December 31st, 2006

Psalm 93, Isaiah 25:1-9

Acts 20:24: “I do not count my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may accomplish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.”

Today really is no different than any other day. The sun rose this morning, and most likely, short of a major occurrence, will set tonight. We’re in the middle of winter, and this earth has likely seen millions of cycles of the seasons. But we have attached significance to this day as the last day in the year 2006. And if what we learned from last week’s glimpse into the book of Haggai is true: that as human beings we often are forgetful and can lose an awareness of who we are, what we’ve been created for, and the direction our lives are called to go, it might serve us well this morning to consider this past year and the role it has played in forming us, and consider what we want to leave behind and the positive movement we want to keep going in our lives.

(If you would, just off the top of your head, name off some events that have stuck in your mind from the past year)

Sometimes it can be really hard to be optimistic about our lives here on the earth. On some level, it can seem very meaningless. We have a short period of childhood followed by an extended time of working all hours to sustain some form of life for ourselves, hopefully followed by a short period of time at the end of our lives where we have the financial flexibility to have a bit more of a say in what we do on a daily basis, and then we die. Now, that may be a dark perspective on reality, but I think the idea’s passed through the heads of most of us today at some point. When we throw in the newspaper, TV news, and the general direction of our society in deeper and deeper rebellion against the purposes of God, it can be tough to be optimistic. And maybe I’m young and idealistic still, but I would suggest we CAN be optimistic and hopeful in the midst of everything that faces us.

Now I want to be clear and say that I am NOT talking about an optimism that denies reality and pretends like everything’s hunky-dory, one where we paste a smile on our faces and sing, “Sunshine…on my shoulders…makes me happy.” That kind of optimism isn’t honest about reality. No, the kind of optimism I am talking about this morning is the kind that says: If we’re looking for them, there are signs that here on this earth in New Hope, Va, God may yet have a saving and reforming and renewing work to do, not just in a few scattered individual lives, but in our church family life together, in the community of New Hope, the greater community of Augusta County, and beyond.

You know, I think when we consider what missions means, oftentimes travels to far-off lands, it might be helpful for us, if we’re sitting on our porches in the morning with a cup of coffee, or at night, to look around us and thing, "You know what, maybe the most important thing we could do for missions would be to remake New Hope." In other words, how much more authentic it would be for those that live in Western society (that is, Europe and North America) to carry a life-changing gospel message to other cultures if they came from a place that was not committing social suicide by its own undisciplined and God-ignoring ways of life!

Now don’t get me wrong: I’m not suggesting we can ever get to a point on this side of eternity where we come into perfection. The human race is terribly broken, and in many ways always coming up with ways to fragment ourselves even further. The Cold War may be over (and some of you here this morning will remember the Cuban missile crisis like it was yesterday), but we’re in no less danger as a race of destroying one another as we were when Kennedy and Krushchev played chicken with one another back in the ‘60s. Here in the Valley, we’re experiencing rising violence around us as the interstate system has brought drugs and gangs to us, but in many ways, that isn’t any less evil than some of the deep-seated racial prejudices that have existed here for generations.

But you know, one of the beautiful things about the gospel is that God has transformed selfish, self-centered, wealthy societies and remade them by the power of his Holy Spirit through the simple willingness of his people to live righteous lives, and their humble following of Jesus has left a legacy down through generations. Anyone who is willing to read the story that God has written in history knows what God could do with Augusta County if we as his people would humble ourselves, pursue God, and ask that he send revival and reformation to this place. But there are obstacles that stand in the way of this move.

I would suggest there are two main cravings in our very wealthy society in comparison to the rest of the world that lead us to make decisions with our lives accordingly. The reality is that in 2001, 3.8 billion people in the world were living on less than 2 dollars a day, and if you will follow me (clapping): every time we clap, a child dies in Africa. So a vast majority of the world is living to be able to simply put food on the table, forget Gap or American Eagle or Belk or Bath and Bodyworks. It’s not like that here. We live in a relatively wealthy society. And because we do, and because most of us have the luxury of living above an income of $730 dollars a year, the problems that face us are different. And one of the problems this wealth places in our way is boredom

We CRAVE NOT to be bored. Or to put it positively, we CRAVE for adventure, and challenge and thrill of doing something that breaks up the monotony of life. The fact that our children are faced with the temptation of sexual relationships and drugs and other things earlier and earlier, or the fact that more and more Americans flock to the movies to find some escape from the sense of boredom they carry in their lives are two glimpses into our problem.

And I would say the other craving is a craving for significance. If we put these two deep longings together I think what we are saying is this: I want my life to have significance. I want it to mean something. I don't want my days to be dull. I want something that is worth dying for. And the tough reality about all this is that nothing that we do to break up that boredom can fill that vacuum inside of us. Some movies and music does a TREMENDOUS job of exposing these cravings inside of us. I often think that secular music has the freedom to be more honest about life than “Christian” music is.

But in that hole, because the Christian message has often been all about one’s inner life, and followers of Jesus haven’t shown a commitment and a pursuit in their lifestyles that is RADICALLY different than their friends who don’t know Christ, folks keep fumbling around looking for meaning in ALL the wrong places; Christians included. And I think this happens because we often don’t stop to think about WHY we do things, and HOW things have become so twisted.

Why is it that we have growing numbers of teen pregnancies, lower ages of sexual promiscuity, more broken relationships, and more and more folks of any age living with one another in our society? (Because those relationships provide a thrill, a break in the routine, give those involved a sense of significance? What if part of the reason might be that Christians are so afraid to talk about the issue that there’s no compelling reason for people NOT to be sexually active!?) What if you and I as followers of Jesus talked more often about God's purpose for his creation of sexuality? In the larger picture, what is God's purpose for his creation of the longing for adventure and point and significance?

And most importantly, where is there a people that lives differently from those around them, a people in touch with their brokenness, in touch with the reality that God can reach down into their lives and call them to slowly climb out of that brokenness for the rest of their lives, depend on others making that same journey, who are finding adventure in that, significance in that.

Maybe when we think of the word “peace,” we think “world peace,” peace between nations, often overlooking the need for peace within ourselves and families and neighborhoods. You know, the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli leader Yitzak Rabin shook hands in D.C. in 1993, but the Israelis and Palestinians have continued killing each other off since then. In 1964, Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, but the problem of racism is still a terrible one in America. You know, those events were important, but maybe the most important part of peacemaking is the commitment of individuals working to overcome brokenness in themselves and in the people around them. Are we as followers of Jesus guilty of putting our heads in the sand when we say to neighbor or friend that what this world needs is for individuals to seek and discover God's purposes for their lives—for their money and job and family and sexuality and longing for relationships and for significance? I don’t think we are.

What every one of us needs is a cause to live for that lines up with the purposes of our Creator. And because our Creator is powerful in His willingness to back up the faithful actions of his people, we can know beyond any doubt that living for Him will satisfy our deepest longings for a life with thrilling significance.

Where do we find that life abundant? One good place would be to look particularly to the testimony of one who had found such life himself, the apostle Paul.

And Acts 20:24 is a snapshot for us of a life that is not boring, it speaks of a life with TREMENDOUS significance.

“From Miletus, Paul sent to Ephesus for the elders of the church. When they arrived, he said to them: “You know how I live the whole time I was with you, from the first day I came into the province of Asia. I served the Lord with great humility and with tears, although I was severely tested by the plots of the Jews. You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you, but have taught you publicly from house to house. I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus. And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, no knowing what will happen to me there. I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prisons and hardships are facing me. However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me- the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.”

It might be helpful for you and me right now and when he head home today and over the course of this week to stop and consider for just a few minutes what Paul was living for and what effect it had on his life; and this will bear tremendous fruit for us on a simple practical level in our lives and for the day when we jump back into walking through the letter to the Roman church we were studying before the church fire.

First, notice the immense reality of God. Paul served the Lord with great humility, was sensitive to the voice of the Spirit, and knew he had to deal honestly with his own heart here first. Since we were created by God and are made for open relationship with God, you can mark down the reality that any set of goals that we choose to live for will leave an emptiness in our souls if GOD is not the center, the first priority, our first love, if we are not on bent knee before him, listening and acting. Paul's life reflected the glory of God in a tremendous, blazing, powerful manner through his simple courageous devotion to following Jesus.

Second, there is an incredible reality of God's grace. The verse ends, "to testify to the gospel of the grace of God." The power of God's holiness and justice are like a great, violent hurricane, and the grace of God is like the eye of the hurricane where all is peace and calm. Grace is the center of God's reality. Grace, or love, is the essential calm at the center of the vortex of his infinite perfections. Paul had an experience earlier in his life when he was swept into the terror of that hurricane of God’s justice one day on the Damascus road one day when he was struck blind. And then to his utter amazement he was drawn through it into the peace and beauty of the eye of grace into this relationship even though he had the blood of innocent Christians on his hands. First there is the immense reality of God himself, breathtaking in all his glory. Then there is the immense reality of God's grace, rescuing people in rebellion from their lost state and restoring them to relationship. An awesome and holy God exists who cares enough about our rebellion that he does something about it. And there is a way to find meaning and purpose and adventure and significance the gift of his Son that we continue to celebrate. This is the gospel. The only lasting long-term opportunity for change this world has ever seen. Everything else runs in cycles and is ultimately meaningless in the span of history. We as followers of Jesus carry the lives of our friends and neighbors and enemies in the balance both through our lifestyle and the picture it gives our friends and through our willingness to openly confess that we are called to a different way, and we need the courage and the fortitude to stand up for what we believe to be right, as well as carry humility to confess that we often get it wrong ourselves.

First it made him utterly indifferent to earthly gain. The verse begins, "I consider my life worth nothing to me." In other words he had found a cause to live for that was so profoundly satisfying that it was more valuable than his life itself. And of course the desire for that life is what drives us all to seek all the things that break our boredom, whether it be money or drugs or prestige or power or wealth.

The second effect that Paul's cause to live for had on him was to give him an incredible discipline to stay on the assigned trail. The verse says that he valued one central thing "if only I may accomplish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus." He pictures himself as an athlete running a race. His coach, trainer, audience, and award is Jesus Christ. One thing matters: finishing the course the way he has been taught.

He reasons: My cause is the cause of God. My thrill is the power of grace. My "edge" is the risk of my life. My "point" is the honor of Christ. My "daring" is the measure of my love. And thus he fights his way along the narrow trail in the power and the glory of a disciplined and God-centered life.

How about in 2007, we live honestly with seeking to be a Biblical people, a committed people, a loving people, that the news would spread over this countryside surrounding our church that there’s something different going on here. That we’re willing to love people and give our lives for them no matter who they are, where they come from, what background shaped them, or the state of their lives now. Could it be that God is refining us as his people through our church fire to be a humble and righteous and God-centered movement of restoration and renewal here in the Valley, a picture of what society is meant to look like?

Could it be that right relationships start when the husband wakes up tomorrow morning and commits to restore what is broken in his relationship with his wife? Could it be that the mission of Middle River Church takes place when a high school teenager refuses to take part in the catcalls of his friends towards females, and embraces a more positive view of sexuality and beauty, even if his friends make fun of him? Could it be that the mission of Middle River takes place when I think of the person I get along with least in our church family and commit myself to praying for them and loving them? Could it be that the mission of Middle River Church takes place when we refuse to ignore individuals and families that the rest of society thinks have little to nothing to offer? Could it be that we wouldn’t think of success only in terms of have many folks are a part of our church, and instead focus on loving God with all that we are and others with that same love…not settling for mediocre, duty-driven Christianity?

We all will leave a legacy, and my hope for us as a church family, and the thing to which I am held accountable as a leader is whether we respond as the people did to the expectations of God in the book of Haggai we’ve walked through so recently.

After having heard of their consistent hardness of heart and failure to be God-centered people and the consequences of that action, the people responded by obeying the voice of the Lord their God and the message of the prophet Haggai, because the Lord their God had sent him. And the people, feared (respected, held in high esteem, stood in awe of) the Lord.

Haggai Week 3: December 24th, 2006

Have one person turn to Jeremiah 22:24, and one to Zechariah 1:1-8

Before Haggai gave his third and final prophecy that we know of today, Zechariah delivered his first in November or December:

1 In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berekiah, the son of Iddo: 2 "The LORD was very angry with your forefathers. 3 Therefore tell the people: This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'Return to me,' declares the LORD Almighty, 'and I will return to you,' says the LORD Almighty. 4 Do not be like your forefathers, to whom the earlier prophets proclaimed: This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'Turn from your evil ways and your evil practices.' But they would not listen or pay attention to me, declares the LORD. 5 Where are your forefathers now? And the prophets, do they live forever? 6 But did not my words and my decrees, which I commanded my servants the prophets, overtake your forefathers? "Then they repented and said, 'The LORD Almighty has done to us what our ways and practices deserve, just as he determined to do.'"

(After building the altar 16 years before) In their neglect of the temple, the people had evidently concluded that their attendance at the altar and the presentation of their sacrifices were good enough, and that their action demanded that they should be accepted by Him.

Haggai’s third message is a forceful reminder to the people, three months after their first response to Haggai of faithfulness and getting down to the work on the temple, that this lazy approach to God wasn’t good enough. Questioning the priests, whose job description included answering questions on the specific interpretation of the law, Haggai drew out the truth that uncleanness is more contagious than holiness. A garment carrying holy meat will not sanctify the things it touches, while people defiled by contact with a dead body will contaminate the things they touch if they do not take the proper steps to cleanse themselves from that contact. Now we don’t need to have a vast and deep knowledge of the Jewish law to grasp this concept; quite simply, the people and the sacrifices they had been offering were unclean because their hearts weren’t involved in it, and their actions and their lifestyle showed what was most important to them.

They had failed to lay the foundation of the temple, they had failed to be God-centered people, and had busied themselves with all the affairs of their own lives while ignoring the expectations of God or at the very least, making God play second fiddle to everything else…and because the people were unclean in their motives and actions, their offerings to God were unacceptable. Neglect of God’s work meant that their offerings were useless; and what was true of Judah 2,500 years ago is true today. We cannot persuade God to ignore our laziness by the gift of money or suggesting to others that we are faithful when in fact we are not. In that case, our offerings, whatever they might be, are worthless. And that might be hard teaching for us to deal with, but it’s Biblical truth, and we have to deal with it if we are disciples of Jesus.

(15-16) Now, give careful thought from this day on...

A reminder for the people again, “Don’t forget that God loves you so much that he will not allow you to remain in rebellion without either allowing you to suffer the consequences of your actions, or acting directly to bring ruin to you until your heart shifts and you follow Him.

In other words, recall how miserable and frustrated you were in your disobedience before you began to lay stone on stone in the temple. Surely you would be idiots to continue to desire and pursue these things above God, Haggai says to the people, because now you know exactly what happened!

So what does God require? Repentance, literally “return” was required (2:17)

(18) And again, give careful thought to remember the day you laid aside your piddly pursuits to lay the foundation of God’s temple…

(19) And the passage ends on a positive note because of their obedience, “From this day on I will bless you.” It was a critical time of year, with it being December in that area. If the rain now fell, the wheat harvest four months later might exceed their expectations and the fruit trees might produce fruit in abundance. So if the people had remained in their position of faithfulness before God, God’s discipline would turn into blessing.

And as many times as we hear the phrase, “Consider your ways, give careful thought to your lives,” it might do US well today to write that and put it up somewhere where we’ll see it often, because the reminder and our obedience very well might alter the course of our lives. Step back from the picture and look honestly at your life.

Maybe I’m sounding like a broken record here the last three weeks with what I see to be the central message here in Haggai, but I think it boils down to this: we do NOT exist in a rigid system where every mistake we make will immediately be followed by a direct judgment crashing down on our heads. Consistency is the key here. God is patient, and merciful, and knows we are flawed and broken and fall flat on our faces as his creation. He recognizes that. And I’m sure as Haggai was saying, “Give careful thought to your ways,” he was thinking…Gosh, I need this reminder just as much as everyone else. So we’re gonna make mistakes. We know this. But God’s action toward us is determined by our response to our mistakes, our willingness to listen, our willingness to repent, and our willingness to keep pursuing God. Our lives will be defined by our consistency in the pursuit of a God-centered life. Our Consistency in the pursuit of a God-centered life.

I think maybe what God is saying in this book of Haggai aimed at the community of the people of God is this: You have to work for faithfulness and holiness while unfaithfulness, laziness, and numbness is MUCH MUCH easier... in other words, you have made a right choice to be about the right things (I’ve disciplined you for your failure to pay attention to me, you’ve turned, and are listening now)... be careful, though... because the temptation for you is to get lazy.

I had a conversation with one of my friends dealing with this very issue the other day, and we found a parallel in both of our lives with how we’ve tended to approach our relationship with God.

1) The first parallel came when we both confessed to one another that often we are lazy, and that often if a video camera followed us around all day for a longer period of time, our lives might not look much different at all from our friends who haven’t said “Yes” to God: and THAT is a big problem for both of us. And

2) We shared a bit about some experiences we both have had where we felt very close to God: She had had a HUGE experience when she went on a missions trip to Mexico, and during Carnival (which is the Mexican version of Mardi Gras), she was stationed on the street with serving coffee to the taxi drivers at a little Café. She said she had a horrible attitude, because she couldn’t speak Spanish well, and was getting frustrated, and so she went inside to the prayer room for an hour, ended up being two hours, told God she was going to sit till she heard his voice, about twenty minutes later, her friend Sarah came in, and this started an INCREDIBLY intense time of prayer like she’s never experienced since, and they felt like they were supposed to keep praying for everyone out on the street with her missions team, went up on roof and prayed for another two hours. Every second, she felt impressed to pray for someone, then she would pray for another, and another. After awhile, things calmed down, and she went back into the building, and when the street team came back, they relayed that with SEVEN people, they had led 240 people to an initial commitment to follow Jesus in that night. An INCREDIBLE move of God that night. But do you know what happened after that? She didn’t go into that prayer room for the rest of Carnival.

I mentioned several experiences that I had had as well, in addition to the fact that one of the highlights of my week is when I have the opportunity to get together with three other guys around my age and talk about life, read the Bible some, read devotional books some, and talk and pray about how we can serve Christ more fully. I feel greatly refreshed after those times, BUT, I have found that it is either directly before or directly after those times that I am most tempted to fall flat on my face, and have done so at times. I could click off for you on my fingers tremendous experiences I’ve had in following Jesus that I have followed by extended times of great selfishness or ignorance of God.

And my friend and I thought about our actions by translating it into a human relationship, we’ll say a marriage, where the couple is sitting down and really connecting deeply with one another; they have an incredible night together, and in the middle of the husband sharing something heavy, the wife stands up and says, “It was nice spending time with you. Talk to you in three weeks.” Now does that make sense?

Or forget the marriage analogy. Your friend calls you, and their life has hit a real rough spot, so you go out to grab a coffee and talk about it. Your friend talks for awhile about the situation, then thanks you for listening to them, and just as they’re beginning to talk about deeper issues, you abruptly stand up and leave, and don’t call them for six days afterwards. Now does that make sense? Both of us MARVELED at how often we do this!!!

And if we’re honest, a lot of times, it doesn’t take a BIG experience like this for us to follow it up with falling flat on our faces…we can let ourselves just slide into the routine of life, never stopping to consider the deeper issues, and end up wasting our lives.

Kierkegaard: "Father in Heaven! What are we without You? All that we know is but a chipped fragment if we do not know you! What is all our striving but a half-finished work if we do not know you: you are the One!

So may you give to our minds wisdom to comprehend one thing, to our hearts the sincerity to receive understanding of this one thing, to our wills, purity to desire this one thing. In prosperity may you give us perseverence to will this one thing; amidst distractions, focus to will one thing, in suffering, patience to will one thing. May you at the dawn of each day give to the young the courage to will this one thing. As the day comes to a close, may you give to the old a renewed remembrance of their first commitment, that the first may be like their last, in possession of a life that willed one thing.

Something often comes in between. The separation of sin lies in between. Day after day something is being placed in between: delay, blockage, interruption, corruption. So in repentance may you give us the Courage once again to will one thing."

And that one thing Kierkegaard talks about is purity of heart in seeking God. If we desire God centrally for what He can give us, that is NOT purity of heart, if we say “Yes” to God out of fear of punishment, that is NOT purity of heart, if we desire God with a half-hearted commitment, that is NOT purity of heart. Utter abandon, absolute commitment to God is the requirement for willing one thing, for purity of heart. And the simple commitment on our parts to obey God and listen to God and pursue God no matter what is the heartbeat of what we have been created for. This simple commitment will keep us going through all the up and downs and struggles with sin and times of victory throughout our lives.

I am about to overthrow the thrones of kingdoms”. He focuses on the Davidic line, “I will take you, O Zerubbabel, my servant…and make you like a signet ring; for I have chosen you.” (23)

Contrast with Jeremiah 22:24 "As surely as I live," declares the LORD, "even if you, Jehoiachin ^[c] son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, were a signet ring on my right hand, I would still pull you off.”

Now, through Haggai, God offered a stunning reversal and hope to Zerubbabel, a descendent of Johoaichin, that the judgment was overturned by his mercy. When the Kingdom of God comes on earth, the Davidic ruler or “anointed” (we know him as the Messiah today) will be God’s chosen servant and lord over all the earth.

Haggai’s vision of the future went beyond the limits of the people of Judah desiring independence. It is conspicuous that he does not speak of the overthrow of Persia, which was the kingdom ruling over the Jews at that time. He speaks of the subjection of all nations to God. And God always keeps his promises. And so, when the Kingdom of God came among us in the person of Jesus Christ, of the house of David, and the beginning of the fulfillment of this word to Haggai, everything changed. He introduced God’s kingdom which has no end, which will overthrow every rule and authority and power, and he showed us how it would happen in the most unique way. He came not to be served but to serve, he came not lord himself over others, but instead chose to love. He came to destroy false and twisted religion, but did not force others to see things his way. He gave us in his life a perfect picture of the goal we should all set to pursue.

So in this situation where things were small, difficult, and discouraging, the temple was being restored slowly, the new structure was a shadow of the former, and Zerubbabel was only a Persian governor of a tiny community of people no bigger than the town of Harrisonburg,the point was this: God had a purpose through the whole situation. The Jews of Haggai's day could not see it all, and what they could see seemed so inconsequential and ridiculous. So God came to them with a word of promise: Take courage. You build more than you see. The heavens and the earth and sea and land and all treasures are mine. I will take the fruit of your little labor and make it glorious beyond measure, no matter how trivial or how unimportant it may seem to you now.

And is this not the message of Advent and Christmas? Just over 2,000 years ago give or take a decade or so, the angel Gabriel appeared to a likely teenage girl in Mary in the town of Nazareth and told her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.” He says this to a scared teenage girl!

Haggai Week 2: December 17th 2006

It was sixteen years since the foundation of the temple had been laid and the people were now arguing that the time for building had not yet come. The Lord challenged their inconsistency. His house lay desolate under the plea that the time to reconstruct it had not yet arrived. Yet the people found time to build their own luxurious homes. If they didn’t have the resource to build his house, they could still build their own houses. Not only that, but the modest stone buildings, with which they might reasonably have been content, were regarded as inadequate. They had to have paneled wood walls and ceilings. Stone was available at low cost; timber was scarce and expensive…nothing would satisfy them but the best.

They were robbing God of his due, and they were paying the price of this consistent stealing for their own purposes. (drought, eating but never full, drinking but always thirsty, had clothing but never warm)

This might be the place to consider what Biblical judgment looks like in general, because I think we often carry an approach to judgment that makes the world into something like this ( a rigid system where if you do something wrong, you’re gonna pay)

- Cat/dog animation

- Now, I may be a bit off, but I’d suggest the situation Biblically’s a little different than that, and I’ll give you a glimpse into what I see, and you can judge for yourself as you continue to read God’s Word in your life…but I think this simple understanding will

- Often looks like this: Action (or inaction), Prophetic utterance, response of faith/unfaith, consequence of lifestyle and decisions

King Asa ( 2 Chronicles 16:1-10)

- Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the LORD his God. 3 He removed the foreign altars and the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. ^[a] 4 He commanded Judah to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, and to obey his laws and commands. 5 He removed the high places and incense altars in every town in Judah, and the kingdom was at peace under him. 6 He built up the fortified cities of Judah, since the land was at peace. No one was at war with him during those years, for the LORD gave him rest.

- Zerah the Cushite marched out against them with a vast army ^[b] and three hundred chariots, and came as far as Mareshah. 10 Asa went out to meet him, and they took up battle positions in the Valley of Zephathah near Mareshah. Then Asa called to the LORD his God and said, "LORD, there is no one like you to help the powerless against the mighty. Help us, O LORD our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this vast army. O LORD, you are our God; do not let man prevail against you." The LORD struck down the Cushites before Asa and Judah. The Cushites fled, 13 and Asa and his army pursued them as far as Gerar. Such a great number of Cushites fell that they could not recover; they were crushed before the LORD and his forces.

- The Spirit of God came upon Azariah son of Oded. 2 He went out to meet Asa and said to him, "Listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin. The LORD is with you when you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you. 3 For a long time Israel was without the true God, without a priest to teach and without the law. 4 But in their distress they turned to the LORD, the God of Israel, and sought him, and he was found by them. 5 In those days it was not safe to travel about, for all the inhabitants of the lands were in great turmoil. 6 One nation was being crushed by another and one city by another, because God was troubling them with every kind of distress. 7 But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded." 8 When Asa heard these words and the prophecy of Azariah son of ^[a] Oded the prophet, he took courage. He removed the detestable idols from the whole land of Judah and Benjamin and from the towns he had captured in the hills of Ephraim.

2 Chronicles 16:1-10

- Baasha attacks, Asa responds by taking consecrated gold and silver out of the temple, giving it to King Ben-hadad of Aram to buy him off and get him to break his treaty with Baasha, and he does

- prophet Hanani comes along and laces into him, saying, “Because you relied on the king of Aram and not on the LORD your God, the army of the king of Aram has escaped from your hand. 8 Were not the Cushites ^[b] and Libyans a mighty army with great numbers of chariots and horsemen? Yet when you relied on the LORD, he delivered them into your hand. 9 For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. You have done a foolish thing, and from now on you will be at war."

- (Now how did Asa respond here?) “Asa was angry with the seer because of this; he was so enraged that he put him in prison. At the same time Asa brutally oppressed some of the people. The events of Asa's reign, from beginning to end, are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel. 12 In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa was afflicted with a disease in his feet. Though his disease was severe, even in his illness he did not seek help from the LORD, but only from the physicians”

In this situation, Asa was faced with two threats: one, a Cushite (Egyptian) army of one million, and the other, the king of Israel doing a couple border skirmishes to cut off Jerusalem from the north. In the first, Asa relies on the Lord, who saves them miraculously from their predicament. The prophet Azariah tells him, what you’ve done was good. He listens. In the second, Asa relies on Ben-hadad, Hanani gives him the what-for, what the consequence would be, and Asa hardens his mind and heart and rejects

Hanani’s word and lives in rebellion to his death. Consistent rebellion.

He has a short-term consequence, but the long-term consequence destroys him…his obedience would’ve turned things around

- Haggai

o The problem of King Asa was the same one the people of Judah faced here in Haggai: As long as they looked to the Lord and completely trusted Him, they found blessing and security; but when God ceased to fill their eyes; suuposedly plausible reasons were given; “It’s not time to build the temple” was secret code for “I care more about my life and my job and my things than I do about God and what God expects from me.”

o You see, it’s not just the actions that God looks to, because we all stumble and fall…it’s the state of the heart. Are we listening to God? Are we humbling ourselves before God?

o It was not unnatural that the Jews should be afraid of their watchful enemies; but they should have looked to God. Where there is simplicity of confidence in the Lord, it is astonishing how the tables are turned, and the adversaries stand in dread of the weakest folk who trust in the living God

o Too often we think spiritually in terms of tomorrow, when the obligations of faithfulness face us today, to wave aside the responsibilities of faithfulness today and speak of hoping for success tomorrow does not justify our laziness and neglect

o Too often we lay that on our friends who don’t know Jesus: “get right with God while you have today,” when the truth is that we are just as responsible as they are and more accountable to the call of faithfulness than they are because we supposedly have said YES to God!

o Jesus was compassionate and patient and incredibly forgiving (broken), but also was consumed with zeal for God’s house and righteousness (pissed at the self- righteousness and elitism of those who knew better

But here in Haggai, the people, even though they’ve failed God, snap to their senses, listen to what God is saying through Haggai, and turn around and start walking the path of obedience.

And the whole remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the LORD their God and the message of the prophet Haggai, because the LORD their God had sent him. And the people feared the LORD. And because of their willingness to listen and act, God no longer aligns himself against them, instead saying, “I am with you.”

2:1-3

Just to give you a glimpse of the incredible nature of the other temple, one historian has written that “besides the richness of the sculptures in the former temple, everything was overlaid with gold. Solomon overlaid the whole house with gold, the whole altar, the two cherubims, the floor of the house, the doors of the holy of holies, and the ornaments of it, the palm trees he covered with gold on the carved work, the altar of gold and the table of gold, on the table ten candlesticks of pure gold, flower and lamps and tongs of gold, bowls, basins and spoons of pure gold, even the hinges were pure gold. The equivalent of 4.5 million dollars worth of gold was in the holy of holies alone.”

So Haggai brings this out for the people.

Does that sound like anything in your experience? I think anybody who has ever undertaken a work for the cause of Christ has felt that kind of discouragement: the sense that you work and work and the product seems so paltry. You pour yourself into a thing week after week and month after month and the fruit is so minimal. Then you look back in history or across town and see the grand achievement of others, and your temple seems so trivial. And you get discouraged and are tempted to quit and put away your aspirations and drop your dreams and put your feet up in front of the television and coast. Who wants to devote his life to a second-rate temple?

Middle River is, in some ways a prime target for criticism. Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, it was such a committed, growing church that it planted four churches (Forest Chapel, Barren Ridge, Pleasant Valley, and a mission church that ceased to exist when the Shenandoah Nat. Park was established); in 1851, at the Annual Meeting of the COB, 15 people were converted and baptized…but

Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel…and be strong, O Joshua; and be strong, all you people of the land, and work’ for I am with you…so my spirit abides among you: fear not.

It was not for them to sit down despondently and to deplore the lost glory of the past. They had been given a work to do in their own day. The past was irretrievable: it had gone beyond control.

Many speak regretfully of “the good old days” and contrast the feeble efforts of the present day. But we are not called to live in the past. Our lot was cast in the present, with all its abounding and unprecedented opportunities. So we strive with every power and ability to do God’s service now. His power is with us in our consistent obedience. Let us go on.

Thus says the Lord of hosts…it is a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land; and I will shake all nations and the desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory…the latter glory of this house will be greater than the former…

Shaking of all nations to be followed by the desire of all nations. The Jews were unable to cover the building in gold as Solomon did, and were depressed by that fact. But the Lord declared that the silver and gold were his. The people’s inability was irrelevant. The One to whom the treasures belonged accepted the responsibility of glorifying the building.

It is not for us to be concerned with how beautiful or earth-shattering our work is. The apparently trivial and humdrum service we perform in the name of our Lord may seem unexciting and almost worthless…we feel less and less important in our world by the day.

But one of the great realities that Jesus taught us in his coming was that the gospel is as simple as a glass of cold water on a hot day, a shirt, a coat for those who don’t have one, a meal for the hungry, your willingness to love and forgive when its easy or hard, a paintbrush in the basement of a small country church…

Purity of heart, then, is found in willing only the good, which is God. To do unifies and simplifies everything. But Kierkegaard warns that to desire the good for the sake of the reward is not to will one thing, to desire the good out of fear of punishment is not to will one thing, to desire the good with a half-hearted commitment is not to will one thing. Utter abandonment, absolute commitment to God, is the requirement for willing one thing, for simplicity, for purity of heart.

VS4-
Be strong. I love that. At least in this context, His answer for their discouragement? Get over it! Buck up. No- it’s not like it was, but this is what I’m calling you to do now, so dust yourself off, get up off the ground, take your eyes off your focus on what you don’t have, and… Get to work.
I love this- God tells them, “Now get to work!”
Be about the mission I have given you- the reason why you are where you are at.

And at a certain point, people who claim to belong to God, to be the people of God, have to roll up their sleeves and do the work of God- get about the business of God in this world. But notice what else He says: more than just get to work- He says to them again “I am with you.” The people of God never do the work of God alone. They ask- God where are you already working, what are you inviting us into, asking us to do. And then they listen- they do their best to hear what specific ways, to see what specific places God is asking them to be present in, to join Him in. And then… they get to work. And they do so with the presence of God Himself in and through, behind and before them.

VS5
And that’s the tendency whenever you are undertaking something bigger than yourself. What if we fail? Easier not to try than to try and fail- easier emotionally, physically, in every way possible.
But God says: Do not be afraid. I am with You. I am for You.

Whatever it is, in whatever ways you hear that still small voice of God prompting you to action, take some steps out there, and invite the rest of us along. Maybe it flies, maybe it flops… but in either case, some good will be done, and we’ll be exploring together what missional living as a community doing it’s best to live life in the way of Jesus looks like.
Yeah?

He gives two arguments why they should take courage and work heartily. And both of these are crucial for us as well. The text continues in verses 4 and 5: "Work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts, according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit abides among you; fear not." God's first argument why they should "take courage," "work," and "fear not" is that he is with them. For most of us the value of a job increases with the dignity and prestige of the people who are willing to do it. How could we ever, then, belittle a work when God says he is with us in it? When God is working at your side, nothing is trivial.

But the promise is not only that he will be at your side; he will also be in our hearts encouraging us. Look back at the end of 1:13. "I am with you, says 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." If we will ask him and trust him, God not only works with us, but he moves in to stir up our spirit and give us a heart for the work. He doesn't want crusty diehards in his work; he wants free and joyful laborers. And so he promises to be with them and stir them up to love the work.

“Certainly I will be with you,” he said to Moses out of the burning bush. “I will be with you,” he promised Joshua when he was given the leadership of Israel from Moses. “I am with you,” he said to Isaiah. He told Jeremiah, “Do not say, 'I am only a child.' You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you," declares the LORD. And God is with us as his people here at Middle River if we continue in faithfulness, pursue Him, and show the willingness to listen, admit it, and buck up and keep working when we fall flat on our faces.

Haggai Week Number One: December 10th 2006

Pressures, demands, expectations and tasks push in from all sides and assault our schedules. Do this! Be there! Finish that! Call them! It seems as though everyone wants something from us- family, friends, employer, school, church, clubs, etc etc. Soon there is little left to give, as we run out of energy and time We find ourselves rushing through life, attending to the necessary, the immediate, and the urgent, because that’s all the energy we can muster. The important, the deeper reality, the struggle of things that keep repeating in our lives, of inadequacies, of discomfort, or of feeling meaningless, useless, or purposeless are often left in the dust.

Our problem is not the sheer number of demands or lack of scheduling skills, but values- what is TRULY important to us. Our values and priorities are reflected in how we use our resources- time, money, strength, and talent; and often, our actions show that our words are empty. We often say God is number one, but then we push him and what he asks of us down to second, third, eighth, or tenth priority.

Today we begin three weeks in the Old Testament book of Haggai.
While you turn there, let me set the stage a bit…
Haggai was a prophet- one who spoke to the people for God… He lived in Israel during the time when the Jewish people were returning from 70 years of captivity in Babylon. As a judgment against them, God had allowed a Babylonian king named Nebuchadnezzar to invade Israel, destroy the temple and relocate almost all the people to what is now modern-day Iraq. After Nebuchadnezzar, a new king named Cyrus came on the scene, and his policy was one where he wanted to rebuild the temples and serve the gods of all the people that Babylon had conquered over the years, just to make sure that if any of those gods were the real God, then he would be okay… So Cyrus allowed about 50,000 Jews to return to Israel and he gave them the order to rebuild God’s temple in Jerusalem.

So the people hop to, with Ezra and Nehemiah and Jeshua and Zerubbabel at the helm, and start building the temple. People are fired up, ready to go, making it happen, and they LAY the foundation of the temple, and when they do, the priests with their trumpets and the Levites with their cymbals take their places, and with blaring music and clashing sing, “The Lord is good, his love to Israel endures forever.” And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord, because the foundation was laid.

But it wasn’t long before some folks start grumbling. “Man, this temple isn’t half the building the one before it was. This is PATHETIC.” And some of the older priests are weeping at how small it is, and then folks from outside of Jerusalem set out to discourage the people of Judah and make them afraid to go on building. They hire counselors to work against them and frustrate their plans. They even sent a false letter to a neighboring king, who compelled the people by threat of force to quit building. So, that brings us up to today, where 16 years later, Cyrus is gone, another king named Darius is in place and the Temple still hasn’t been built. All those big emotions and big plans ending up falling flat on their face because the people were afraid and inconsistent.

We’re going to read most of the chapter together, talk a bit about the big details and then we’ll go through it bit by fit for some finer points-

And as we launch into reading the first section of this Scripture here, I’d like you to keep two questions in your mind:

1) What does this passage tell us about God?

2) What does this passage tell us about people?

The Bible is filled with words of comfort and peace… as well as parts which challenge and disturb. And it does this by telling us things about ourselves that we might rather not hear, and even tells us things about God that we might rather not hear… I know that not everyone here is on the same page spiritually- that we all come from different places and are AT different places spiritually- but I assume your presence here this morning means you want to hear the truth about God from God- from His Word- and I’m accountable to say the truth; that God’s word may challenge and disturb us, or it may bring comfort and peace, and in a lifetime of following Him, I guarantee you’ll see both. This passage contains a bit of both the challenge and the comfort, especially in how we think about God Himself… let’s go through it.

(v 1) So God was speaking to the people by speaking to their political leaders and their religious leaders…
(v 2)16 years later, the people are procrastinating. Now, it’s not like they might not have had some legitimate excuses- this was an agrarian society- there were crops to be planted and harvested, not to mention the fact that everything had been destroyed and in disrepair for more than 70 years… But nonetheless, God is calling them to consider something…
(v 3-4) He repeats the word (in the Hebrew) “you” for emphasis- is it time for you, for YOU, to be living in luxurious houses while…”

Does this mean we should all abandon work, family, fun and all the rest and go live in a monastery? Of course not- but too often we give ourselves to the less important things and ignore the really weighty matters of life. Did God tell them to tear down their houses and give the money towards the building of the temple? No, not in THIS CASE. He simply questioned their priorities. The place of their houses, in their minds, their hearts… especially over and against HIS place… and God’s next words in verse 5 are striking-

(v 5) Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: “Look at what’s happening”- lit ‘Give careful thought to your ways.’” At some point each of us must ask ourselves, “Is what I am giving myself to, what I am spending day after day doing and pursuing, really that important?” And it’s not about our job so much, as our calling, the missions in your life you are called to pursue in your life. Mission is what happens when you respond to the word of God and the expectations placed on your life; if I think to myself in reading this today, “Man, this Scripture is reminding me that my priorities are out of whack,” that’s mission, because I’m allowing myself to be changed by God’s Word on my life, when if (name) turns to (name) during the sermon and says, “This isn’t easy to live out,” that mission, when (name) goes to work and deals with all manner of things, whether it’s boredom or stress or folks gossiping or being treated like crap by management, or if you’re in management of some sorts and your workers are unmotivated and lazy, they way you respond is mission; and all of this is mission because what you think about, they way you act, and the way you handle yourself affects more people than yourself, and the picture of your life has an eternal impact on others’ around you.

You see, here, God was not content to allow the people of Israel to live lives of comfortable unimportance, or putting him second fiddle. He took action and He pointed out the results and consequences of how they were living.

(v 6)And then He pointed them towards something different, something transcendent…
(v 7-8) Rebuild the Temple? Why?

Now I want to suggest that this has two meanings…One, the physical rebuilding of the temple was an expectation by God because it would be a sign to all people groups of the center of meaning for the people of Israel He was deeply concerned that the people cared more about their houses and their families and more cash money and more prosperity than building the center of worship for his glory. But the deeper issue went beyond the physical building to a basic indifference expressed about the desires of God. The temple of the Old Testament existed for the glory of God. And the Church today exists for the glory of God (Ephesians 1:6, 12, 14). Indifference to the growth and spiritual prosperity of the Church and its mission is always a sign of failure to love the glory of God. And the sour fruit of this failure is a life of chronic frustration. He who seeks to save his life will lose it to continual frustrations; but he who loses his life for the glory of God and the good of his cause will find life, deep and fulfilling. Verse 9 sums up the situation in Jerusalem: "You have looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? says the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while you busy yourself each with his own house."
And here’s where God reveals a terrible grace.

VS9:
I love the way the NIV says it… "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.”

VS 10-11
Israel had been suffering a drought- why? Because God was thwarting them- He was standing in their way. In the areas of their hopes and dreams He was blocking them- keeping them from achieving what they really wanted. "You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away.” Why would God do this? I thought the Bible promised us “in all things God works for the good of those who love Him.” Was that a lie?

Sometimes the best thing that could happen to us is that we fail. It is the hardest times in our lives that cause us to stop and think, to look and consider. God wants for us that we live lives worth living, and He knows that the only way that will ever happen is if we give Him His proper place- if we focus ourselves not on the transitory, on things which rust and break and get stolen, but on things which have eternal value- our relationship with Him, our relationships with others, helping others to know Him… Doing things that really matter. And the terrible grace is that God is willing to shake us up to get our attention. And so sometimes He brings or allows to come into our lives things which we don’t necessarily want, but which we desperately need.
The real tragedy would be if God just left us alone. And so it is a terrible grace when He puts Himself in our way and says, “Stop- think about the way you are going…”
What has God been saying to you lately? How would you put it if you had to tell it to someone else. Take a minute and think…
VS 12-
Have you ever wondered what it is God wants from you? Here it is: That when He speaks we would actually listen. That’s pretty much it. Not very complicated… He wants obedience from us because He wants what’s best for us- and whether we want to hear it or not- the two go hand in hand.
Now- if you are feeling the weight of that, notice what He says next:
VS 13
One of the most comforting statements in this whole story is this: “I am with you.” Though He stood momentarily in their way, God’s ultimate position with these people was this: I am with you. Not against you, not ignoring you… with you. For you. God promises us that if we will carve out a place in our lives for Him- He will come and occupy it. He says elsewhere in Scripture “Draw near to Me and I will draw near to you.” The God of the Universe wants a place not only as your Lord, but as your Comfort… as your friend. And I have to wonder: Who wouldn’t want that?
VS 14-15
The people woke up- they heard what God was saying to them, considered their ways… and they obeyed.
The real risk in this life is not that we will one day wake up and find that God is thwarting our hopes and dreams… it’s that we won’t wake up and see that. The real risk is that we will become enthralled with things that really don’t matter, that we’ll mouth the words “Your kingdom come, Your will be done” and go about happily constructing our own little kingdoms.
God is with us, but He is jealous for us. For our hearts, our attention, our worship and our lives. The fact is, we all worship something- God wants it to be something worthwhile, something that won’t kill us, hurt others, something that will last- He wants it to be Him. The one who made us, the one who loves us, the one who redeems our lives and saves us.

Piper: in verses 12–15 Haggai reports that Zerubbabel and Joshua and the people obey and begin to work on the temple, on the 24th day of the sixth month. So, after 18 years of neglect and frustration, the people begin to learn their lesson: "seek the kingdom first, and all these other things will be added" (Matthew 6:33).

Attention to historical detail and to historical context is neither accidental or meaningless. By remembering the declaration of God in this way in this specific time, a claim is made about God’s action. God was and is deeply concerned about the very real world of blessings and curses, religion, of selfish or self-giving human beings. God acted through a human named Haggai, whose strengths and weaknesses all were aware of. Most of God’s challenges to human priorities, faithfulness, and allegiance, come in very historically significant moments through people and for people. The Protestant Reformation began when one particular man, Martin Luther, in one historical situation, was compelled to respond to the twisting of religion and what God had to say in that moment. Those members of our spiritual heritage as the Church of the Brethren, the Anabaptists, because they were committed to take Jesus’ words to pursue righteousness, to love radically, to give their lives for their friends and enemies, to refuse to take up arms for a state, were killed by the droves by their Lutheran, Reformed, and Catholic fellow Christians. They knew the cost of faithfulness, and chose wisely. The civil rights movement in the United States began when Rosa Parks, in a very specific situation, refused to participate any longer in the degrading and disgusting practice of moving black people to the back of the bus. Shortly thereafter, Martin Luther King (and I don’t think the meaning of his name is an accident) fought non-violently for civil rights for blacks and in the meantime called those who claimed the name Christian to repentance and a renewed commitment to Christ. And today, at Middle River, God is extending the same opportunity for repentance and renewal to us today. Does God reserve the right to judge us, discipline us, bend us over his knee and tell us to wake up through any means? Yes. He can, and he will. And he does it because he cares deeply about our lives and about faithfulness, and what people who don’t know him think when they hear the word Christian. And I’m sorry to say that many times in our society, when the name Christian comes up, people don’t have a smile wash across their face, and in the past, when folks in our community have heard the name Middle River, they’ve thought immediately of conflict and selfishness.

And the ONLY way, the ONLY way, that stigmas like this, and weaknesses in your life and mine, and weaknesses in our common church life can be overcome so that we can grow and be blessed by God and see change, REAL CHANGE taking place, is when we stop treating this business of our being Christian as a secondary pursuit…not that important. A name we slap on ourselves. Something we do for several minutes a day.

Haggai didn’t just speak to people who lived thousands of years ago… he speaks to us and to our community. What do we chase after, give ourselves to, live and die for? Anything worthwhile? What about our community- this church community at Middle River- Is God at the center, on the edges, truly worshipped or do we just go through the motions?

Will we give ourselves to the things that matter, to God himself, to His mission of redemption in this world, or to building our own house? To His kingdom, or to our own?

December 3, 2007 Hope: where is our hope?

Source Scriptures and Context: Peter and John (gate Beautiful) Acts 3 Elijah (Horeb and no rain) 1 Kings 17:1, 18:18-45

Today, Sunday, December 3, those of us who are followers of Jesus begin our anticipation of the moment everything changed around 2,000 years ago, when God, the architect and ruler of the universe gave up a part of his divinity, came to earth in vulnerability, and forever altered the history of the world. As Christians, when we do serious thinking about what brings hope, what brings meaning, what brings truth and weight to our lives, this should be the focus for us. Jesus. Changed. Everything.

Our hope is found there, and because Jesus is alive and His presence resides amongst us today as his disciples, our hope is found here as I look into each of your faces, and in your eyes I am reminded of stories from your lives, stories of struggles and hopes, miracles and catastrophes, some of these experiences, positive and negative, much more fresh and raw, and together as we worship we realize the reality of what binds us together. The name of Jesus.

When the church caught on fire, I, like the rest of us today, was shocked out of my comfort zone. I stayed in that place for awhile, being able to recognize habit and patterns in my life that were unhealthy, priorities that were unhealthy, etc, and I vowed to change. But I’ve found myself in the last week slipping back into my old ways, my old patterns, letting myself be mediocre, and have been reminded of how cyclical my actions in my life often are.

Now I’m going to ask you to be honest this morning as well. Do you often see the same things in your life? Often sliding through life, doing what needs to be done, sleeping, eating: this seems to be normal life. But then something happens that shocks you out of your comfort zone; and you’re spurred to action, but after awhile, without a consistent vision and focus, your action is short-lived and you slide back into your old ways.
- democratic focus on rights of the individual, often in extended times of relative comfort and safety that citizens lose a sense of nationalism and unity, but a tragedy or war moves the focus of the citizens off themselves and onto something bigger than themselves (WTC as example…how quickly it has slid into the fog of our sub-conscious)…simple example for the sake of illustration.

But the reality about the life, the awareness we are called to cultivate as followers of Jesus is that: Hope over the long haul, the deeply meaningful, life-changing, transforming kind; comes with the consistent pursuit of God, the commitment to making relationship with God first priority
- Do you remember about a month or so ago in worship, when I had the chalkboard in the front, and we asked ourselves some questions about whether a relationship with God is something scientific, something simple and easy to grasp, like A + B= C, or whether it’s something more, whether it’s more like falling in love with someone, a process that isn’t quite so easily defined, doesn’t happen in steps we necessarily have control over, and will both complete us and change us. We agreed that this relationship with God is much more like falling in love with someone; that we commit to spend time with Him, we get to know Him, we tell Him we love Him, and let the relationship change us. But I think we often don’t think of or tend to take for granted the reality that after falling in love, there are consistent things we need to do to cultivate and deepen and maintain the relationship…and along with that comes the constant temptation to take things for granted in our relationships: we can take for granted, if we’re married, that our spouse will be there no matter what, if we’re single, we could take for granted our family, church family, jobs, life, possessions.

You see, the hard thing is that we want things to be simple. Easy to figure out. But every man in this room who has been in a deeper relationship with a woman, and every woman in this room who has been in a deeper relationship with a man, knows that the opposite gender is hopelessly complex. Sure, we understand a bit more over the years, but sometimes the more we think we know, the more we find how complex the other is. I think we should apply the same thinking to our relationship with God. We want it to be simple. Straight-forward. And some things are, but this relationship with God is meant to be an adventure, something that surprises us, challenges us…and it is in this process that we find hope.

Now I’m going to read to you two instances of ridiculous stories in the Bible, and we’ll see if you don’t see what I saw.

Peter and John (gate Beautiful) Acts 3
Elijah (Horeb and no rain) 1 Kings 17:1, 18:18-45
-did not just hear an audible voice from God on a regular basis, or experience God saving them from all circumstances (That would have been too easy)
No, they cultivated their relationship with God in order to hear his voice more consistently in their circumstances and in their gut more often; they found that there is no shortcut to this reality, no formula for quick and easy success, just commitment and pursuit, consistency
- disciples gathered in the temple courts, praying and breaking bread together
- Elijah prayed often and with intensity

E.M. Bounds

“Spiritual work is taxing work, and people hate to do it. Praying, true praying, costs a person serious attention and time, which flesh and blood do not relish doing. Few persons are of such strong fiber that they will make a costly sacrifice when surface work will pass as well in the market. We can get used to our beggarly praying until it looks good enough to us, at least it keeps up a decent form and quiets our conscience- the deadliest of all drugs. We can slight our praying, and not realize the danger until the foundations are gone. It takes good time for the full flow of God into the spirit…to pray is the greatest thing we can do: and to do it well there must be calmness, time, and deliberation…we must learn anew the worth of prayer, enter anew the school of prayer. There is nothing which takes more time to learn.”

This message, given by a man whose commitment to prayer deeply affected his generation, helps to remind us that this relationship that gives us hope is meant to define us.

Because if this birth of Jesus we anticipate and celebrate every year, this source of hope, is central for us, one thing it can NEVER be is a pleasant little add-on in our lives, a tack-on…
- and that’s why, as the sheer numbers of folks attending church and church membership become less and less prevalent in our society, the picture actually is becoming much clearer for us of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. This commitment in our lives will cause whispers in the breakroom, sideways glances at the post office, people looking at your life, sticking a goad in you to nitpick and hope you fall flat on your face, lukewarm people who have settled for just pew-sitting upset and disturbed by your comments and lifestyle that suggest church isn’t just something that takes place for an hour or two on a Sunday morning or if you’re within earshot of the pastor or a member from your church
- and they’ll find out more and more as you refuse to look down your nose at others, as you choose to forgive, and choose to love sometimes when hated, that the growing light of God within you is colliding with the darkness of broken lives and this broken world….

David Crowder Band: “When our depravity meets his divinity, it is a beautiful collision.”

And it can never be any less than these two things: beautiful and collision.

Wonderful yet painful, healing, yet will rip our former lives limb from limb, natural yet feels terribly unnatural, a warm fuzzy feeling sometimes, and an impossible, beating your head against a brick wall feeling other times.

“It is about the tension that exists in the living of life, here, where the sky meets the broken earth. It is about a tsunami in East Asia. It is about a sunrise over Hiroshima. It is about many who know intensely what pain the word “cancer” holds and the words of my friend whispered in my ear, “It’s okay. None of us are getting out of here alive you know.” It is about victory. It is about the joy that comes when blood tests return and a miracle is announced. It is the hope in a rescue that has come, the hope in a rescue that has found us, and the relentless hope in a greater rescue that is still coming- one that has not yet arrived but is no less present. This music, broken, improper, and inadequate in its response is rooted in that hope.”