Withholding our Best
Sermon by: CH(CPT) Keith Andrews
All scripture marked ESV: The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.
Introduction Story
Open your Bible’s tonight to the prophetic book of Haggai, you can find it in the Old Testament wedged between Zephaniah and Zechariah.
We are starting a series called “Rebuilding the Temple Inside Our Hearts”. Over the next three weeks, before we travel, somewhat literally, to the heart of the Babylonian Empire, we are going to be looking at the book of Haggai.
We are going to be talking about rebuilding that temple inside our hearts, that spiritual life that we so desperately, but quietly seek.
Haggai was the prophet of the Lord, in Jerusalem, following the return of the Israelite exiles. He was the prophet whose job it was to declare to the people that it was time to rebuild the temple.
All of us, in some point and time in our lives, have been met with failure.
Maybe it was as simple as a failed opportunity, like I had plenty of moments last week, on the soccer field.
Maybe it was from a failed PT test.
Maybe it was from a failed project that you were doing in school or for your platoon sergeant.
Maybe it was from a failed relationship or marriage.
Maybe somewhere along the line you lost your job.
It takes longer sometimes to rebuild than to get started in the first place.
When you begin there is always the excitement that occurs when you get motivated to do something new. There’s a sense of motivation and of determination to see it through.
But, after we have failed, we have to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off and start again. It all seems harder.
This is the challenge that is facing the Israelite people.
The (Israelites) had been in captivity in Babylon for 70 years…When the Persians defeated the Babylonians in 539, Darius took over and changed the…policy concerning captive peoples…(Darius) decreed that the (Israelites) could return to their homeland and rebuild the temple. (http://bible.org)
We see this happen in the book of Ezra, chapter 3 and in chapter 4 the work ceased. It is hard to rebuild. It took the people 14 years to restart.
But then, the Prophet Haggai makes this statement from the Lord;
Haggai 1:2-6;
2 “Thus says the Lord of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.” 3 Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, 4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins? 5 Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 6 You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes. (Hag 1:2-6, ESV)
As we see this statement, we read first that the people have found excuses not to build the temple.
Look at verse 2:
2 “Thus says the Lord of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.” (Hag 1:2, ESV)
The people of the Lord say to themselves, we are not ready to rebuild the temple—we don’t have enough time, we are too busy with the fields—the crops need to be harvested, the animals needs to be taken care of, and we need to store up some for the future.
They decided that it wasn’t a good time to rebuild the temple.
This is no different today, regarding our spiritual lives. We want to grow spiritually but we want to find the “right” time.
Augustine prayed, “Lord, grant me pure thoughts—but not now!”
(Bob Russell. (2003). When God Answers Prayer,.(150) West Monroe, LA. Howard Publishing Co., Inc)
Let me clue you in to something: there will never be a good time. There will always be busy schedules. There will always be a mountain of work to be done. There will always be distraction. There will be never be a good time to rebuild your spiritual life.
But, on the positive side, there will never be a better time either.
All of us have much to do...but there is never a better time to refocus your life around God’s priorities.
Here you have access to a Chapel to pray in any time you want. Here you don’t have anyone else’s schedule to plan on, except for you normal work hours—you don’t have to get kids ready for school, you don’t have to drop your spouse at work—you can spend time in prayer. You have time at night. You don’t have to be home for supper. You don’t have to do homework with the kids—you can spend extra time in prayer and Bible study.
You can use the same principles that everybody uses in weightlifting to spend time building your spiritual life. It doesn’t take much—thirty minutes a day. Take the time now to rebuild your spiritual life.
As the people of Israel were making excuses, the Lord says something else in verse 3;
3 Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, 4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins? (Hag 1:3, ESV)
God is very clear. Peterson translates the same verse this way in The Message;
Shortly after that, God said more and Haggai spoke it: “How is it that it’s the ‘right time’ for you to live in your fine new homes while the Home, God’s Temple, is in ruins?”
(Peterson, E. H. (2002). The Message : The Bible in contemporary language (Hag 1:3-4). Colorado Springs, Colo.: NavPress.)
Is your spiritual life the same way? Do you have time to spend making a good showing at work, but not taking the time to spend in God’s word?
Now, I like to go to McDonald’s. There is something romantic about McDonald’s—is a place of dreams, a place of fun, it is American.
Drive Thrus are the best. You drive up to the little speaker wait for the cashier:
“May I take your order?”
And you order a number one combo: Big Mac, Fries and a Diet Coke.
It is amazing.
However, have you ever had that moment when you get all the way home—you drag all of the kids up the stairwell stairs, into the door to find your perfectly large McDonald’s French Fries and your Diet Coke, but you find that they forgot to place the Big Mac in your bag.
The entire experience has been ruined. It is incomplete.
Now, you must suffer and get all the kids back in the car, drive out the game, down the hill, and walk into the store—just to retrieve your Big Mac.
And the same is true for your spiritual life. If you are focused all on your work and on your life, but the main part of your life is missing.
It isn’t a side order of fries—it is the Big Mac!
You do a good job at work, you are impressing the bosses by what you know and what you can do. You are doing great PowerPoints and slide shows on the latest staff meeting. You are doing great as an NCO, your Soldiers think the world of you, you are accomplishing the assigned missions.
But, you are forgetting the main portion! You have allowed your spiritual life to lie in ruins, neglected and abandoned.
It is time that you set that straight and begin again to build a spiritual life.
Verse 5 and 6, then show us the results of not rebuilding our spiritual life.
Look with me at verse 5 and 6 ;
5 Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 6 You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes. (Hag 1:5-6, ESV)
The people of Israel were working hard at building their lives, they were working hard at earning a good living and building a future, however, they were struggling. They were struggling because God’s house, his Temple, had not been rebuilt.
The struggles that they were experiencing were a direct result of the lack of attention they were placing on the rebuilding of God’s Temple.
It is not a stretch to see this reflected in our lives as well.
Oswald Chambers wrote;
We hear it said that a man will suffer in his life if he does not pray; I question it. What will suffer is the life of the Son of God in him, which is nourished, not by food, but by prayer…Prayer is the way the life of God is nourished.
Then he continues;
It is not so true that “prayer changes things” as that prayer changes me and I change things...Prayer is not a question of altering things externally, but of working wonders in a man’s disposition.
Chambers, O. (1993, c1935). My utmost for his highest : Selections for the year (August 28). Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House Publishers.
You’re wondering why you are not being successful,
You’re wondering why you are having issues with your co-workers,
You are wondering why it is becoming incredibly difficult to get a sense that you are doing a good job—
It is not because you are not capable of doing great work.
It is not that God is somehow cursing you—he may be, as we see in this passage, but most likely it is because you are starving the Son of God and his ability to be effective in your life.
It is time that we place a higher priority on our spiritual lives.
It isn’t rocket science. We basically know what we need to be doing; Reading the Bible, praying, and regularly attending Chapel. Our problem is that we don’t do it.
So, what’s the bottom line?
This week I challenge you to read your Bible and Pray.
This doesn’t have to be a huge ordeal—I’m not asking you to read the entire Bible this week. I’m asking that you take maybe a couple of verses, or a paragraph each day and read it. You can do this when you wake up or when you go to bed. If you are wondering where to start, try the book of John.
Open up the contents page of your Bible and find the book of John and start working through it. Here you will find the life and teachings of Jesus Christ displayed before you.
After you have read, pray. Spend a little bit of time praying to God about what is on your heart.
Ask him to make you into the man or woman that he has created you to be.
Ask him to rebuild the temple that was once towering in your heart, but over time has been eroded away. I challenge you to do this, take the time to rebuild the temple.
Start slow. When you start a PT program, you don’t go out and run twelve miles—you have to build up to it. But don’t miss this opportunity.
Now, there are some of you tonight who are wondering what it means to have a temple in your heart. You are wondering what it means because you have never invited Jesus to come into your life.
Tonight, I invite you to ask him to come in. The truth is, we are all sinners—we have all said things, thought thinks, done things that make God unhappy. The Bible calls this sin. The Bible also teaches that the payment of sin is death.
God loved us so much to send his son, Jesus, to die on a cross in our place—to pay this penalty. And to have this payment paid for, we must surrender our lives to him and accept this gracious payment. It is then that we build a temple in our heart—we make room to worship him, we give him a place in our lives, and we ask him to save us from our sin.
Tonight, you can make this decision for him. You can do this in your seat right where you are. After the service, I would love to tell you more about growing in Christ. Don’t let another moment pass without making this decision.
Let us pray.
