Faith Off The Side Lines

Introduction

If you will, open in your Old Testament with me to the book of Haggai, to the book of Haggai, and I’d recommend, based on the size of that, that you leave a marker there if possible. Open with me to the book of Haggai. We’re going to be reading chapter 1, the first 11 verses primarily this morning. As you’re turning there, as you’re finding such a small book among the 39 Old Testament books, consider with me when you have a problem. When you have a problem, there’s only a couple ways to fix it. There is to do it yourself or to call somebody else who knows how. If you have a physical problem, do not call me. You need someone to say, yes, I also don’t know how to fix that problem.

The good news is there are plenty of people, even in the congregation here this morning, those visiting with us, like John Stow, Koshka’s grandfather, who can fix just about anything that you can mess up, and I assure you I can mess up quite a lot. But there are other people who you can call for different problems. The Lord, as of Ezra chapter 5 and verses 1 and 2, tapped Haggai and Zachariah to deal with a particular spiritual problem at this time. If you imagine your spiritual low, when you are the most disconnected from God, not just when you aren’t praying, not just when you’re not coming to the 9 o’clock assembly, but if you can imagine a time when you’re even cursing God, blaming God for the problems in your life, and then couple that with a physical low, you lose your job.

Your family is sick. Perhaps you yourself draw a terminal illness. And you recognize that this is a low time in your life, as it would be in anyone’s. When you think about Old Testament history and with the Israelites, you recognize when Haggai walked into the picture for God’s people. They were just recovering from the all-time low. If you think about the United Kingdom with Saul, David, and Solomon, and then the divided kingdom beginning with Jeroboam in the north and Rehoboam in the south, Israel, in that divided kingdom, had how many good kings? Zero. None. The Bible says over and over, they constantly walked in the ways of Jeroboam their father, and did the evil that he had done. The people in Israel had devoted themselves to all sorts of idolatry, all sorts of injustice and greed.

And God punished them with Assyrian captivity. But then Judah, who had a few good kings, we think of Josiah, we think of Hezekiah, just the name two, they persisted a little bit longer. But around 605 BC, 597, and of course, with the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC or there around, we recognize God punished them for their bottoming out in faithfulness. They had rejected God time and again, and God said, Enough. And he sent them into Babylonian captivity. This was a spiritual, this was a physical low for what should have been God’s chosen, loving people. They had lost the love that their God had first given them, and yet, despite all of this, despite this bottoming out, God was still there for them. He told them through the prophets that in 70 years they would return, and that’s exactly what happened.

Around 536 BC, Zerubabal leads about 50,000 Jews back to their promised land. This is hope. This is good news. This is God giving them reason to be faithful, yet another reason to be loving and submissive to his will. And yet what we find in the book of Haggai is a bunch of people who, if they had faith, which they were not showing, had left their faith on the sidelines. Read with me in verse 1 of the book of Haggai, chapter 1. 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 Sheltiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Jehosadak, 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. Thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. You see it in verse 5, you see it in verse 7.

In fact, in chapter 2, you see the word consider another couple times. Consider your ways. What was the problem with the people? Why was God having to send Haggai to spur the people to faithfulness? What were they not doing? In verse 2, the problem is specifically identified. What did the people of Israel say? The Jews who had returned, who should have been thankful to their Almighty God for delivering them from their spiritual and physical low, they say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord. There’s a couple problems with that, because the temple not only should have been rebuilt, they shouldn’t have shown their faithfulness to him by doing what he said, putting spiritual things first. And yet, despite all the reasons to do that, we recognize that in verse two and three implies they had plenty of time.

As we said from the beginning, it’s been about seventeen years that the people have been back in the promised land. And while there were some advances, the people’s attitude towards the house of the Lord was to say, Nah, it’s not quite time. The problem with that is they had enough time to dwell in personal comfort. Note verse 4 and 5 again. Note what the prophet says with God’s message. Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies in ruins? Verse 4, the paneled houses of this day indicates wealth, comfort, luxury. In fact, while I might not go this far, some commentators even speculate that some of the very panels that made their houses so luxurious and comfortable may have been intended for the house of the Lord.

And the fact that that even enters the picture shows you how perverse these people had already gotten in terms of having their priorities set straight. They had plenty of time to be getting to the work of the Lord, and yet they just put it off. And what do we know came in their way? Building their own houses. In fact, so much so that not only did they have a place to live, they had paneled homes to live in. In verse 5, God’s response is clear as he says in verse 5 and in verse 7, consider your ways. But it’s not just that. It’s not just that they had time. It’s not just that they were misplacing their priorities. God had been actively trying to show them the error of their ways.

Read with me in verse 7 again, continuing. Thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. 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. 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. And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, on the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast and on all their labors.

Why was God doing this to his people? Because the his house lied in ruins. Well, note the key verse of this morning, besides consider your ways with me in verse 9, the last phrase. While each of you busies himself, do you see it there? With his own house. The people’s faith in God was not strong enough to make them actually do the work that God implied. You could even say they were not showing faith. Someone who is faithful to God, who understands the salvation that he had not only offered, but delivered to them just about two decades before, would say, God, whatever is your will be done. We want to rebuild your temple as God tells them to in verse eight, so that God may be glorified, so that God may take pleasure in it.

And yet in verse 9, these people who had God to thank for everything in their lives were too busy to do that, as they said in verse 2. They said it’s not quite time. Why? As God correctly identifies, because they were worried about their own houses. And we think as we generally do when we read the Old Testament, you silly, silly Israelites. But if I’m honest, I realize that I have this same problem. I think that many of us struggle with this issue in this day and time. We get ourselves very busy with things that in and of themselves are not wrong. But when God’s work is put to the sideline, when God’s work could be said to be lying in ruins while we live in comfort, and we’re busy about making our lives more comfortable, more happy in the here and now, more focused on what Satan wants us to be focused on, rather than the glory that belongs to God, that is a major faith problem.

1. Would Jesus Prioritize Like I Do?

What we have to focus on this morning is to consider our ways and to take our faith off the sidelines and put it into the glory and service of our God. Consider three ways we can do that this morning. I have three questions to consider for our faith, and the lesson will be ours this morning. Would Jesus prioritize like I do? Look with me in Luke chapter 12, a man often recognized as a fool. In Luke chapter 12, perhaps I’m like the fool. It’s not something that anyone volunteers to be like, but some of us may be. In Luke chapter 12, beginning in verse 13. Consider what Jesus says in Luke chapter 12 and verse 13. Someone in the crowd said to him, Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.

But he said to him, Man, who made me a judge or arbiter over you? And he said to them, Take care and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. And he told them a parable saying, The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, What shall I do? For I have nowhere to store my crops. And he said, I will do this. I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said to him, Fool, this night your soul is required of you and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?

So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God. I think it’s very obvious to see the connection between the book of Haggai and the Jews who had returned from Babylonian captivity who were focused on what? Their own possessions, their own houses, how they would eat and drink and how they would be merry. We see this fool, as God calls him and labels him accurately. Had said in verse 18, what am I going to do with all this grain? Well, I’m going to build larger barns. I’m going to store it all in there, and then I will be happy. I’m going to sit back and notice what he says in verse 19, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for you.

Relax. Eat, drink, and be merry. What was the problem with what this man did? Is it wrong? Does God not want us to be good stewards of what he’s blessed us with? Does he not want us to take good precautions, and that way we can be giving and loving towards others? Of course. And yet, what did God notice he missed? You see it in verse 20. He said, You fool, what would he require of him this night? Your very soul. And the problem with this story is simple is that this man was focused not on the spiritual plane, not on glorifying God, giving God the glory, but on things of this life. His treasure was on earth. It was not in heaven. And the problem is, just as God warns him of who was going to benefit from all this hard work this man had done.

Clearly it would not be him. He had spent all his years, all this turmoil, so that he could then sit back and be happy. And yet we recognize that the only peace that is worth having, the only peace and true happiness that God intends for us to have is found only in Christ Jesus. And when we consider how I live. When we consider how we spend our time, the question of would Jesus spend his time like I do, I have to say, is one that kind of stomps on my toes. I think about my week and I consider all the things I’ve done. Kashka and I not too long ago moved into a new house, which we’ve had all kinds of help from the bakers and the folks and her grandparents, and just everyone’s been so kind and helpful, and there’s a lot to get that up and running.

And again, I’m not the person to quite do that. And that’s good. And we can do good things with that in God’s kingdom. But I have to wonder am I spending too much time on my home? Am I spending too much time watching sports, watching Florida’s offense struggle again? Am I worried with the things of this life more than serving God? You see, it’s easy to get that way. It’s not that I say, I’m going to put my house, I’m going to put TV before God. What happens is we start to fill our time with the other things first and try to put God through the cracks. There’s a common illustration given of a professor in a time management seminar. And he took a jar, it was pretty large, it was about this large around and about this tall.

And he had a stack of large stones next to him. I didn’t think the elders would want me to have a bunch of stones on the stage this morning. So you think about putting the stones in, he put them one by one. He was very careful to turn them and to drop them in so that he could get as many as possible. And because the jar was quite substantially large, he actually got four or five in, and it was filled to the brim. He had angled, he had worked to get that fifth one in. And when he put the cap on, he asked the class, Is this jar full? And they said, Yes, we cannot get another stone in. And he said, Not so fast. And he actually opened up another basket and he had a bunch of little small pebbles.

He was able to drop in throughout the bucket, throughout the jar. And he piled those to the top. And he asked the class again, he said, Is the jar full? And they said, Yes. It’s full of small rocks, it’s full of big rocks. This jar is full. And so he uncovered something else, and he had a bucket of sand. And he pours the sand in until it actually was full. And he said, Now is it full? And they said, Yes. He said, The key is not that the jar is full, but that if we hadn’t put the big rocks in first, there would not have been room for them at the end. The truth of the matter is, God has to be our big rock. We have to put spiritual things first.

And that means when we make our calendar, when we think at night, when we pray at night, when we pray in the morning, when we talk to loved ones, doing the work of the Lord is first. And that doesn’t mean waiting for an invitation. It means looking. Who can I speak about the good news of Christ to? Who can I impact in a loving way today? Who in this body of Christ needs assistance? Who outside these walls needs love, care, and most importantly, the gospel of Christ. That work will only get done if we put it first, because when we fill our jar with the pebbles and sand, there will be no room for the big rocks later. Jesus was always put in God’s will first to the point of Matthew chapter 26, where he prayed three times.

Let this cut pass from me. But nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. We need to prioritize like Jesus, and that means recognizing our spiritual mission, our spiritual focus that will in turn glorify our spiritual Father. That means we have to get excited about serving God because God, just like He did with the Israelites, has offered us salvation. This is an amazing blessing. Amen. We have to feel that. We have to know that. If we’re going to prioritize, we have to believe that God is great, that God is good, and not just make it a bumper sticker, but make it part of our lives. That’s the only way our priorities will fall in a way that matched Jesus rather than the rich fool and the Jews of Haggai’s day in chapter one.

2. Have I Lost My Focus on Christ?

Consider with me secondly, and turn over with me to Matthew chapter 14. Have I lost my focus on Christ? When I examine my priorities, when I examine my past week, and I think about how much time I spent on earthly things rather than spiritual things, praying and speaking to my wonderful heavenly Father, reading his words that give life that help us to grow closer to him, serving others on the basis of love from our God who first loved us. Consider the story of Matthew chapter 14. Isn’t this exactly what happened to Peter? When he was walking on water, he lost his focus on Christ. Consider with me in verse 22. Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side while he dismissed the crowds.

And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. And when evening came, he was there alone. But the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them. And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them walking on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified. And they said, It is a ghost. And they cried out in fear. But he immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, Take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid. And Peter answered him, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. He said, Come. So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus.

But when he saw the wind, he was afraid. And beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me. Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, Oh, you of little faith, why did you doubt? And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased, and those in the boat worshiped him, saying, Truly you are the Son of God. I don’t want to skip over verse 33. What was the basis of the disciples’ understanding of what had just happened? That Jesus, that God is in control of this life. Jesus was in control of the winds and the waves that commanded his voice. They commanded his authority. They obeyed what he commanded. When we think about Peter, though, we see in verse 28 he had this noble goal that he was going to walk towards Jesus, and that shows great faith.

In fact, in verse 29, we see when Jesus says, Come, what was Peter able to do? He got out of the boat and was able to walk on the water, things were going good. And you see, just like with the Jews in Haggai’s day, it’s not always just about the pleasures of this life and distractions that keep us from God. Sometimes the distractions are things that frighten us, that make us afraid, that pull us away from God. You see in verse 30, as Peter is walking, what was the turning point in this story? In verse 30, notice what it says about Peter, but when he saw the wind, he was afraid. Up until now, we have no reason to believe the winds and the waves were not crashing.

In fact, the previous descriptions in verses 22 through 29 make that point very clear. And Jesus was out there on the water walking, and he wasn’t sinking, he was doing perfectly fine. In fact, Peter had even been successfully walking on water towards Jesus, who had said, Come at Peter’s request. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid. He lost his focus on Christ. It may not be that the pleasures of this life are what we’re focusing on. Maybe it’s the turbulence that this life so often throws at us. I mentioned before it’s easy to blame God from time to time to think that he’s the cause of our problem. Why doesn’t he just step in and make my life all that I think it should be?

And the problem is because we think our life should be different than God knows our life should be. God knows what life is about, serving him, glorifying him, being with God eternally. And so I need to recognize that my focus in Christ can get lost when I look around, and I’m not only distracted by good things, but I’m distracted by things that are sad, that are tragic, that when my life doesn’t turn out the way it did because of my decisions or because of the selfish decisions of others, that my God is still there. Note despite the fact in verse 30 that the wind was there and that Peter was afraid. As soon as he sank, when he cried out, Lord, save me, who was there to reach out at hand and deliver him.

Jesus was still there. The truth is, Jesus never moves. God never moves in the light of the massacres that have happened in this country and abroad, like Las Vegas. In light of the hurricanes that devastated islands like Puerto Rico and even parts of the United States, when you think about Hurricane Harvey in Texas and other remnants of Irma and Florida, and even one hitting the coast as we speak and moving through the mainland of this United States of America. Our God will never desert his people. Our God has shown time and again he will be there for us. The only one who breaks the connection is me. We break the connection. When Peter was walking towards Jesus, who fell off? Did Jesus lose focus on Peter?

Did Jesus lose the ability to make Peter walk on water? Of course not. His faith was shaken by the life around him. And if I’m honest, my life, my life and my focus sometimes is shaken by that too. When I don’t understand what’s happening, when life isn’t turning out to be the picture on the puzzle box that I intended it to be when I started, I start to think what’s wrong, and I try to fix it. Rather than trusting first and foremost that God is there, that God wants to be my refuge. He desires to be it, and he has been for mankind from the beginning of time when he created us. Our focus has to be on Christ. And if we understand who God is and that he is worthy of our prioritization, then we know that my focus has to be entirely on what would Jesus want from my day today.

3. Will I Begin Showing My Faith Today?

And I have to be honest, that’s a much different question than how I often spend my day. If I woke up every morning and said, How would Jesus spend his day? That’s going to be different than how Greg would spend his day. Because Jesus transcends our physical life. He knows what it’s like to be with the Father. He knows that God is worth glorifying and his will is to be submitted to. We serve a great God, we serve an awesome risen Savior. We should follow in his footsteps as the scriptures demand. Consider with me one final question. Will I begin showing my faith today? If you turn back to Haggai, I did ask you to mark it, because it’s going to be a little bit difficult to flip back to, perhaps.

In Haggai chapter 1, we stopped the reading at verse 11 when God was reaching out to people, trying to get them to see that they were not having produce, that the dew of the land was removed because God was not with them. But in verse 12, note what the people had done. In verse 12 of Haggai 1, then Zerubbabel the son of Sheltiel and Joshua the son of Jehoshak, 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 Shaltiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua, the son of Jehosadakh 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. If you note the timestamp in verse one, when did this begin? In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month on the first day. When Haggai gives the message, when does this begin? Verse 15. On the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king, within the month, the people were up and working on the house of the Lord.

They showed their faith. But look with me at one final passage this morning. Back in Matthew chapter 14, we often rail on Peter’s misplaced focus. We can think about Haggai and the Jews he was speaking to on how their priorities were wrong. But it’s about taking action. It’s about stepping up and responding to the commands of God, recognizing that God is worth our effort, God is worth our everything. He has paid the price for our sins. We owe him a sacrifice of our lives. And we know all this. But I want to get a second look at Matthew chapter 14 and consider that Peter is not only just the goat of this story, he is also the hero. In Matthew chapter 14, note again who is where.

You have Jesus walking up on the water so much so that what was the reaction of the disciples? It says they were terrified. They said, It’s a ghost. But of course it was Jesus. And then you have Peter who says, Lord, if it is your will, let me walk to you. And Jesus says, Come. But where was everybody else? They remained in the boat. If you see in verse 32, when they got into the boat, the wind ceased, and those in the boat worshiped him, saying, Truly you are the Son of God. That wasn’t just Peter worshiping Jesus. That was Peter and the disciples worshiping and understanding that Jesus was worth their glory and honor. As you think about the story, notice what Peter did to the disciples did not do.

If you look back at verses 29 and 30, what was Peter able to do that not one of the disciples who stayed in the boat were able? He walked on water by faith. Peter had the courage, the conviction, and the zeal to get out of the boat and walk towards Jesus, and that has been the message of God from all time. God has always been there. Jesus has been there for us, looking out to his people, saying, Come. The disciples didn’t have enough faith to get out of the boat. And the only two people who walked on water were Jesus, the Son of God, and Peter, who had faith to know that if he asked, and Jesus allowed, that he could even walk on water because Christ could control the winds and the waves.

We need to be like Peter at the beginning of his journey. Of course, we need to keep our focus on Jesus. Of course, unlike the Jews, we have to keep our priorities right and put the work of the Lord first and not try to fill it in later. But if I ask myself, if I’ll begin showing faith today, I actually need to be like Peter in verse 29 and 30. I need to know that with God I can conquer anything. And that if Jesus says, Come, that I can come to Him. We have to get our faith off the sidelines, out of textbooks, out of Bible classes, and into our real world. That’s what Jesus did. Will I show faith and priorities like Jesus? Will my focus be on my Lord and Savior who says come?

Conclusion

Will you begin showing your faith today? Get out of the boat. Rebuild the temple of the Lord. Put God first, that He may glory in it, and that He may take pleasure in our service and our sacrifice in His kingdom. Will you go to God in prayer with me at this time? Our dear God and most gracious and loving Heavenly Father, we praise you and thank you for this wonderful day that you have once again allowed us to enjoy. We’re thankful for the health that we’re able to have to come to this building and worship you with like-minded saints. We’re thankful most of all for you sending Jesus to die on the cross for our sins and to be resurrected, that he may defeat death, the one who has the power of death, and that we may live eternally with you.

We pray that you forgive us of when we’re weak, of when we don’t trust you as we should, of when our faith falters, of when we don’t put you first. Help us this day and forevermore to put God and your Son first, to follow your example, to be holy as you are holy, to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. Forgive us once again of when we don’t do that, when we don’t prioritize doing your will, prioritize doing your work. We’re thankful for you delivering us the scriptures that are your inspired word, that we may know you, and that we can know that you’re there, saying, Come, and that we may humbly follow and submit our lives to you. As we worship you, we praise today that we do so, that in a way that’s pleasing and glorifying in your sight, that we worship you in spirit and truth, as you have commanded and as you deserve.

We praise you, we thank you, we love you, and it’s in your Son’s name we do pray. Amen.