The Return Home - 19
February 27, 2011
Sometimes life is all about pig slop and whale guts! How’s that for a start? The prodigal son can tell you about the pig slop. He requested his share of his father’s inheritance before his father died; and he took the money and ran off to the Las Vegas of his day, and wasted all of the money. He finally got a job feeding pigs, which is an irony for a Jew; and he grew so hungry that he was about to eat the pig slop. That’s what it took for him to come to his senses and return home.
The story of Jonah doesn’t include pit slop, it includes whale guts. Jonah’s a prophet in the Bible, who had a real problem with God’s assignment in his life. God called Jonah to preach to the Assyrians, to tell them to repent. Jonah didn’t like the Assyrians and he didn’t want them to receive God’s grace. Instead of going to Assyria, Jonah went the other way, and God responded by putting Jonah in the ultimate time out . . . 3 long days in the belly of a whale. The whale could only stomach Jonah for 3 days, so the whale spit Jonah onto a beach. And this helped Jonah to get back on track and follow God’s plan.
Well, today we have the Jews and the abandoned temple. I realize that doesn’t have the same marquee power as the others, but this story describes a people who experienced a prodigal rebellion, as they passed through a Jonah lapse. And most of all, this story answers the question, “what does God do when we make His big thing our small thing?”
How does God respond to our misplaced priorities and lapses. What does God do when we get off track?
Here’s the story . . . the children of Israel have passed the last 3 generations in exile in Babylon. Their beloved city of Jerusalem and the temple have been destroyed. Eventually there’s light at the end of the tunnel, as we read in Ezra 1:1-4 — 1 In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah, the LORD moved the heart of Cyrus, king of Persia, to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing:
2 “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: “‘The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for Him at Jerusalem in Judah.
3 Any of His people among you—may their God be with them, and let them go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the LORD, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem.
4 And in any locality where survivors may now be living, the people are to provide them with silver and gold, with goods and livestock, and with freewill offerings for the temple of God in Jerusalem.’”
What a remarkable turn of events. God turned the heart of King Cyrus towards the Jews. And God prompted the king not only to give them permission to return home, but he also gave them the resources with which to rebuild the temple. While the children of Israel were in exile, the temple didn’t exist. So, God in His sovereign plan decided it was time to use the temple again.
Now after all these years, God decided it was time for the temple to be rebuilt. So, in 538 BC, 50,000 Jewish people prompted by God, funded by Cyrus, make the 900 mile journey back to Jerusalem. And they begin to get to work. Initially, God’s big thing was their big thing. They rolled up the sleeves of their robes and they got to work building the temple.
In Ezra 3:1-3, we read,
1 The people assembled with one accord in Jerusalem. 2 Then Joshua and his fellow priests and Zerubbabel and his associates began to build the altar of the God of Israel to sacrifice burnt offerings on it, in accordance with what is written in the Law of Moses, the man of God.
3 Despite their fear of the peoples around them, they built the altar on its foundation and sacrificed burnt offerings on it to the LORD, both the morning and evening sacrifices.
The dissenters came, the outsiders tried to infiltrate and stop them from rebuilding the temple. But they had the determination and resolve to continue building the temple. They were focused on the task. They made God’s big thing, their big thing. They made God’s priority their priority.
But do you know what happened. After a few years, they lost track. They lost their focus and little by little they began to put more of their energy into their own projects and wants, and less time and energy on the things of God. Who knows why? Maybe stacking stones was too tiresome; or the constant criticism got to them; or more likely, they just started thinking about their own wants and desires. So, one by one, little by little, person by person, they quit showing up to the work site. One day, no one showed up. Nobody! And God’s big thing had become their small thing.
They didn’t plan to abandon their project forever. I’m sure they were thinking, we’ll get back to it. We just need a break. Give us a week or a month, then we’ll get started again. Let me get my house in order first. So, 1 week passed, then 1 month, then 1 year, then 10 years and for 16 years the temple project sat untouched. It turned into an abandoned construction site. Enough time for the weeds and grass to grow up over the base of the temple. Enough time for the other nations to look at the temple and know they don’t take their God seriously. Enough time to have the children look at the abandoned temple and think, ‘our parents don’t care much about God.’
While God’s house languished, their houses were flourishing. The former exiles built their businesses and their lives, and the remarkable thing is, they became more miserable with each passing day. Listen to these words from chapter 19, page 220, or 264 (teen) Haggai 1:4-11. . .
4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?” 5 Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways.
6 You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”
7 This is what the LORD Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. 8 Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the LORD.
9 “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 his own house.
10 Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops.
11 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.
Woe! If you want to know how God reacts to lethargy and misplaced priorities? You just read it. You ever wonder what God does when we make His big thing, our small thing? And make our small things, a big thing? Now you know.
Have you ever wondered how God gets our attention? You just read a play out of His playbook, here’s what He does. He lets us stink with the pigs and sink with the fish. He permits droughts, downturns, difficulties and depressions. He puts a chill in the corner office, a dent in the savings account, and ultimately life seems to be marked by futility. We plant much, but harvest little, we eat much but are never full, we drink, but remain thirsty, we get dressed, but never feel warm; we earn wages, but we seem to have holes in our wallets. Life doesn’t seem to work.
Our finest endeavors start to collapse, like a sand castle getting crushed by the waves. What do we do with a passage like this? Firstly, I don’t want you to leave here thinking every tiny misstep or bad event in life is God’s judgment on you. When you get a common cold, or it’s just a bad day, don’t be quick to assume this is God’s judgment upon you.
But listen, there are seasons of life that are so difficult and so challenging, which stack one difficulty on top of another for an extended period of time in which it could just be that God is saying to us, “wake up!” Do you not see what I have done. There are times of God ordained struggle. Times of exhausted emptiness, when nothing seems to work. We call this God’s discipline.
When nothing quenches our deepest thirsts, when no achievement satisfies us, when we plant but never really harvest, when droughts turn our fields into dust and our retirements into pocket change, when God allows times of difficulty to come . . . so that we will examine our ways.
You almost have to be blind not to see the direct application for our nation. We’ve never been more sophisticated as a country. Never more educated; had more hospitals and colleges, we’ve never been this advanced . . . and yet we’ve never been more broke. Is someone going to wake up? But, we can’t just point a finger at Washington, we need to start by pointing a finger at ourselves.
Haggai is speaking to individuals, so God is speaking to us individually, as well. And I believe He may be saying to some of us this morning ‘consider your ways.’ It’s easy to lose what should be our first passion, isn’t it? It’s easy to be enthusiastic at the start of something, and as time moves on, we lose that enthusiasm.
Have you ever had that happen to you? I have. A long time ago, before we even had kids, I told Debbie, I would really love to get into astronomy, so for my birthday she bought me a telescope. Isn’t a beauty. It’s amazing to look at the stars and moon with it. But as time has moved on, it’s taken it’s place in the garage among lots of other stuff, and this is where it rests now. With the mess in the back of the garage.
We’ve got that with other stuff, too. Zachary and I like to put models together. I loved doing that as a kid. Look at this helicopter. It’s a beauty. Zachary received that as a present over a year ago, and here’s the inside of the box. Just a few pieces have actually been worked on. We keep talking about it, but we haven’t gotten back to it.
Now, what am I saying?
Am I saying that everything you start, you’ve got to finish? No, I’ve learned that some things aren’t worth finishing. Sometimes you get into a project and you realize this isn’t worth your time, it was a good idea at one time. Some books you pick up and start, they’re not worth finishing.
Here’s what I’m saying. Don’t even think for a second that you can put God in your storage closet of forgotten passions. Don’t think it’s a possibility. He won’t stay there. He’s alive and living and He refuses. And if you think He’s on a storage closet shelf, awaiting the attention you’re going to give Him next week, next month, next year, or after the kids are grown, you might as well forget that.
His message to us is a pretty stern one, He’s either the big thing or He’s nothing. God won’t be compromised. And if you think you’re putting Him in a storage closet, you might as well prepare yourself for 16 years in which nothing seems to quench your thirst, satisfies your hunger, nothing keeps you warm, no harvest fills your table, and nothing seems to work. It’s a firm message, because if you’re like me, or if I’m like you, we all tend to wane in our enthusiasm.
And the great message is the fact that we can always come back. It’s not too late. If we are in Christ, we’ve been called out of Babylon. We’ve been called out of captivity – of sin and darkness; purposelessness, confusion and despair. And God came and found us and says to us, “I’m sending you back to Jerusalem.” And I’m not just sending you back to Jerusalem to be safe, but I’m sending you back to live a saved life. To live a different kind of life among a foreign people. To be my temple, not a temple of stones and rafters, but a temple of human beings, men and women, boys and girls, who are called to be living temples, my messengers in the world of absolute access to God because of the blood of Christ for the forgiveness of sins.
And we left Babylon full of excitement and passion to do what God called us to do, and then we got here and we were all excited, but then came the distractions, the kids, the jobs, the demands, the stress and the struggle. And all of a sudden, it’s been a long time since we woke up thinking about God and His house and His mission. And with the passage of time comes the diminishing of our passion for Him, and tithing becomes tipping and prayers become rote quotes and church attendance becomes an obligation.
It’s not that we forget God, it’s just that we put Him in that storage closet. And God’s message of Haggai is “I don’t stay in anyone’s storage closet. It’s not just a bad idea, it’s a spiritual impossibility.”
And to get our attention, He’s willing to turn our lives upside down. And He will allow us to pass through a difficult period of time in order to get our attention. And sometimes He pulls us aside face to face and He gives us a heart to heart. And God tells us it is time to examine our ways. ‘It’s time to wash the pig slop off, it’s time to clean the fish guts off.’
It’s time to go up into the mountains and bring down the timber and build the house - Haggai 1:8.
And the Jews did. It’s one of the great stories of the Bible. Because the Jews did it. They said, ‘you know what? God is right.’ And they got back on track and they built the house of God and they had a renewed spirit; and twice we read that God reminded them, “I am with you.”
And I believe without a doubt that God is with us. As a church our call is to go into Alexandria, or wherever home is and be the temple of God. To allow God to plant His foundations in us, so that we will go and build the house of the Lord.
How do we do that? Well, I’ve heard all kinds of theories, but we’re only as strong as our weakest link. I know that doesn’t sound good, but let me tell you something, God wants something big to happen, not because He wants us to get the glory, but because God is a big thinking, big dreaming God who has big plans and wants us to join in His big plans.
That means some of you have to come out of retirement. Yes, you heard me right. It’s time to end the sabbatical. You have gifts from God that Alexandria needs. You’ve got compassion, you’ve got respect and understanding, you’ve got skills and talents nobody else has, you can do something nobody else can. You can be part of a great movement in history. You’ve got it, you need to believe it.
God’s big thing must be our big thing.
It means all hands on deck. There’s no such thing as a retired Christian. Maybe you’ve been around the block a time or two, but we need you, the kingdom needs you, the person who doesn’t know Christ needs you. I’ve heard too many people say, “I don’t know how people make it without Christ.” Well, let me tell you, that person who isn’t making it, may just need you to come alongside of them to show them the way to Christ.
Haggai has a message to us – – come back and be about the big thing of God. Jesus said these words to the church in Ephesus,
“I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore, from where you have fallen, repent and do the first works” – Revelation 2:4-5.
How do you return home? You remember, you repent and you do the first works. You remember how tough life was back in Babylon and you remember how gracious God was to save you; and then you repent of your sinfulness, that you were building your own house and neglecting His. And do the first works, prayer, commitment, service, loving your neighbor, reading the word. You do the first works.
And do you know what most of us find out, when we put God in first place, the other things seem to fall in order. Please understand these things matter to God. It’s just that they don’t work well, as long as we make them more important than Him. Jesus said, if you seek first my kingdom and God’s righteousness, then all of these other things will be added unto you as well – Matt. 6:33.
if you put God first in your business, your business benefits. When you put God first in your family, your family becomes spiritually healthier, if you put God first your body becomes healthier, and you sleep better at night.
And you drink and you satisfy the thirst; you eat and it satisfies the hunger. You put on clothing and you feel secure. C.S. Lewis said, “if you put first things first, you get second things thrown in.” I like that. But if you put second things first, we lose both the first and second things.
So put first things first. The prodigal son did and he was given a place at the table, Jonah did, he complained and he finally got back on track. The Jews did, they built the house of God. They participated in the greatest work of heaven. And I pray we will do the same as well.
