray and say we deny ourselves.
It's not I who live today, but Christ who lives in me.
I'll take up my cross because I'm showing the world that I'm dead to this old life and I'm alive in Jesus, and I'm going to follow him today. That's what a living sacrifice is in his kingdom.
That's for us today.
Yet once more again for us shakes the heavens that last time and create a new heaven on earth.
And it says in verse nine again, the latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former.
And in this place I will give peace. No more tears, no more pain, no more suffering, just eternal glory with God forever.
Number four, be the church.
Not really in Haggai, but just kind of like a parallel here.
Turn to 1 Peter 2.
You get a glimpse of what that means.
I was going to read the whole. Start at verse four.
As you come to him, Jesus, a living stone, rejected by men. But in the sight of God, chosen and precious, you yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ, for it stands in Scripture. Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone, chosen and precious. Whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.
Verse nine. But you us, you are a chosen race. You are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous life.
That is us, the church, right?
A living church. Not this building that each and every one of us put together by God, fashioned after Jesus. We're still honing that fashioning, right. We're not done yet into this living temple that Jesus is.
We are united to Christ and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, the church collectively described as God's temple.
John, chapter 2, verses 19 through 21. Jesus tells us about this. Jesus answered them, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up of himself.
The Jews then said, it has taken 46 years to build this temple. And will you raise it up in three days.
But he was speaking about the temple of his body, of which we are a part of every one of us right now.
And collectively, then that worship center, that tabernacle, that temple on the mountain, was a place for them to glorify God in their faithful obedience today, as we are collectively, literally broken pieces of human beings, right?
That Jesus has brought together and glued us together in his fashion, and he placed his holy Spirit that emanates that light through us all that the world may see how beautiful God is.
Be holy is the next point. As a church, this is an odd passage, but it makes a whole lot of sense.
He's telling the people, then you need to be holy, as God has told us, be holy, for I am holy.
Holiness is not contagious, right?
You look at this passage. He asks a question. 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?
No. No, it does not Come. Become. Holiness is not contagious. On the other side, Haggai said, if someone who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean? The priest answered, yes, it does become unclean.
Holiness is not cont.
Uncleanness is contagious. The application, He's telling the people, as is with his people and with the nation, and so with every work in their hands, and what they offer there is unclean. So merely building the stone walls of the temple could not fix their inner spiritual state of disobedience.
For us today, doing holy things doesn't make you holy.
The concept of just carrying holy meat and a garment didn't make the garment holy. Doing outward religious activities doesn't change your standing before God. God just wants your heart.
You cannot absorb holiness through proximity.
Going to church does not make you holy. Reading your Bible does not make you holy. Coming from a Christian family does not make you holy.
Volunteering for things, good things, day after day, does not make you holy.
They don't automatically sanctify you.
Outward rituals cannot easily mask an unchanged heart or a bitter heart or an unforgiving heart.
We can go through the motions every day here, coming to church, but we. What are we masking?
Because we're not masking our heart. Because God sees your heart.
At the same time, guard against spiritual contagion. Don't put yourself in situations where you're going to be tempted to become unfaithful to God.
It just shows that our need for Jesus.
Jesus is our only Source of contagious holiness. Right?
Washed by his blood, we are cleansed.
When the bleeding woman touched Jesus garment, her uncleanness didn't defile him.
Neither just by touching his garment did it save her. Instead, his holiness healed and cleaned her. The ultimate application is here that the faith that the woman had is what cleansed her.
Our faith in Jesus Christ is what cleanses us and makes us holy.
We must rely entirely on the righteousness of Christ, who cleanses our hearts so that our life and service can truly please him in the end.
Be hopeful.
2023, 21 speak to Zerubbabel Governor Judah saying, I am about to shake the heavens and the earth again, that picture and to overthrow the throne of kingdoms. I'm 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, every one of them by sword of his brother on that day, declares the Lord of hosts, I will take you, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the Son of Shatiel, declares the Lord, and make you a living signet ring, for I have chosen you, declares the Lord.
So quickly they came back with no hope of the promise being continued because there was no king.
Zerubbabel was the great grandson of Jeconiah, who God pretty much cursed and says, you're done. I'm cutting you off. You're not going to be a part of this anymore.
Zerubbabel was just a governor.
He would not see any of this, this shaking, this judgment, this person who would come and reign of the Anointed One.
But God is telling him, I'm going to choose you to continue that line that Jesus would come from him.
If you look at Matthew Chapter one, you're going to see Zerubbabel's name.
So they were not sure.
Their faith was kind of shaken because they didn't have a king.
But God made His promise true.
God can't break his covenant.
He established Zerubbabel as that person, as he has established Jesus as the person that he was talking about all the way through.
As we get to the end of the Old Testament, it's going to point towards the coming Messiah.
And just as God reversed the curse on Jeconiah, he can reverse the curse from Adam and Eve through our faith in him and our love for Jesus, believing that his sacrifice was sufficient for our sins, that we too have eternal life.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank youk for this reminder of how we need to consider our ways. Lord, we know the truth Father, we do love youe.
And Father, just help us to continue to demonstrate that love to you, or by seeking you first in your kingdom and your righteousness, knowing for sure, with surety, that we are saved through the work of Jesus and not by ourselves, that his work on the cross was sufficient for us, that his life being perfect, nothing we can never do.
And Father, the hope of his resurrection, his return to claim us in his creation, as it once was, reason to praise you every day, Father, we love you and we thank you.
Amen.
