Today is a very important and exciting day in the life of our congregation. First of all this is the weekend of Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday marks the start of what Christians down through the ages have called holy week. Holy week is the last week of Jesus Christ’s life before his resurrection from the grave.
On Sunday of Holy Week Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey in what Christians call Christ’s triumphal entry into the city. The next day, Jesus went to the Jewish temple. There Jesus drove people buying and selling animals for sacrifice out of the temple, temporary bringing the sacrifices to a halt. On Thursday of holy week Jesus celebrated the Last Supper with his followers. Then he spent the night in agonizing prayer in the garden of Gethsemane. Finally, Jesus was betrayed, arrested, tried, and on Friday he was crucified.
This year we’ll celebrate holy week with our In His Steps ministry on Good Friday. From 1:00 to 6:00 pm Friday afternoon, groups of people will come to retrace the events of holy week, going from station to station in a 20 minute tour, led by a narrator to explain the meaning and significance of the events of holy week. Last year over 700 people went through In His Steps. We’ll also be having a Good Friday communion service at 7:00 PM. I’m sure we’ll run out of room at our communion service, so I encourage you to arrive early.
And then next weekend we’ll be celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. My sermon topic for Easter weekend is how to recover our hope in the aftermath of 9/11. We’ll be examining the relevance of Christ’s resurrection to our lives today. Easter weekend is always a great weekend to invite unchurched friends and neighbors, and I encourage you to be praying about who God would have you invite.
Following Easter weekend, we’re going to launch a new sermon series called "Wise Up." In this series we’ll be looking at what the Old Testament book of Proverbs has to say about life. Each week we’ll look at one topic from Proverbs, and see how to live wisely as it relates to that particular topic. This will also be a great time to invite your unchurched friends and family to attend church with you, so they can see the relevance of the Bible to issues they’re already struggling with.
But this weekend is also significant for us because it’s Launch Weekend. Today signals the end of our Beyond Every Limit campaign we’ve been in for the last five weeks. The purpose of this all church emphasis has been to help us as a church dream beyond our current limitations and take some new steps of faith. We’ve had four goals for Beyond Every Limit: To challenge our church members to embrace priorities in line with God’s kingdom, to relocate our coffee house and install some portable classrooms for adult ministry, to see God provide the funds to pay off our church building loan off by 2005, and to envision new ministries that will extend the influence of God’s kingdom. Pastor Bruce introduced Beyond Every Limit four weeks ago, and then two weeks ago we had over 600 people in our church attend one of four all church banquets.
Since today is Launch Weekend, we’ll be taking a special one time offering to pay for the relocation of our coffee house and installation of the portable classrooms. We’ll also be collecting commitment cards from our church members, so we can make an informed decision about just how much to increase our monthly payment on our building loan. So today we present our offering and our commitment cards to the Lord as part of our worship experience.
As we finish Beyond Every Limit today, we’re going to talk about how to turn our priorities into action. To challenge us to embrace kingdom priorities we’ve been going through the Old Testament book of Haggai. Haggai was a prophet sent by God to the nation of Israel in the sixth century before the birth of Jesus. Previously, the nation of Israel had been in exile for seventy years. The Babylonians had invaded Israel, destroyed the city of Jerusalem, torn down the Jewish temple Solomon had built, and took the people captive. After 70 years of exile, the people were finally permitted to return to their city, only to find it a mess. Under the leadership of Nehemiah they rebuilt the walls of the city of Jerusalem, and under the leadership of Ezra they laid the foundation to rebuilt the temple. But then they lost their focus, and work on rebuilding the Jewish temple stopped for 18 years. For 18 years the people were distracted with their own needs, and their priorities focused on themselves rather than the purposes of God. So after 18 years of inaction, God raised up the prophet Haggai to challenge them to get their priorities back in focus.
The first week we talked about what happens when our priorities are out of focus, and last week we talked about how to deal with discouragement when it seems like we’re spinning our wheels. Today we’re going to talk about three principles for turning kingdom priorities into action in our lives.
1. A Pure Heart (Haggai 2:10-14)
Now some of you might be disappointed that today’s sermon isn’t a traditional Palm Sunday sermon. Instead of looking at Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem from one of the four New Testament biographies of Jesus, we’re looking at the words of a Hebrew prophet who spoke over 500 years before Jesus was even born. But as I’ve prayed about this week’s message, I think it really is a Palm Sunday sermon. You see, the day after riding into Jerusalem, Jesus would walk into the very temple that Haggai’s generation was building. In anger, Jesus would say, "God’s house was supposed to be a house of prayer for all the nations, but you’ve turned it into a den of robbers." Then Jesus would drive out the people buying and selling sacrifices, bringing the sacrifices to a brief halt.
In many ways, the struggles of Haggai’s generation in the sixth century before Christ are the same struggles that faced the people of Jesus’ day. So even though the ministry of Haggai and the events we’re reading about today occurred over 500 years before Palm Sunday, they’re very relevant to the meaning and significance of Palm Sunday.
Now look at vv. 10 through 14. The date of this message from Haggai translates into our calendar as December 18, 520 BC. This message comes exactly three months after the people of Israel started building this second temple to the Lord. This message also comes exactly two months after Haggai’s second sermon, when the people were dealing with discouragement because this second temple looked pitiful next to the first temple, built by Solomon.
This message consists of a two questions to the Jewish priests about holiness and ritual purity within Israel. The first question deals with meat that’s been offered as a sacrifice to the Lord in the temple they were rebuilding. In ancient Judaism, once an animal was offered as a sacrifice that animal was considered holy. In some circumstances, a portion of the meat was kept by the worshipper, who would then go home, cook the meat, and eat the meat with his family. But the meat was still considered holy, set apart for God. Haggai’s question is whether that holiness is passed from the meat to other things that it comes into indirect contact with. The Jewish priests who were experts in such questions answer, "No, indirect contact with the sacrificial meat does not make other things holy."
The second question deals with the issue of ritual purity. If a person comes in contact with a dead body, that person was considered ritually impure for a period of time. But in contrast with ritual holiness, ritual impurity can be transmitted by touch. So if a person who’s touched a dead body touches other things, those things become ritually impure as well.
You might think of it this way. Holiness is like being healthy, and ritual impurity is like being sick. If you’re sick and you go out among people, you spread your sickness as you come in contact with people. But if you’re healthy, you don’t spread around your healthiness when you come in contract with sick people. Just like sickness spreads but health doesn’t, so also impurity spreads but holiness doesn’t.
The people of Haggai’s generation figured that because they were rebuilding the temple that automatically made them holy in God’s sight. They thought holiness could be caught by being around holy things or holy people. So Haggai reminds them that holiness doesn’t work that way.
Haggai tells the people that they’ve become defiled in God’s sight. Like the person who’s touched a dead body, who then defiles everything he touches, the people of Israel were impure, and because of this impurity everything they touched was defiled. So even though they were building a holy temple to God, their work was impure because they weren’t pure.
Bible scholars debate exactly what defiled the people of Israel. But I think the answer is simply that their hearts weren’t right with God. Because their hearts were impure, their actions were defiled. Whether it was internal resentment, hatred toward people or whatever, their hearts were defiling everything they did. Even a holy temple couldn’t take away the impurity of their hearts.
This was the exact same problem Jesus himself confronted in this very temple 500 years later. When Jesus confronted the people in the temple during holy week, he told the religious leaders that their problem was a lack of purity of heart. He said to the religious leaders, "You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and self-indulgence…First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside will also be clean" (Matt hew 23:25-26).So here we find the first principle. We turn our priorities into action by cultivating a pure heart before God.
An impure heart contaminates everything it touches. That’s why Jesus said that it isn’t food that makes a person clean or unclean, because the food goes into the mouth, through the digestive track, and out the body. It’s from the heart that real defilement comes from: from thoughts of sexual immorality and murder, thoughts of hatred and stealing.
Only God can purify a human heart that’s been defiled by sin. And Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday to provide a way to cleanse unclean hearts. He went to the cross, as a sacrifice for every unclean heart that had every been defiled. And he rose from the grave to provide hope that no matter how unclean a heart has become by sin, that God’s power and love can cleanse it and make it new.
Actions begin with our hearts. As we bring our offerings and commitments before the Lord, the most important question is whether we’re presenting our hearts to him. Do our offerings and our commitments reflect hearts that have been surrendered to God, for him to purify? Or do we come with defiled hearts, hearts that are full of unconfessed sin and bitterness, rendering our gifts as defiled in God’s sight?
We turn our priorities into action by cultivating a pure heart before God.
2. Pure Motives (Haggai 2:15-19)
Now look at vv. 15-19. Here we see that even though the people of Israel were doing all the right things, they were doing the right things for the wrong reasons. Something had happened to their hearts.
Just like he did back in chapter 1, Haggai challenges the people to examine the relationship between their financial struggles and their actions. Back in chapter 1, Haggai told them that it was because they weren’t rebuilding the temple that they were experiencing economic turmoil. But now they are rebuilding the temple, and things still haven’t turned around for them financially. There is still scarcity in the land. Haggai says that it’s because even though they’re doing the right thing, they’re doing it for the wrong reasons.
Here we find our second principle. We turn our priorities into action by acting out of pure motives.
Their actions were a farce because underneath the right actions were the wrong motives. Only an alignment of right action with right motives will lead God to bless Israel.
Do you know that two people can do the exact same thing for entirely different motives. When we bring our offerings and commitments to the Lord later in the service, its impossible to see each other’s motives. Some will bring their offerings as an act of love and devotion to Jesus Christ. But others will come because they think that their giving will impress God and earn them brownie points. Just by looking, you can’t tell what’s motivating a person. Only God can truly see the heart.
Sometimes other pastors ask me if I worry about being misunderstood when I talk about expanding the church and buying more land. They ask, "How do you talk about those kinds of things without sounding like you’re trying to build your own empire?" My response is I know our church knows my heart; you know what makes me tick. I’m confident that our congregation sees that my passion isn’t to build myself up, but to see God’s kingdom expanded. And as long as my heart is right with God and my motives are focused on building God’s kingdom, I can talk about this kind of stuff with no fear, because I know it’s not about me. I’m also continually asking God to clarify my motives, to give me clearer and clearer insight into my own heart, because I know I’m just as prone to pride and arrogance as anyone. But up to this point, I can say with confidence that this is about God and his kingdom, not about me.
The only kind of actions that count as pleasing in the sight of God are those that come from pure motives.
3. Responding to Our Leaders (Haggai 2:20-23)
That brings us to a final message from Haggai in vv. 20-23. This final message from Haggai occurs on the same day as the previous message in vv. 10-19, but this one is directed specifically to Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel was the governor of Israel at this time, and he was the living royal heir to the royal throne. Zerubbabel was a descendant of King David.
I think we can read between the lines a bit here to see that Zerubbabel was discouraged. Here he was the heir to the throne of Israel, yet Israel under Persian domination. Where were the promises God had made to David, the promises that his descendant would sit on the throne of a restored Israel? For all intents and purposes, they were still in exile, even though they were living in their homeland because they weren’t independent.
So God promises that he will in fact overturn thrones and shatter the power of foreign kingdoms. Zerubbabel’s experience is not the last word, but God will some time in the future act decisively. When that happens, Zerubbabel would be like God’s signet ring. A signet ring was what a king used to authenticate his authority. A document from a king was only considered valid if it was authenticated with the mark of that king’s signet ring. A king’s signet ring was considered so valuable that it was usually worn on a chain around the king’s neck. By calling Zerubbabel God’s own signet ring, God is saying that King David’s bloodline, represented by Zerubbable, would still be the bloodline from which God would bring the king of Israel. Zerubbabel and his family are still the chosen line, the line of David.
The fulfillment of this promise came 500 years later through Jesus Christ. You see Zerubbabel never lived to see Israel’s independence, but it was through his descendants that was born a baby in Bethlehem 500 years later. Both Matthew and Luke trace the ancestry of Jesus Christ back to Zerubbabel (Matt 1:12; Luke 3:27). Jesus Christ came as the true descendant of King David, God’s true signet ring, invested by God with the authority to forgive sins, to heal, and to transform human hearts.
I think Haggai’s message to Zerubbabel had a dual function. On the one hand, it served to renew God’s promise to the bloodline of King David. But I think it also affirmed Zerubbabel’s leadership to the people of Israel during his lifetime. It would’ve been tempting for the people of Israel to blame Zerubbabel for the bad things happening to them. When things go south, the first heads to roll are usually those of the leaders. When a sports team performs below expectations, who’s the first person usually fired? The coach or manager. And it would be tempting for the people to criticize Zerubbabel, to question his leadership. So God affirms Zerubbabel in the presence of the people of Israel, that he’s working through Zerubbabel.
Here’s where I think this message given to Zerubbabel is relevant to us today. Here’s the third principle. We turn our priorities into action by responding to God’s appointment of our leaders.
Despite Israel’s struggles, Zerubbabel was God’s appointed leader for them at this time. Zerubbabel needed to hear this message, but the people of Israel needed to hear this message just as much. Israel needed to hear God’s affirmation of Zerubbabel’s leadership.
Within the Christian community we also need leaders. We don’t have kings or governors like Israel, but we do have pastors and elders. We need to have leaders we can trust, people who we know are seeking God and responding to God’s direction.
Not that our leaders are perfect. It’s clear from the text that Zerubbabel struggled with misplaced priorities, just like the people of Israel. But even though Zerubbabel had lost his focus, God didn’t give up on him, but continued to lead and affirm him as a leader.
I’m convinced that Christians in our culture have a love-hate relationship with their leaders. On the one hand we love our leaders so much that we turn them into celebrities. Christians often turn their leaders into idols, hanging on every word their leaders utter, building personality cults around their leaders. Some churches are no more than the personality cult of the pastor. So in this respect Christians tend to love their leaders too much, or at least love them in the wrong ways.
But on the other hand, we tend to expect far too much from our leaders. We tend to put them on a pedestal, and when they show signs of being human, we’re aghast. When we find out that our leaders are just like we are, with the same struggles, we lose our respect for them. Now don’t get me wrong; I think leaders in the church ought to have integrity and meet certain biblical standards. But I also know that leading means making mistakes and learning from them.
We need to accept the fact that God raises up leaders who are imperfect and frail. We need leaders in our lives to turn our priorities into action, so we need to respond to God’s appointment of leaders in our lives.
Conclusion
How do we turn our priorities into action? By cultivating a pure heart in the sight of God, by acting out of pure motives, and by responding to the leaders God places in our lives. This is what helped the people of Israel turn their priorities into action, so they actually were able to complete the rebuilding of the temple. This is what the people of Jesus’ generation lacked when Jesus arrived at this same temple 500 years later. These qualities are what got this temple built in Haggai’s day, but it’s also these qualities that led to this very same temple’s destruction hundreds of years later.
During our closing worship songs, we’re going to bring our Beyond Very Limit offerings and commitments to the Lord. We’re going to get up from where we are and bring them forward as a symbol of our presentation of hearts to God. My prayer is that we come with pure hearts, hearts that have been cleansed by the power of Jesus Christ. My prayer is that we act with pure motives, a genuine passion to see Christ’s kingdom expanded in this community.
Now each bulletin has a Beyond Every Limit envelope inside of it. Most of us came prepared this weekend to present our offering and commitment card, already in the envelope we received in our packets. But if you’re here and you’ve already given your offering and commitment card, just put the empty one in your bulletin. If you’re a guest, just bring up the empty envelope. God knows your heart, he knows your motives.
Palm Sunday is all about embracing Jesus Christ as our King. As we bring our offerings and our commitment cards forward today, may we do so as an expression of our devotion to Jesus as our true King. We love him more than anyone else, more than any church, more than any person, more than anything. We come to express his enthronement in our lives as King of kings, and Lord of lords.
