“Building
God’s House God’s Way”
November
13, 2005
First Presbyterian Church Carson City
Pastor
Bruce Kochsmeier
There are no more prophets today, not in the true biblical sense any way.
The canon of God’s word is closed.
God has spoken to us in the most complete way; the way that all the
prophets including our host this morning Haggai attested.
For the most complete way God could reveal himself has been made known in
God’s coming to be with us and for us in Jesus Christ.
The role of the prophet is to announce the power and promise of this
coming to the immediate situation and as a hope that would be bigger and greater
than anything a single moment or situation could possibly hold.
The reason God did this through the prophets was because people had
forgotten and God knew people would forget God’s faithfulness.
God knew that voices from the community of faith would need to speak
clearly and distinctly of the ONE hope for the journey of God’s people.
We need an announcement like this one from Haggai today, in the Church
and in the world because we so easily forget what our real hope is.
We need a song that is our own; that cheers us up, that lifts us out of
our routine, our rut, our disappointment or sameness and calls us to celebrate
God’s faithfulness that is greater than our greatest captivity and at the same
time greater than our greatest imagining.
The name Haggai means, “festival” or we might say “party”.
Through his message God reminds us that we have reason to party and
celebrate all the time because God is so faithful. And the song God sings us in Haggai’s prophecy is one that
speaks of good news for this moment and all our moments to come.
Now I may know this on an intellectual level because of study, but more
importantly I know the reason to celebrate in the midst of all my days because
people have carried this prophecy forward to me with their lives.
They have sung me the song. And
this is where life gets really rich; when we realize our part in singing God’s
song; building God’s house God’s way for people to enter and find hope.
The first person who sang God’s song to me was my mom.
I’d ask something like, “When is my birthday?” or “When do we get
to go to the zoo?” Do you know
what she would say to me? The same
thing God said through Haggai; “In a little while.”
I’m learning with each passing experience of life that what she was
saying was, “Don’t worry. It’s
going to happen, but don’t run off because you don’t know just when.
I told you it’s coming and it is. You
need to do your part by being ready to go.”
I need to thank my mom and so many of you for reminding me every day of
my life how true and dependable this is. The
celebration will come. The main
event will arrive. My role is to be
building God’s space to work in and through me while I wait, not worried about
the resources or the details. These
are up to God.
What Haggai said to an anxious and bored people, God continues to say to
us, “Take courage, I am with you, do not fear, in a little while, I will shake
things up.” Do you ever feel like
things are shaking up in your life; maybe jumbling to the point of chaos? Did you ever think of this as a mark of God’s faithfulness?
I think Haggai’s song to us is one that says we need to start seeing
life this way.
You see, it is when it seems we are least in control that God is most
able to show us the amazing nature of his faithfulness.
And since as Haggai’s song reminds us that everything belongs to God
and God is always working to make the next chapter better than the last, we can
give God our marriages and our kids, our work and play, our time and our
stillness so that God may be glorified; revealed.
To live into this is to build God’s house in our lives, God’s way.
It is to step back and let God have room to work.
It is to realize that God wants to give us the greatest gift and wants us
to be involved in delivering the gift to the world.
God HAS made things better than ever and is ever making them so, but we
can miss it when we are building the house (life) OUR way.
The prophet can see this now and in days to come hence his, “in little
while” and reference to all the stuff the world says is precious even
belonging to God. The point is that
because God has resurrection power the hope we have in HIM is far greater than
anything we have ever known by the world’s standards.
Don’t we know that God can do MORE than the world ever could? And he has and he will for his glory in our lives.
This passage is talking about our life with God; not just the temple, but
the temple of relationship with God.
What does God need to do with our building?
(Whether it is the literal structure or the structure of our spiritual
life) Are we trying to fix
something that needs to be replaced by the abundance of God’s grace? Are we too worried about what it might cost?
What if God is the ONE paying for it and our role is to let him?
God wants to reveal himself to us in the rebuilding of our life, but God
needs to work God’s way. Our life
is not our own to withhold. We just
think it is.
IF we believe what God says, that the latter will be greater than the
former we will let God do with our lives whatever is necessary to renew us.
RENEWAL is the KEY!! What
does it mean that the house will be filled with God’s glory?
(The whole earth is filled with his glory – praise song)
What shape is our building in? Is
there anything wrong with starting over? No,
in fact this is God’s model – resurrection of the dead; allowing God to show
us that the new building God will do in our lives as we let God work will always
be greater than what came before. I
think the question we need to ask ourselves comes from John Calvin 500 years ago
in looking at this prophecy. He
said the real question is whether we want to build a temple to the glory of God
or storage shed? Is our
life/relationship with God a shed or a temple?
You see in this song God is telling us that all the gold and silver are
his; that God wants to restore his temple in us and that we are to be available
to God to do this work – healing; transforming, changing…
We need to build a new temple; a new holy place in which to come together
and praise God. And you know
something, in the larger sense I’m not worried how it’s going to be paid
for. I know that God’s Spirit is
with us, that his timing is perfect and that his “in a little while is
dependable. I know that it is
really GOD who is going to pay for it, that’s the good news.
(The tough news is that we have to LET GO of what God has given us to
make this a reality!!) But the more
essential part of this is that we need to build a sanctuary because we need to
let God use all we have and all we are. We
need to let God build himself in us by letting God have our imaginations. We need to let God renew us.
You see we all have places in our lives that have worn out; areas where
we have given up; places where we have stopped waiting for God to work and we
are either settling for something inferior or have stopped believing (if we ever
did) that God means what he says when he promises, “The latter splendor of
this house shall be greater than the former.”
Our dilemma is nostalgia and impatience.
Instead of letting God’s little while be our time for praise, we fill
it with worry and looking for other answers.
Or we say, “This can’t be. My
body is worn out. My heart has been
broken. The one I loved is gone.
The dream I had has been shattered.
It will never the be same.” And
we would be right in all this except for saying, “This can’t be”.
Here is the song (the cross) God was singing for us in this song. God was saying, “I will defeat your loss.
I will give back what has been taken and more, but you need to trust me
with your heart for this to happen.”
This is what it means to build God’s house God’s way for us as
individuals and as a church. We
need to give God everything we have; the broken and the beautiful and let God
use it to build his house his way in our hearts and on this corner for his
glory. It is the most important
thing that can happen in our life. I
pray we would be continually open to letting God build it for his glory.
May it be so. Amen.