Wake up! We Have Work to Do!
Minor Prophets: Around and Around They Go • Sermon • Submitted
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Opening & Intro
Opening & Intro
Can’t see the forest for the trees!
Explain what that means
I have ADHD and part of having that is that details tend to get me side tracked.
If I have 10 important jobs to do I will take time to organize those jobs out but each set of details is a potential rabbit trail that I don’t need to go down.
Say I had to paint an entire room in a single day, but I spent the entire day that I had to paint the room picking out the color of the paint.
Or
I sit down to work on my sermon
There is a pen on my desk.
I need to put the pen in my pen holder.
There are post-it notes in my pen holder.
I didn’t realize I had so many different colors.
“Are they still sticky?” Test one out.
I should use these more often.
Write my self a postit to remind myself to use the post-it.
“Wow my hand writting looks really good today.”
Write my name 50 times on about 8 post-it notes.
Made a mess on my desk I shoudl clean it.
Throw the post-its away
Oh a few books are out. where do they go?
Oh this book…Hmm I was looking for that quote the other day. Where was that? (read 3 chapters)
That is interesting. What does the Bible say about that? (Start reading the Bible.)
Shoot it is 10:30 already. (Puts books away.)
Sees the microphone that needs to go back to the sunshine room
take it back…There goes the rest of my morning.
Next thing I know it is 2:30 and I have to pick San up from her job and I have organized the sunshine room, painted a black boarder on the projector screen, looked in all the cupboards in the kitchen for no reason, checked in on the sound system and wires in the sound closet, Stood in the library for 20 minutes reading the different names of books, straightened up our recording area, and sat back down at my desk in time to pack my computer up to go get Sandra.
That is what a bad day looks like with my ADHD. If I forget to take my meds or I am just really distracted on that day.
This is exactly what Haggai is about. The Jewish people are distracted. They have a plan to rebuild the temple and they start out strong only to get sidetracked by making repairs to their own homes.
Doesn’t that happen to all of us? We get so caught up in the how we do things that we can forget the why.
Main Point
Main Point
Haggai: Wake up and remember! We have work to do! The importance of worship and community.
Why Does it Matter
Why Does it Matter
How we respond effects the promise. God always keeps his word and has to seek justice. AS we saw last week and the week before there will be a time for judgement from God. The way we choose to spend our time and respond to Him matters. Why we do the things we do matters.
This mornign we will be turning to the book of Haggai.
Scripture
Scripture
1. Reprioritize your life - Wake up time to rebuild
Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?”
Sometimes we lose sight of what really matters. I have worked in ministries that got so hung up on the how of what they do they forgot the who and the why.
This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the Lord. “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?” declares the Lord Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house. Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the olive oil and everything else the ground produces, on people and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands.”
We do it a certain way because it is the way we do it. Forget that it makes sense now to change it up and find a different way. We like comfort.
Understandably, we don’t want to see things shift.
Tell the Ham joke (my grandmother aleays cut the ham in half - The pan was too small.)
Don’t get me wrong there is a right way and a wrong way to do these things.
2. God has not forgotten - God is with us
“This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘The silver is mine and the gold is mine,’ declares the Lord Almighty. ‘The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the Lord Almighty.”
Sometimes when the path is is long and difficult we have to endure and remember what’s important.
We can get lost on our journey but there is always a way back.
The heliocopter and Gabe. ( say my friend)
God is with us. We are not walking alone.
We see a rough road ahead of us and we get discouraged or scared. We forget that God has called us to this path and with that being the case, we will see us through. It won’t be easy but we can do it.
3. We set the example - Worship is important
“This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Ask the priests what the law says: If someone carries consecrated meat in the fold of their garment, and that fold touches some bread or stew, some wine, olive oil or other food, does it become consecrated?’ ”
The priests answered, “No.”
Then Haggai said, “If a person defiled by contact with a dead body touches one of these things, does it become defiled?”
“Yes,” the priests replied, “it becomes defiled.”
Then Haggai said, “ ‘So it is with this people and this nation in my sight,’ declares the Lord. ‘Whatever they do and whatever they offer there is defiled.
holiness is not transferable, while impurity is transferable.
The people around haggai thought that the priests made them acceptable to God. But That is not how it works.
We haev to own our faith. We aren’t Christians because our parents were. It isn’t inhereted.
There problem here was that the jewish people did not fully return to God. They were AGAIN distracted.
I struck all the work of your hands with blight, mildew and hail, yet you did not return to me,’ declares the Lord.
We can call on the name of the LORD. How many times have we seen it on a tv show or a movie. Someone calls out to God and begs Him to help. The prayer starts with, “I don’t believe in you but...”
How does that work?
I don’t know you but can You do me a HUGE favour?
4. God will fulfill His promise -
Haggai 2:20–23 (NIV)
The word of the Lord came to Haggai a second time on the twenty-fourth day of the month: “Tell Zerubbabel governor of Judah that I am going to shake the heavens and the earth. I will overturn royal thrones and shatter the power of the foreign kingdoms. I will overthrow chariots and their drivers; horses and their riders will fall, each by the sword of his brother.
“ ‘On that day,’ declares the Lord Almighty, ‘I will take you, my servant Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will make you like my signet ring, for I have chosen you,’ declares the Lord Almighty.”
First, Haggai’s word of affirmation overturns the divine curse of the Davidic line pronounced by Jeremiah upon King Jehoiachin of Judah (Jer 22:24–30). Haggai’s fourth message both reinstates the family of Jehoiachin by reversing the earlier prophetic curse and reestablishes the provisions of the Davidic covenant for perpetuating the dynasty of King David
We can mess up but God’s promise is eternal and final. He will be there! He will answer.
Application
Application
So, on those ADHD days that I am talking about… How do I recover?
What about when I am feeling spiritually lost? I am supposed to be building the temple but I am working on my own issues...
What can we do?
Closing
Closing
We need to wake up and Worship knowing that God is with us and will always see us through.