Sermon post...Haggai 1:12-15...16 years and 24 days

 


I wish you could have heard the sound of the spikes being driven into this cross to hold the purple cloth.  It not only echoed through the building but it penetrated the hearts of those who were there to experience it.  Another awareness of what an impact Jesus has made upon our lives.

Haggai's message to the people of God from the LORD of hosts takes hold after 24 days.  The leaders and workers pick up their tools again after a 16 year work stoppage and start up from the foundation that had been laid.  You have to read the book of Ezra along with the book of Haggai to get the backstory and how God provided again everything they needed to complete the task as He did 16 years ago.  The people of God had come back to obedience to what the LORD of hosts said over what "they" were saying.

As the people of God of Haggai's day in 520 B.C. were called back to obedience to a God given task, the rebuilding of the temple, so are we, the people of God of this day, at times called back to obedience to a God given task.  Our God given task is the Great Commission found in Matthew 28:18-20.  Not oddly but rather ironically and divinely, it also deals with a temple but the temple has morphed from brick and mortar to flesh and blood.  We are to built up the temple of God by making disciples.  The Apostles Paul and Peter pick up on this great metaphor.  Here are some examples.

"Do you not know that you are a sanctuary of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?  If any man destroys the sanctuary of God, God will destroy him, for the sanctuary of God is holy, and that is what you are."  (1 Corinthians 3:16-17, LSB)

"Or what agreement has a sanctuary of God with idols?  For we are a sanctuary of the living God; just as God said, 'I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.'" (2 Corinthians 6:16, LSB)

"So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God's household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in who the whole building, being joined together, is growing into a holy sanctuary in the Lord, in whom you also are being built into a dwelling of God in the Spirit." (Ephesians 2:19-22, LSB)

"And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." (1 Peter 2:4-5, LSB)

The underlines are added by me for emphasis.  We are no longer dead stones but stones that have been brought to life and are being transformed to be all things Christ.  This is some beautiful imagery of what happens when we are about the task of making disciples!  We need to guard against what happened to the people of God in Haggai's day when they concluded that it was not the time to be at the task that God had given them.  We, as the people of God today, can do the same with rationals of culture, persecution/pressure, undesired response, and our own schedules that keep us running or busying ourselves with our own houses (1.9).

One highlight from the sermon for me was that God sent Haggai to the people of God (1.12).  The word sent is more than just making it to the destination but being sent to be stretched out, to the max, with the message or cause.  Haggai would be speaking a very unpopular message among the people of God who have been stagnant for 16 years.  It makes me think of God sending His one and only Son, Jesus, to be stretched out to the max for us.  A message that would be rejected but a remnant, the narrow road people, would respond with repentance, belief, faith, submission and humility and pick up the tools God has provided for us to accomplish His task given to us.

Remember the old Sunday School song?

Building up the temple, 

building up the temple, 

building up the temple of the Lord.

Say brother won't you help me, 

sister won't you help me, 

building up the temple of the Lord.

Adam



A simple man serving a great God and the local pastor of Stillwater Community Chapel (stillwater-chapel.org). We are in our 38th year of full time ministry. God directed us to this local body of believers on the Western Range of the Rockies to grow with them in mission and mindedness of Christ.

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