Extreme Makeover Series

Extreme Makeover

Sermon By CH(CPT) Keith J. Andrews

All scripture marked ESV: The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

We are continuing our series this week on Rebuilding the Temple in Our Heart, while looking at the book of Haggai.

Today we are looking at Haggai chapter 2.

As I begin this morning, I have to confess that I like reality TV. I know, I shouldn’t, but I’m guilty. I love to know all of the gossip and all the drama. I love to all up in their business.

Several years ago, a reality TV show started on ABC called; Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. I always wonder what other editions there are. I know there was just a Extreme Makeover—where the show revolved around plastic surgery and other things. That was over the top for me.

But the Home Edition, I can handle, even though it is melodrama and tear jerking at its best.

Each episode features a story about a family in need of a new home—they may have a family member with Cancer, a rare disease, or, I’ve even seen them work on a house of a wounded Veteran—that’s cool.

So, they start with the old house and typically bulldoze the entire thing, and rebuild a house in it’s place.

As we will look at today, this is the same thing that will happen in the Temple in Our Hearts as we begin to turn our attention Godward.

We are looking at the book of Haggai, in the second chapter.

Here we see the people of Israel committed to rebuilding the temple. They have waited 14 years to restart this project, and after the prophetic words of Haggai, then decide to rebuild this Temple.

As we look at this passage we see God’s charge to the people of Israel and his promise that the Temple will be rebuilt, and one day the “glory of this house shall be greater than the former.”

And this is true in our lives as well. The temple that is in our hearts will be greater than the former, but just as the Israelites didn’t have to wait until then end times to experience this neither do we.

1. And in starting now, we need to look at where we are and where we’ve been.

Haggai says in verse 3:

3 ‘Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? (Hag 2:3, ESV).

Their were very few people that remembered the temple as it was before. The Israelites had been in captivity for 70 years, then another 14 years waiting for it to get to this point—so for those that would be old enough to remember the old temple, they had to at least be around 95 or so.

None of remember the United States Civil War.

The last Union Veteran died on August 2, 1956 at age 109 and the last Confederate Veteran died on March 16, 1958 at 112.

The last widow of a Civil War Veteran dies on Memorial day May 31, 2004, she was 97.

MSBC wrote;

“Her May-December marriage in the 1920s to Civil War Veteran William Jasper Martin and her longevity made her a celebrated final link to the old Confederacy.” (www.msnbc.com/id/5106000/)

The same was true with the temple. There were very few after a hundred years to have remembered the “old glory” of the temple.

And in our lives, many of us try to think back to a time when we were happy with our relationship with God. There wasn’t any rough patches. There were challenges of course, but the temple in our heart was full of life an action.

Some where along the line we stopped.

You may have lost an enjoyment of church and religion. You may have become discouraged with the church and how it operates and you desire more but you haven’t found it.

I read in one of the blogs I follow a description of the challenge that we face when we are looking at how our religion impacts our lives. She writes;

Lately, I have this increasing need to do something.

With my time, with my life.

I was thinking tonight... So many people need religion or something to make their life have meaning. Something to look forward to. Something to live for.

Why can’t we just live for the sake of living?

Maybe it’s not about where we end up. Maybe it’s not about heaven or hell. Maybe it’s not about our bodies rotting away or our life escaping to become a part of something larger.

Maybe the point of life is just to make the most of it while we have it.

Maybe we’ll get another chance, but probably not.