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The God Who Is: A Builder
Five weeks ago, Pastor Rollan embarked on a series of sermons titled “The GOD Who Is”. This is to help us understand the unchanging nature of the uncreated God. We learned about God as:
The meaning of life
The God of all compassion
Love and Truth
A rewarder
Alpha and Omega
Today in week 6 we are going to look at “The GOD who is: a builder”.
Focus: We will come to know the God who is when we recognize him as a builder.
In order to recognize God as a builder, or as will come to learn, THE BUILDER, there are three main points from the prophet Haggai we’re going to focus on today:
When God is primary
When God builds
Then He blesses
To understand God’s message through the prophetic Old Testament book of Haggai we must understand who wrote it, who he wrote it to, and why he wrote it to them. As we do this God will open our eyes by His Holy Spirit to the message he has for us.
Let’s pray and ask God for His blessing over the study of His precious Word today. We are comforted to know that there is nothing that surprises him.
Background. Haggai is one of the shortest books in the Bible consisting of only 2 chapters totaling 38 versus. It’s found in the Old Testament and was written by Haggai the prophet in the year 520 BC to the leaders as well as the remnant of Israel who had recently returned from exile in Babylon. The name ‘Haggai’ means ‘festal’ ‘or ‘my holiday’. This name of the prophet and the book he authored sets the tone for this encouraging message that would lead to the restoration of Israel's great feasts, a restored temple, and most importantly renewed relationship with the God who builds.
Haggai 1:1-11 ESV
In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest: “Thus says the Lord of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord .” Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins? Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 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. 'And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors.” Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord .
“Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce.
When God is Primary
What does it mean to be primary? To be primary, is simply to be first. It means not to be a derivative of anything. Think “primary colors”. Crayola.com says it this way: “Primary colors cannot be mixed from other colors. They are the source of all other colors.”
God (and the primary colors) is the source from which all else flows. He is the “original". He is the first cause of and reason for all things. Without God the Creator there is no creation. There is no other source from which to flow from. There is nothing that ‘is’ without God ‘being’.
Therefore, be assured, we do not make God primary. God IS primary.
Be relieved. You don’t have to make God anything. God’s self given name to Moses is “I am” (Exodus 3:14).
Let this sink in.
This truth will set you free and bring you peace if you surrender to it. As you read the 38 verses of this short 2 chapter book of Haggai you will find that 14 of these verses refer to “The Lord of Hosts”. This does not mean the boss of the people who find you your seat at restaurants (though I am very thankful for and respect them).
This title is also translated “The Lord Almighty” and is probably easiest understood by us today as “The Lord of Heaven's Armies” as translated in the New Living Translation.
As we read Haggai we see that God is the almighty without comparison. We read that God is sovereign over man’s fruitfulness (1:9), nature (1:11), the nations (2:7), moving people’s hearts (1:14), as well as building up and tearing down kingdoms (2:23). God will have his way. God is sovereign and almighty because He is primary. Haggai is saying that that word he is delivering is not his word, but is the command of the God Who Is primary.
So the question for us is this: do we honor God as He is, as primary? Do we allow His word and commands to order our lives: our time, our relationships, our work and our money? Do we build what and when He is building?
When God Builds
When does God build? This sounds like a question of timing...but really it’s a question of circumstance.
Let’s see what Haggai says to the exiles who God faithfully restored back to the promised land about when He is building. God builds whenever His pleasure, his presence and his glory are missing or lacking. This is what Haggai means when he says that God’s house is “lying in ruins”.
The temple (or God’s house) at that time was where God had promised to manifest his presence and bless his people. What brings God glory, pleasure, and also invites his manifest presence today like the temple did then?
It’s when he is primary in our hearts and lives. It is when Jesus is Lord in our heart. God longs to be where Jesus is welcome. He longs to bless that place and that people.
Therefore, God asks this question to his people in 520 BC and to us today:
“Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, (your luxurious homes) while this house (my Church, my people, the place where I manifest my glory and presence) lies in ruins? Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways (Look at what your life and what it is currently producing). You have sown much, and harvested little. (You have worked so hard and have so little to show for it! 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. (Though you work night and day to meet your basic needs or meet your goals, something always comes up to syphon your bank accounts) And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors.”
When we are in error, when our lives are out of order due to not being arranged around God and the building of his kingdom and his church, God can not bless the work of our hands.
Jesus promised if we seek (build) the kingdom of God first (as primary) then all the things that the pagans (the unbelievers) chase after (mentioned in the above Haggai scripture) will be added to us.
This is NOT the prosperity gospel as Jesus made clear that these blessings will be accompanied with persecution as we abide in Christ building in his righteous ways.
We must build what God is building when He is building it.
“Thus says the Lord of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord .”
God is building now! God is building something that can host his presence on the earth. He is building the Church of Jesus Christ. The Church is the temple of God. Each life that has heard and received the truth of God in Jesus Christ is a brick in that building, that temple where His presence dwells.
What has God alone built without man’s help, He has built what those who have not considered the outcome of their ways have rejected.
Matthew 21:42-43 ESV
Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:
“‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord's doing,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?
Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits
“This was the Lord’s doing”. This is why Lord asks us to “Consider our ways”. God is THE builder. HE has laid the cornerstone. This cornerstone is Jesus Christ and He cannot be removed. This cornerstone can only be built on. This is why it is marvelous in our eyes. The question for us today is NOT “have you worked and laid the cornerstone of Jesus in your life?”
The question is: “Since God has laid the cornerstone in his building, is He marvelous in your eyes?”
When what God has built is marvelous in your eyes, you will want to build with him. This is how you start building with God:
John 6:28-29 ESV
Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
Then He Blesses
When the cornerstone of Christ is marvelous in our eyes we can then by faith in Christ alone build with God on that eternal cornerstone he has laid.
After we have “considered our ways” and turned from building apart from God, we can:
Haggai 1:8 ESV
Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord .
As we commit our lives to build with God on the cornerstone of Christ he will do among us what he did among the Israelites:
Haggai 1:12-15 ESV
Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him. And the people feared the Lord .
Then Haggai, the messenger of the Lord , spoke to the people with the Lord ’s message, “I am with you, declares the Lord .” And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and worked on the house of the Lord of hosts, their God, on the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king
Today, together, we are to build what the Apostle Paul spoke of to the believes in Corinth:
Corinthians 3:9-16 ESV
For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple. - 1
Now this the prophetic word of the Lord for us today at Second City Church:
Haggai 2:3-9 ESV
'Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord . Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord . Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts, ‘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? according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. For thus says the Lord of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts.’” ' -
Today is the day of salvation. God wants to build your life. If you have yet to surrender to the Lord God as primary and to let the Lord Jesus be the cornerstone and rock of your life who takes away your sins and gives you His righteousness, will you pray with me to receive him today, to allow him to build your life?
Have you made Jesus Lord of your life but like the people of Haggai’s day, you ‘have been busy with your own house” at the neglect of God’s house, at the neglect of His church? Will you repent and work with him building what he is building, making a way for him to bless the work of your hands along the way?
Study
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Second City Church - The God Who Is - Pastor Rollan Fisher 2020