1 Introduction My message this morning is a word of exhortation: give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord. Give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord Haggai 2:1-9 St Stephens Belrose Aug 16, 2015 I ve taken this theme from 1 Cor 15:58 where we read always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain. But the passage I want to speak about is Haggai 2:1-9. This is also a word of exhortation to God s people to Be strong and work. In fact Haggai tells his listeners three times to be strong. We could summarise his message as Keep strong and keep working. Now I know what work is. And I am sure you do as well. We get up on Monday and go to work. So when we read Haggai exhorting the people to Be strong and work! we could easily miss the point. Let me explain. The year is 520 BC and the setting is Jerusalem. Sixteen years earlier something like 30,000 Jews returned to Israel after some 50 years in exile in Babylon. The rise of the Persians led by their victorious King Cyrus had a surprising outcome: the Jewish exiles were permitted to return to their homeland to rebuild Jerusalem and re-establish their lives in the promised land.
2 And so they had been working hard these past 16 years. But not much had gone right for them. They made a start on the Temple and got as far as the foundations. And they built an altar so that the priests could begin to make offerings on it. But they faced opposition from their neighbours and gave up. Of course they went out to work the land as well. But the weather was poor and they faced years of drought and pestilence and poor harvests. And then there was the disappointment they felt. These 30,000 were the hopeful, visionary Israelites. They chose to leave behind comfortable lives in Babylon to take the risky journey back to the land of their Fathers. They did so because the prophets of the exile spoke of the coming great days when the desert would turn into a garden and Jerusalem would become the centre of the world. The reality was very different and the people were discouraged. And so God raised up two prophets: Haggai and Zechariah. Together they encouraged God s people to get their priorities right and to build the Temple. So when Haggai tells the people to keep strong and keep working he does not mean to get out into the fields. They d already tried that. He means get to Jerusalem and start building the Temple. Or as Paul puts it give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord. Now Haggai offers two reasons why we should give ourselves fully to the Lords work. 1. God has a plan (and he wants us to be part of it) Explanation God s people were discouraged. They had started work on the Temple some four weeks earlier but they had accomplished very little. As they cleared the temple footings the scale of the new Temple was starting to become evident and it was not very impressive. I think we can imagine all the people gathered together in and around the temple site: Zerubbabel the governor, Joshua the high priest and the people. And once again Haggai begins to address the gathered crowd. He begins by giving voice to their disappointment: (3) Does it not seem to you like nothing? Actually I suspect that their primary worry was less the size of the building than their concern that there were no beautiful treasures, no gold or silver implements or furniture to put in the Temple once it was built. No glory! Which I think is why Haggai speaking for the Lord reminds the people The silver is mine and the gold is mine (8). So that s our message this morning.
3 And why he reminds them that he has a plan. Read vv 6-7. There will come a day says the Lord when everything will change. Creation itself will be shaken: heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land And the nations too will be re-arranged; the power structures of Empires will be dismantled and rebuilt. And the result? Jerusalem will become the capitol and centre of a very great empire. And the nations of the earth will bring tribute in recognition of Israel s greatness and might. All the precious things of the world will come flowing to Jerusalem and into the Temple. And so the glory of the Temple they are building will be greater even than Solomon s Temple. God has a plan and through Haggai He calls on his people to be part of this great plan: to build this Temple which will soon become a fitting centerpiece of a great Kingdom. This vision appears elsewhere in the scriptures and we looked at one of them recently. Can anyone remember? Rev 21:24-26. John sees the new Jerusalem and the kings of the earth bringing their splendor into it.. This is what Jesus meant by the coming Kingdom of God and by the renewal of all things (Matt 19:28). And so Haggai s vision was of a time in the distant future. It was a vision of the end-point of history. Through Haggai God was saying to his people I have a plan and I want you to be part of it. So keep working! Illustration It s like the Olympic Games. Every four years the world turns its attention to one city in the world (next year? Rio). The best athletes in the world pour into the city to represent the nations of the world. This is how I visualize the new heavens and the new earth; how our lives will be when Christ s Kingdom comes in all its fullness. Imagine every four years we hold an enormous festival celebrating not the human body but some wonderful characteristic of the living God. Let s say for example his love for his Son. Or his faithfulness to his promises. Or His justice. We will need vast numbers of workers to bring the wealth of the nations to one place. We will need engineers and architects. Planners and truckers and tradespeople of all kinds. Probably painters as well! And slowly we build together some wonderful place in which to celebrate our Lord. Over days of carefully planned events we share together in some great process of honouring and enjoying yet another aspect of our great God and Father of the Lord Jesus.
4 Then we take a month or two off to rest before we begin again with some new and extraordinary project in praise of our God. This is just a way of visualizing this great plan of God to draw the whole of creation together under Christ. God has a plan. That s what Haggai is saying. And He wants you to be part of it. Application It s true for us today as well. What Haggai foresaw and spoke out lies before us as well. What excites me about God s plan is that it is already underway. With the resurrection of Jesus the renewal of all things has already begun. And when the gospel of the resurrection is declared and people receive it and believe it, so life comes pouring into the world. The life of the age to come begins to energise and activate and motivate God s people. And we are drawn together into new communities, into the Church. And here among God s people we begin to pray for and to seek the coming Kingdom. We begin to teach each other how to live as citizens of heaven. We begin to arrange our property and our wealth so as to build the Kingdom. And so even now across the face of the earth the Church is shaking the heavens and the earth; shifting, changing, restoring, renewing that part of the creation which the Lord has entrusted to us, reorienting what God has given us for the Lord. Even now across the face of the earth worship is being offered to the Father and the Son in the power of the Spirit. Even now the Kingdom is coming. Miyon Chung shared something of this hope with us a few weeks ago. This is the vision of Rev 21. A vast city descends from heaven and occupies the whole of the earth. It is a city without a temple. Why? Because the Lord himself is in the city. The whole city has become a temple and so the whole of creation becomes the place to know and to worship God. And we are experiencing the very beginnings of this coming reality here and now. And this is why our work matters. God has a plan and he wants us to be part of it. Just as God s people in 520 BC were called to place stone upon stone so we are called to build the Church living stone by living stone; winning people to the Lord, building up one another, strengthening one another, equipping one another; working with one another. So give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord. He has a plan and he wants us to be part of it. But God has more than a plan. And here is a second reason to give ourselves fully to the work of the Lord.
5 You ve heard I guess of the gunner man? Every community has one. He s all talk and no action. He s gunner do this. Then he s gunner do that. All plans and no work. But this is not so with God. God has a great plan. But he is also 2. God is at work (and he wants us to share in it) Explanation We ve seen already that the Lord s message to the people is keep strong and keep working. And he grounds this exhortation at the end of v 4: For I am with you. God is with His people. He says it a second time in v 5: And my Spirit remains with you. The power of God is present and active among his people. This he says is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt (5). The whole point of choosing Israel and of rescuing her from the Egyptians was so that God should make for himself a people who would know him. The God of Israel is a covenant-making God who binds himself to a people with the promise that they will be his people and he will be their God. This was signified in the desert wanderings by the Tabernacle and in Jerusalem by the Temple. This is God s great project in the world. This is God s great mission to restore the human race and the whole of creation through his chosen people Israel. And so God is reminding his people that he is at work and is calling them to share in his work by building the Temple. And so it is with us: God is at work in our world and he wants us to share in this great work. To give ourselves fully to the work of the Lord. Illustration Men like to work together. Nothing is better for two men than to do a job together. My brother for example likes to come and work with me one or two days each year. We have a great day together. We talk. And we get stuff done. And we end the day pleased with each other and with the world. In the same way God is at work and he wants us to work alongside him. Application Now I need to address a question you may have begun to think about. Just what is this Lord s work? And how does it relate to everyday work? Haggai s call to keep working was not a call to go back to the fields but to build the Temple. What about us? What kind of work are we called to? We might put the question in terms of the sacred and the secular: how does sacred work relate to secular work?
6 Over the years two errors have influenced our thinking here. The first is to see these as two utterly different kinds of work. This view was current in the Middle Ages. The sacred realm and the secular were seen as two mutually exclusive realms. The work of the Church and in particular of performing the sacraments were seen as the highest form of human labour. Everything else was secondary and unimportant. It was one of the insights of the Reformation that everyday work was also valued by God. Jesus was a carpenter; Paul was a tentmaker. The NT teaches us to do all things as unto the Lord. Luther taught that when a man changes a baby s nappy the angels are smiling! But there is the opposite error. That is to take the Reformation corrective too far and to see all human labour as intrinsically sacred. Sometimes we say to ourselves that there is no longer a distinction between sacred and secular. And so painting a house is as sacred as preaching a sermon; digging a ditch is as sacred as prayer. But this fails to keep in mind the progress of God s plan and work in history. The Kingdom has begun to come but has not come in all its fullness. The Spirit is with us but as a deposit, a down-payment on what is yet to come. The glory of God is among us but it has not yet covered the earth as the waters cover the sea. The renewal of all things has begun but is also yet to come. One day all that is secular will be overwhelmed by the sacred and the whole of creation will become a temple, a holy place in which to worship God. But that is not yet the case. And yet there is a place in creation where this sacredness is evident. Can you think where that is? It is a place where the gospel of the coming Kingdom is being declared and celebrated. It is the sphere in which the resurrection power of God is already at work renewing human beings in the image of their Creator. It is a community in which God is at work to rescue the world. It is the new people of God through whom God is reaching out to a troubled and broken world. It is the Church. Friends, God is at work in the Church. And he is calling us to share in this work. This is holy work. It is the Lord s work. This work of evangelism and service in Christ s name, of building up the Church, of sharing our gifts in community, of encouraging one another to keep strong and to keep seeking the Kingdom. This is the Lord s work. And today I am encouraging you to give yourself fully to this work.
7 If we are doing this work well then we will also be sending out believers into the world as godly workers who see even the most mundane of tasks as an expression of their worship of God. In this way the Kingdom reaches out and begins to shape the whole world. And we will be sending out godly shoppers as well whose identity does not arise from their purchases but who have an eye to justice and to the health of the planet as they share in the produce of the earth. Richard Glover shared something of this with us a few weeks ago. But it is the Lords work which lays the foundation for this kind of Christian labour and presence in the world. And it is to this labour in the Lord that Haggai is calling his people and Paul is calling the Church in Corinth. so today I want to encourage you, to exhort you to give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord. We need a fresh wave of energy and engagement and drive and commitment in our community. Will you pray for that? And commit to that? To respond to Haggai s call the people of Israel had to step forward to perform some new tasks; duties that they were not familiar with. I want to urge you today to do the same. Step forward into the life of this Church. Take on some new task and new responsibility. God has a plan and he wants us to be part of it. God is at work and he wants us to share in it. Let s give ourselves fully to the work of the Lord. Conclusion Haggai called God s people to give themselves fully to the work God gave them to do in their day: to build the Temple. This was a call to real people to set their hands to real tasks with a concrete outcome. It took four years but they did it: they rebuilt the Temple. In the same way God is calling us to give ourselves fully to the work of the Lord here at St Stephens. And