God wants us to be holy. And He wants to bless us. Haggai 2: Introduction

Transcription

1 Introduction I have two things to say this morning. The first is that if you want to be blessed by God then you ve got to be holy. And the second is that God wants to bless his people. God wants us to be holy. And He wants to bless us. Haggai 2:10-19 We come this morning to the third of Haggai s four prophetic messages. In the first message Haggai spoke as a prophetic leader. In the second as a prophetic encourager. In the third message we see Haggai in the role of prophetic teacher. He wants the people to give careful thought to their situation and he has a message which he wants them to take to heart. His message is that God wants to bless them and that if they want to be blessed, they ve got to be holy. But let me first tell the story of Haggai to provide a context for this message. St Stephens Belrose February 15, 2015 The year is 520 BC. The place is Jerusalem. God s people have returned to the city after some 50 years in exile. They have been home now for 16 years. Solomon s great temple lies in ruins and although they began to rebuild it they soon became discouraged and gave up. Instead they gave their energies to the problem of providing for themselves: to farming and building their own homes. But nothing was going well. They went through years of drought and poor harvests. The people were discouraged. The miracle of their

2 return to the promised land had become a story of disappointment. And then God raised up two prophets: Haggai and Zechariah. Two prophets to encourage the people and to stir them into action. On Aug 29, 520 Haggai stood up in the middle of the new moon festival and declared God s word to the Governor Zerubbabel, the High priest Joshua and to the gathered people: Is it time he asked for you to live in your paneled houses while this house (the temple) lies in ruins?...go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored (1:4,8). And the people were immediately struck by Haggai s message and resolved that day to rebuild the temple. Three weeks later, in the middle of September, they began to work. There were discouragements over the following weeks but soon they were ready to lay the first stones of the new building. And so on Dec 18, exactly three months from the date on which they began to rebuild they held a solemn event on the temple site. The old foundations were still in place but they were now laying the first stone of the new work. Again we can imagine the dignatories gathered: Zerubabel, the governor and his advisors; Joshua the high priest along with the other priests; and a great gathering of the people. And again, moved by the Spirit of God, Haggai stands up to declare his third prophetic message. In fact on that day Haggai delivered two oracles, his third and a fourth later in the day. But for now we are thinking about the third of his messages. What will the Lord say through Haggai on this significant day? What he says is this: If you want to be blessed then you must be holy. And, I want to bless you. And so the first thing I want to say today is: 1. If you want to be blessed you ve got to be holy Explanation God s people were struggling. God was not blessing them. There was never enough of anything. When they went to the granary to get some wheat or grain there was always less than they expected (16). And when they went to the cellar to get some wine there was always much less than they thought there would be (16). Not only that but their crops were always affected badly by hot drying winds so that they withered. Or fungus so that the seed heads would not form properly. Or hail which shredded the plants where they stood (17). So what was wrong? Why was God withholding his blessing? At God s direction Haggai puts two questions to the priests; questions about consecration and defilement.

3 He asks (12): if something has been consecrated and then comes into contact with something that has not been consecrated, does that second thing become consecrated too? And the priests answered No. Haggai asked a second question (13); the opposite question. If something is defiled and it comes into contact with something that is consecrated does the consecrated thing become defiled? The priests answered It becomes defiled. And this brings Haggai to the heart of his message: read v 14. This is what is wrong. This is why God s people are struggling. They are not holy and everything they touch is being defiled. Everything they do and everything they offer here in this makeshift temple is defiled. It is as if the broken down temple is a dead body. And everything that happens there at the altar is being constantly polluted and stained by the failure to rebuild it. Nothing is holy and so God is not blessing them. This is what Haggai the teacher wants the people to think about. Three times he exhorts them to give careful thought (15,18,18) to this. More literally he urges them to take this to heart. If you want to be blessed then you ve got to be holy. Illustration Application So what should we make of this? Haggai calls us to whole-hearted worship of God. He reminds us that this is the purpose of creation and of our role in the created order. God places us in the world and gives us stewardship of the world so that we will shape it and mould it and re-arrange it to worship Him. He shows us that this is not only the most important thing in our lives but also that it is the best thing for us. When we live in God s world but fail to offer him whole-hearted worship everything falls apart; everything winds down; death begins to stalk the land. But when we acknowledge God as God, when we worship him with all that we are and with all that we have then there is life and hope and the good. When God s people make God s creation a place of worship then all is well with the world. So Haggai is calling us to make the worship of God the centre of our lives. Our businesses, our land and property, our skills, our savings; it s all for the worship of God. So should we be building temples for the worship of God? Should Christians build Christian temples in which to worship our God? Is there a distinctive kind of Christian architecture? We know that Jesus deliberately turned away from the temple. He stood in front of it and said Tear it down and in three days I will raise it up again (Jn 2:19). When he met together with his disciples they were

4 frequently on the road, or in homes. When he shared the Supper which signified the new covenant he did so not in a temple but in a hired room, around a meal table. We know that the early Christians met in their homes and often over a meal. And we know that in AD 70 the second temple was destroyed by the Romans, and that it has never been rebuilt. You would think then that we would have understood that this new covenant, this new way of worshipping God did not require a temple. And yet it seems we cannot help ourselves. If you have been to Canturbury or Westminster cathedrals, or to St Andrews cathedral, or indeed to just about any local Catholic or Anglican Church, you have seen a Christian version of a temple. The height to humble us; the altar placed at the far end of the building away from the entrance to create a sense of separateness, of holiness; the obstacles that are placed between the people and the altar to separate the holy from the profane; and then the priests beautifully dressed to help us make some kind of contact with the divine. In this mode of thinking we become holy as we participate in the liturgy, in the drama that is played out in this space again and again. But I am sure that this is a mistake. We Christians have come to believe that there is a new place to meet God. Jesus is that place. In Jesus God and humankind meet together. In Jesus life and ministry, in his death and resurrection God has made a new holy place, a new consecrated space where he can be with His people and where we can worship him. But where is this space? Is it really a place I can walk to and enter into? Yes it is. It is the place where people gather in the name of Jesus. What did Jesus say? Where two or three gather in my name there am I in the midst of them (Matt 18:20). This is no ordinary meeting. We gather not only to speak about Jesus and to declare his Lordship. Not only to encourage each other to be strong in His service. But we gather in His presence. The Spirit of Jesus gathers with us. This room, or any room, becomes a holy place when Jesus comes amongst his people. That s why it matters so much that we make sure that we meet in the name of Jesus: that we declare his story; that we honour and worship Him; that we welcome all who know and love our Lord Jesus Christ; that we acknowledge the presence of the risen Jesus in our midst. This is the worship God seeks. No longer in a temple. No longer in Jerusalem. No longer on a mountain. But here at the ends of the earth. Here in this room. Or in any room. Or field. Or street. In the name of Jesus.

5 You have heard me say that I regret the loss of reverence in our meetings. And yet the answer is not to go back to some kind of temple model. Or to create some kind of artificial sense of holiness, a theatre of holiness. No. The answer is to revere the name of Jesus. So what kind of building should Christians use or build? If we were make a holy building what would it look like? What would reflect this central idea that we are gathering in the name of Jesus and in his presence? Well it might be no building at all. Surely that would help us to remember that in the years of his ministry Jesus wandered the dusty roads and prayed in the fields; that his ministry was public and vulnerable to the changeable weather; that he himself was homeless. Or perhaps it would be a home. Shared; borrowed; rented. A home in which we gather to worship and pray in the name of Jesus. Our home groups then might be the model. And the earliest churches we know of were just like this: homes with larger than usual rooms and a small indoor pool for baptisms. And in a home what do you expect to find? The sound of children. The smell of cooking (or coffee!). The dramas of the local neighbourhood. But to explore these possibilities we need to think a little more about Christian holiness and how it relates to the world and I want to come to that in a moment. So Haggai is saying if you want to be blessed then you must be holy. Now this message might suggest that God is unwilling to bless his people. But that is not the case. And this is the second thing I want to say today. 2. God wants to bless his people Explanation The final word of this third oracle is an assurance of blessing: From this day on I will bless you (19). Remember that this day was the day they laid the first stone of the new work. The three months leading up to this momentous day were difficult days. The people were waxing hot and cold. One day they set to work to rebuild the temple. Next they were discouraged and ready to give up. They needed the encouragement of two prophets and repeated prophetic words. But in spite of their inconsistency here they were gathered on the temple mount to lay this first great stone and so set in train the rebuilding of the temple in earnest. Four years later the work was finished and the second Temple was completed.

6 And so Haggai declares that God will bless his people. Now it would make sense if Haggai declared that the Lord would bless his people once the temple was built. But on this the first day of the serious business of reconstruction; on this day when the second temple was only just beginning to emerge; on this very day Haggai gives God s assurance From this day I will bless you. God wants to bless his people. He asks the people (19) is there any seed left in the barn? His point here is not that there is a shortage. In mid Dec the seed was already sown and ploughed into the ground. But the winter months were ahead. Only in the spring would this seed germinate. The harvest later still. So just as the first stone was a sign of hope, the beginning of the later temple; so the empty barn was a sign of hope. The seed was in its place awaiting the change of seasons and in time would become a wonderful harvest. And so the two things are drawn together. God wants his people to build the new temple. Why? Because he wants to bless them. Haggai s earlier messages also included words of assurance about God s heart towards his people. I am with you said the Lord on the first day of Haggai s ministry. He said it twice on that day. I will grant peace was the assurance in his second message. So God s intention to bless his people at the end of the third message is consistent. The Lord loves his people and wants to give them every good gift. He wants to bless them. Illustration Application What does this word mean for us? Well we know something Haggai may not have known. God wanted to bless Israel because he wants to bless the whole world. Through this second temple God had a plan to bless the whole of creation. I have already spoken about the way Jesus put aside the Temple. Let me take that thought one further step. You remember at the moment of Jesus death what happened in the Temple. The curtain that separated the Holy place from the rest of the temple was torn from top to bottom. Now we are used to the idea that this opened the way for humanity to come to God; that the death of Jesus and the forgiveness of sins makes it possible for sinful humanity to enter the presence of a holy God. Praise God for His grace! But the tearing of the curtain achieved something else which we do not think about so often. It allowed the holiness of God to enter the world! And this has always been God s purpose in creation. To make his wisdom known; to make himself known; to fill the whole earth with his glory; to turn the whole of creation into a temple where his holiness is present in every place and where all things are made holy by his presence.

7 In Zechariah s last oracle he envisages a day when even the bells of the horses will have inscribed on them Holy to the Lord and when even the pots and pans in the kitchens of Jerusalem and Judah will be holy to the Lord. He sees a day when people will take the consecrated pots and pans from the temple to their homes and cook with them there. A day when the holiness of God reaches out and transforms the world. And we Christians are supposed to be the people through whom the holiness of God reaches out and changes the world. Again and again the NT calls us the saints, the holy ones. We are filled with the Spirit of Holiness and by the power of the Spirit we proclaim Jesus as Lord. This is our fellowship, our essence, our reason for being. In our choices and decisions about our money and our property we seek to bring everything under Christ s rule. And so His holy Kingdom comes in the world and in our own households and lives. This then is the mighty grace of God. God s loving purpose is to share the most precious thing which has ever existed; to share himself. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus wants to be known. And in this way he wants to bless not only Israel. Not only the people of the world; but the whole of creation. Conclusion And so if you want to be blessed then you ve got to be holy. And God wants you be both blessed and holy. Not only you but the whole of creation. Let me encourage you as Haggai did to give careful thought to this. To take this to heart. For his part Haggai did what God called him to do at a critical moment in Israel s history. On that day, Dec BC Israel overcame her hesitation to build. In four years the second temple was complete. God s people did what God called them to do in their day. What is God calling us to do? He is building his Temple across the face of the world. He is bringing the people and the treasures of the nations together under the name of Jesus. And we here in St Stephens are called to play our part in the great purpose of our Holy God to consecrate the world to Himself.