Bethel Lutheran Church - Pastor Luke Bernthal Rededicate the Temple ; Haggai 1: 2 - 10; 2009-10-18 The Bulletin (order of service) Text: Haggai 1: 2 - 10;
Christians have learned (the hard way) to look for dangers in every aspect of life here on earth. This is not paranoia; it is reality. Take Christmas for example: If Satan is capable of turning the occasion of the birth of the Son of God and Savior of the world into an exercise of blatant materialism, drunkenness, and gluttony, we ought to recognize that there is absolutely nothing that is good on this earth that he will allow to stand unchallenged. In other words, if God loves it, the devil will relentlessly attack it. This morning we apply that valuable lesson to our annual Mission Festival celebration. Here too Satan has, with diabolical cleverness, turned this celebration into something that neither we nor our God ever intended. He has, for the most part, turned it into an exercise in futility – a lip-service celebration that never seems to last beyond the final "Amen." How so? Let me explain. You see, the devil really couldn't care less about what we say about mission work here in our service this morning. He knows we will sing the old Mission hymns, talk about spreading God's Word and witnessing, and that we'll talk about the need to demonstrate the ultimate love toward those who do not know their Savior. We might well talk about what's going on over in India and Africa, what's being done in our stateside missions, and what we need to be doing here at home. He can't do much to stop that, and in the end it really doesn't matter to him – as long as it is all talk; as long as it is all just "good intention" on our part and there is no follow-through. The devil doesn't mind packed churches, huge mission budgets, tracts, pamphlets, calendars, and websites. All of that is just fine with him. He just wants the souls – all souls, every single soul. He wants them all – including yours and mine – to suffer for all eternity with him in hell. He wants to destroy anything and everything that God loves, and every ounce of his hatred is directed relentlessly toward that one goal. So it is that we approach our celebration this morning with this bit of insider information serving as our warning and guide. Our goal is to celebrate Mission Festival in such a way that what we hear, say, and sing during our service this morning is not an end in itself, but the training and encouragement that will follow through in our day to day walk in the days and weeks to follow. With this as our goal we turn to our Mission Festival text for this morning – a text that is seldom used for this occasion, but nonetheless has much to say about mission work in general, and our own particular calling as missionaries for Jesus. Our text, found in the Book of Haggai, chapter one, is not exactly the sort of text one would expect, is it? Normally we would expect to hear something about "how beautiful are the feet of those who preach to gospel of peace"(Romans 10:15) or "Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:19). All great texts, of course, but here is where the problem manifests itself, when we know all about our Lord's Great Commission, and when we say and hear beautiful words about "outreach" and "winning souls for Christ," but there is no follow-through and those souls somehow remain in the darkness of unbelief. Again, Satan doesn't mind most Mission Festivals. What terrifies and enrages him is when Christians actually do what they talk about doing in their Mission Festivals – when lost and condemned souls actually hear from our mouths the words that can bring them to spiritual life. What the devil absolutely hates is when a believer in Christ passes from this vale of tears to the Savior's waiting arms. This is the sort of thing that he works tirelessly to prevent, and this is therefore the sort of thing that we want to work tirelessly to bring about. Our Mission Festival therefore must not be about programs or what others are doing or abstract notions of what you and I ought to be doing. Our Mission Festival needs to be about souls, and how you and I personally can bring the Word of God to bear on those who need to hear if they have any chance of joining us in heaven. Mission Festival is about love – the purest, highest form of active love towards our neighbor. Outreach (mission work) is the ultimate expression of Christian love. But then just what does all of this have to do with our text for this morning? Christians all carry baggage that prevents us from actually bringing the Word of God into the lives and hearts of those who so desperately need to hear. Our text for this morning addresses what is perhaps the single most oppressive element of the baggage that weighs us down and holds us back: our natural, self-centered greed. With that in mind, take another look at our text. The setting here is the remnant nation of Israel after their return from the Babylonian Captivity. Work had begun on the restoration of the temple, but that work had halted for about 16 years, during which time the Jews focused their energies on rebuilding their own personal homes and fortunes. Their justification would no doubt have sounded very good and reasonable in our modern ears, "We have to help ourselves before we can help others." Haggai takes these people to task for their selfishness and lack of trust. Haggai's warning certainly has application for each of us today. In fact, who among us can honestly say that these words could not just as easily have been spoken by Haggai directly to each one of us? Who here isn't much more willing to spend hard earned money on himself and his own desires or pleasures, rather than donate that time and treasure to the spreading or maintenance of the church? Who doesn't look first to his own needs, and only secondarily to the needs of God's Church? Yet is this self-condemnation fair and deserved? We don't want to condemn that which is not sin, nor seek to correct that which is not amiss in our lives. Are we not here, after all, worshipping in God's House, constructed with our own hands and offerings? Isn't our giving above average and our church property always kept in good repair? Don't we contribute a percentage of what we bring to the Lord's altar towards mission work? All of these things are, of course, true. It is also true, however, that the Lord looks at the inside (the heart), not at the outside. Israel's basic problem was not their failure to build God's temple before they saw to their own personal fortunes. Theirs was a problem of the heart: they loved themselves more than they loved their God – and infinitely more than they loved their neighbor. Even if Israel had first constructed the Lord's temple, and then returned to their narcissistic, self-absorbed lifestyles, God's condemnation would have continued. We know this to be true because that is exactly what happened! Israel was, for a time, reenergized and refocused on rebuilding God's temple, but after the completion of that temple they fell right back into their old ways. By doing so they demonstrated the same problem that afflicts us today – the very thing Satan delights to witness in our present-day Mission Festivals. We need to be perfectly clear here that this text, this entire problem, was and is not about money. Their greed was just a symptom of the greater problem, which was their lack of lasting dedication to "the one thing needful." In Israel, the problem was made painfully obvious by the fact that the various religious observances that God had required of Israel had to take place in the temple. The fact that they had not yet rebuilt the temple indicated a profound spiritual apathy on the part of the people. In the New Testament we have been given the freedom to worship our God in any and every setting. This was not the case in the Old Testament. The lack of urgency demonstrated by the people in not rebuilding their temple therefore indicated a spiritual problem that God simply could not and would not tolerate. You heard in our text what God did to call them back – he withdrew his blessing from their secular pursuits. Now therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts: "Consider your ways! 6 "You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but do not have enough; you drink, but you are not filled with drink; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages, earns wages to put into a bag with holes" (Haggai 1:5-6). No matter how hard they worked, no matter how many jobs they held down and how many hours they put in, it all came to nothing. When God withholds His blessing, no good can ever result. Why was this so important to our God? Surely he is absolutely worthy of worship and adoration – worthy to be revered above all else and held in honor by every human being – but there was more to it than that. Later in this same Book of Haggai we learn that God was so adamant about the rebuilding of the temple not because of His own needs but because of ours. His goal was always our rescue, our salvation. Listen to his words later in this same Book: "Be strong, all you people of the land,' says the LORD, 'and work; for I am with you,' says the LORD of hosts. 5 'According to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, so My Spirit remains among you; do not fear!' 6 " For thus says the LORD of hosts: 'Once more (it is a little while) I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and dry land; 7 'and I will shake all nations, and they shall come to the Desire of All Nations, and I will fill this temple with glory,' says the LORD of hosts" (Haggai 2:4-7). God's ultimate goal was not the construction of a building but the salvation of mankind. The "glory" with which he would "fill this new temple" – the "Desire of All Nations" mentioned here in the Book of Haggai – was Jesus Christ Himself! God was speaking of the temple in which Jesus himself would one day walk and teach. The sacrifices needed to be resumed because they were intended to point the people to the coming sacrifice of the Son of God, who by his perfect life and self-sacrifice would satisfy the sin debt for all mankind. This is exactly how and why the text that we study here this morning serves as a Mission Festival text. Our God calls to us to compare our love for our material things with our love for human beings – eternal souls that must one day face the judgment of their Creator God. He calls you to do exactly what that “new man” in you longs to do, which is the total dedication of all that you have and all that you are to the one goal that he has laid out for you – the Great Commission to "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15). When this life has ended – which it without question will – one thing and one thing only will remain. One thing will matter. That one thing is our relationship with Jesus Christ. Remind yourself therefore, morning by morning, that nothing else in life has any lasting significance. All that will matter to you and every other human being on the great Day of Judgment is this one question: "Did saving faith in Jesus Christ live in your heart?" Everything else just goes away. "He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned" (Mark 16:16). It is undoubtedly your heartfelt desire to share this good news with your neighbor. God grant to each of us the courage and love to actually do so – with our time and with our resources. Let us, therefore rededicate ourselves – we who through faith in Jesus Christ are temples of the Holy Spirit who lives in us – rededicate the “temple” of our lives to the service of our God and the salvation of our neighbor, and God will see to it that souls will be saved. Amen.
(Adapted from a Mission Festival Sermon by Pastor Michael Roehl, Bismarck, ND) |