How often do we imagine that we have to take the initiative; that we have to make the impossible happen? God is the God of the impossible – His plans, His power, His blessing.

Who is in the Driver’s Seat?

I’d like to kick off this week by asking you a very simple question. In your life, right now, who’s in the driver’s seat, you or God? I mean, who is calling the shots; the big decisions; even the smaller ones? Are you making them independently or is it first and foremost in your mind to be discovering what His plans are; what His choices are for your life? How He wants you to proceed with this matter or that one over there?

It may be that, for you – well, you don’t think it really makes much of a difference or perhaps, deep down in your heart, you know it does. Well, you know how it is; you know how we can put God in a box and close the lid and tuck Him up on the shelf or perhaps it’s the passion of your heart to have Jesus in the driver’s seat of your life.

Well, from God’s perspective, it is an important question – a very important question and actually it makes all the difference when it comes to living life. A while ago I stumbled across a passage of scripture; a simple little verse in a Psalm. If you have a Bible, go and grab it, open it up – Psalm 127 is where we are going. Psalm 127, verse 1, just blew me away. The reason it did that is that it summed up my whole life in a nutshell.

If you have listened to these programmes at all in the past you will know that for the first thirty six years of my life I just didn’t have anything to do with God – I had nothing to do with Jesus Christ. Now here’s the amazing thing – I had my fair share of talent and ability. I certainly had some good breaks; I had a great education, a middle class upbringing, I came out of there with good self-esteem, I went through military training, I had my own business. And I look back on all that and you would have to say, pretty much, a dream run but somehow….somehow it never amounted to anything.

Anyhow this passage of Scripture, Psalm 127, verse 1, sums all that up. Have a listen and see if perhaps, it rings a little bit true in your life too. “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builder labours in vain. Unless the Lord guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go to bed late, eating the bread of anxious toil, for He gives sleep to those whom He loves.”

Now here’s the rub, at least for me – all my life I worked so hard; I applied my talents and abilities. As I said, I was in the military as an officer, I had a business; I was a consultant and a leader, and on paper, that was all pretty good. Could I have done better? Well, maybe, with the benefit of hindsight, but I guess I did my best. But the problem was it never amounted to much.

See, I was building my house for me according to my plan but God is saying that unless He builds the house, we labour in vain. “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builder labours in vain.” And I was looking out for ‘number one’ all the time, making sure that I was safe and protected and getting the best out of life. But God is saying here, “Unless the Lord guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain.”

And all my hard work and all my plans and all my dreams, they all fell in a screaming heap when I was about thirty six years old. I won’t go into the details now, but it came apart, big time. Now I can look back on that and say ‘Well, what a waste’, but actually I look back on it and think ‘That’s probably one of the most important lessons I have ever learned’ and I learned it the hard way. But I have to tell you, the lesson has sure stuck with me. “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builder labours in vain.”

There is some of that in each one of us and it manifests itself in different ways. We want to go and do our own thing; we want to strive and achieve and whatever it is, we all have this tendency to head down the path of life with me in the driver’s seat; you in the driver’s seat.

There is a fascinating time in Israel’s history; it’s the end of the Babylonian exile. Israel had made it into the Promised Land and they were living there but they turned their backs on God and after a few centuries, God got pretty tired of it and there were consequences of heading down their own path. So God let the Babylonians invade Jerusalem and Judah, destroy the temple, destroy the city, take the people; God’s people; God’s chosen people into slavery in Babylon for seventy years.

But as the seventy years is drawing to an end, God’s purpose is to bring them back. And He does – He ultimately brings them back to Jerusalem and the very first thing they start to do is build their own houses, while the temple – God’s house – is lying in ruins.

Haggai is a prophet; a man of God and his job, right at that moment in their history, was to speak God’s message to God’s people. Now listen to how God puts all of this through Haggai, the prophet – this is really powerful stuff. Go to Haggai chapter 1, beginning at verse 2 – this is what God has to say:
“You people say the time hasn’t come yet for God’s house to be built, but tell me, is it time for you yourselves to be living in your fancy houses while My house lies in ruin? Think about your ways. You have planted so much but you have harvested so little. You eat but you never have enough; you drink but you never have your fill. You put on clothes but you are not warm; you earn wages only to put them in a purse with holes in it. Carefully consider your ways.

“Instead go up to the mountains and bring down the timber and build My house so that I may take pleasure in it and be honoured,” said the Lord. “You expected much but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why? Because My house; the house of God still lies in ruin while each of you is busy with his own house. For this reason, the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth has withheld its crops. I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, on the new wine, on the oil and whatever the ground produces, on men and cattle and on the labour of your hands.”

See, we all want to go on our merry ways and to varying degrees, ignore God’s plans and God’s priorities; ignore honouring God. You know why? Because God’s plans are different to ours – God’s plans always involve sacrifice. They involve letting go of something we really want to hang on to, on our terms, in our timing and picking up something that He is calling us to do. Never mind that His plan involves blessing and satisfaction and His provision. All we so often can see is that what we want, we want and we want it now.

But listen again: “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builder labours in vain.” In other words, ultimately, our plans won’t prosper against His – it doesn’t matter how much we try to ignore the fact. It took silly old me thirty six hard years of my life to learn that lesson. So let me ask you again – who is in the driver’s seat of your life, you or God? For unless God builds the house you and I are labouring in vain.
This week we are kicking off a new series that I’ve called “It is Time to Stop Labouring in Vain.”

Back from Exile

Well, I’d like to begin looking at this whole question of God building the house rather than us. And we are going to do that through the story of Israel, in particular, the Books, today of Ezra, in the Old Testament and Haggai. It’s a great part of Israel’s history and it’s a story that really shows us how God operates in achieving His plans and purposes and what role we have to play in that.

I love spending time observing what God does and how He does it and that’s what helps me get it right in my head. Before we go there, please grab your Bible, I want to make this observation about the Old Testament. We are going to look at it from a Trinitarian perspective. What does that mean?

Well, God, as we know, is three persons in one – Father and Son and Holy Spirit. You hear theologians talking about the ‘Triune’ God; that’s what it means – that God is a Trinity; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And sometimes it’s easy to read the Old Testament as though Jesus didn’t yet exist, as though He wasn’t born until a couple of thousand years later in the New Testament. But that’s not so because Jesus was and is the Eternal Son.

Genesis chapter 1 says: “In the beginning ‘eloheim’???? which means Gods (plural). See, already, the first few words of the Bible and it is talking about the Trinity. In Genesis 1, verse 26 it says: “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image; in our likeness.” Again this is the Triune God; this is the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – God creating humanity.

So right from the beginning of the Old Testament, and in fact, for all eternity, God has always been the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And that’s the perspective that we are coming at this from – God at work in the history of Israel; God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, just as He is at this point of history in our lives and through our lives.

Where in Israel’s history are we? We are going to Ezra chapter 1 and this is just the point where the exile ends. Let me just quickly take us so that we understand the context. Centuries before, God had promised to Abraham that he would have many children, many descendents, that would be the nation of Israel and He promised him a land; the Promised Land. Abraham ultimately had a son called Isaac who had a son called Jacob who had twelve sons, amongst them, Joseph.

And those twelve sons ended up in Egypt and they became the twelve tribes of Israel and for centuries these tribes of Israel were in slavery in Egypt and God hears their cry. Through Moses, He leads them out through the Red Sea – forty years in the wilderness on the exodus. And ultimately, Moses dies and through Joshua He leads them into the Promised Land and they take the Promised Land, battle by battle by battle.

First their government is through a series of judges and then ultimately some Kings but the nation splits between north and south and the people just end up going their own way – they worship idols; they ignore God. So some centuries after they make it into the Promised Land, in five hundred and eighty seven BC, God uses the Babylonians; the dominant world power to come in and attack Jerusalem; raise it to the ground; destroy the temple, which must have been such a shock because the Jews said ‘We are God’s people, you know, what about the promises? What happened to God? Are the gods of Babylon stronger than the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob? And so the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and Judah and take Israel into captivity.

Now this was part of God’s plan. He sent the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah and others to tell God’s people that this was going to happen because God’s people had turned their backs on God. Through Jeremiah He writes: “The whole country will become a desolate waste land and these nations will serve the King of Babylon for seventy years” – and so it was. The remnant of Judah was slaves in Babylon for seventy years.

God’s promise of blessing and prosperity was contingent upon His people honouring Him and He told them very clearly – you can read this in Leviticus chapter 26, if you like – that if they didn’t, they would be punished and He brought judgement on them. And for seventy years they were in exile as slaves again, just as they were centuries before in Egypt – in despair. What’s going on? But God’s plan – God’s plan was to bring them home again. And that’s what the Book of Ezra is about; about the return out of exile; back to the Promised Land.

Let’s read the first chapter of the Book of Ezra right now because it tells us so much about God and His plans. Ezra chapter 1: “In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, in order to fulfil the Word of the Lord spoken through Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus, King of Persia, to make a proclamation throughout his realm. He put it in writing – he said:

“This is what Cyrus, King of Persia says: “The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He has appointed me to build a temple for Him at Jerusalem in Judah. Anyone of His people among you, may your God be with you. I let him go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem. And the people of any place where survivors may now be living are to provide him with silver and gold, with goods and livestock and with freewill offerings for the temple of God in Jerusalem.”

“Then the family; the heads of Judah and Benjamin and the priests and the Levites; everyone who’s heart God had moved, prepared to go up and build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. All their neighbours assisted them with articles of silver and gold and goods and livestock and valuable gifts in addition to freewill offerings. Moreover, King Cyrus brought out the articles belonging to the temple of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had carried away from Jerusalem and had placed in the temple of his god. Cyrus, King of Persia, had them brought by Mithredath, the treasurer, who counted them out to Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah.

“This is what the inventory was: gold dishes – thirty, sliver dishes – a thousand, silver pans – twenty nine, gold bowls – thirty, matching silver bowls – four hundred and ten, other articles – a thousand. All in all, there were five thousand four hundred articles of gold and silver. Sheshbazzar brought all these along when the exiles came up from Babylon to Jerusalem.”

This gives us such a rich source of understanding of what God is about. And it begins with the very first verse: “In the first year of Cyrus, King of Persia, to fulfil the Word of the Lord spoken through Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus, King of Persia, to make a proclamation throughout his realm and put it in writing.” You know what that tells me? It sums up everything about how God works, in a nutshell.

God had a plan – a plan to bring His people back home into relationship with Him, into His blessing, into His Promised Land. But look who took the initiative! God did, not the people – they were powerless. They were in Babylon as slaves – Babylon was the dominant world power but God raised up King Cyrus of Persia to overthrow the Babylonians and then moves Cyrus’s heart to bless God’s chosen people.

How often do we imagine that we have to take the initiative; that we have to make the impossible happen? God is the God of the impossible – His plans, His power, His blessing. See, when we turn our backs on God it’s like being in that exile. It stops the promises and blessings of God – Israel discovered that the hard way.

How many of us have believed in God and accepted Jesus Christ as our personal saviour and then we just wander off into the wilderness – we’ve done our own thing and everything starts falling apart and it doesn’t matter how hard we work, it’s all in vain. I’ve been there and done that, right? I certainly have.

And when we are in that exile place, as Israel was as slaves in Babylon, a return to God seems, well, so impossible. But God is the God of the impossible and in our case; in yours and mine, He has no need to raise up a Cyrus because Jesus is our way back to God. He’s already done that through Jesus on the cross.

When we are in exile; when we are cut off, that road back to the Promised Land seems impossible but God takes the initiative for us through Jesus Christ. God has a plan; God’s work, and all we need to do is turn our hearts to Him. God is the God of the impossible.

But God had a plan that went beyond just returning them to the Promised Land – He had a plan to rebuild His temple. See this is so important because the heart of God – part of His promise – He says: “I will put My dwelling place among you and I will not abhor you. I will walk among you and be your God and you will be My people.” That comes from Leviticus chapter 26, verses 11 and 12. God’s plan is for relationship and for Israel that meant His temple in their midst.

See, the Babylonians completely destroyed it – they gutted the Nation of Israel. God’s people were almost no more; they were just slaves but now God’s plan is to rebuild His city and His temple. It’s such a difficult task; it’s something that was but it lies in ruins – now is the job of rebuilding it.

We Have a House to Build

Alright, so we’ve seen that here they were, they went their own way – Israel. God, through His own initiative and His own love, has brought them back just as He has done with you and me through Jesus Christ. But, you know, when God calls us and says: “I want you now to do something for Me – I want you to build My house.”

He calls each one of us differently; He’s called me to do what I am doing; He’s called you to do something else and it may not be obvious but God has a call on every person’s life. It’s not just to have a relationship with Him, which is wondrous; it’s about then living that relationship out and God using us to build His house; to do His work, to be about His business, to touch lives with His love.

And when He does that, you know one of the ways that we can react? We can say ‘Well, it’s so hard.’ I mean, imagine for these Israelites, who were brought back from slavery after seventy years – they are straggling into Jerusalem; the place is dead; the temple is a bunch of rubble with weeds growing in it and birds nesting in the rubble. ’I mean, come on! God, how am I going to do this? Where are the resources going to come from? How is that going to happen?’

But you know something? God always pays for His build. So often, when God calls us to build His house, it feels like we don’t have the people and we don’t have the resources. Can I tell you, that’s how I felt when He called me to this ministry? For fifty years this ministry had been doing wonderful things and, by the time He popped me into it, it was something of a ruin, I have to tell you.

But let’s go back to Ezra chapter 1 – let’s go back to God’s Word – let’s go back to see how God operates. This is what Cyrus, King of Persia, decreed to all his people. “Any of God’s people among you, may your God be with you. Go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel; the God who is in Jerusalem. And the people of any place where survivors may now be living; are to provide gold and silver, goods and livestock and freewill offerings. So the family heads of Judah and Benjamin, the two tribes of Judah, and the priests and the Levites; everyone who’s heart God had moved, prepared to go up and to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. And all their neighbours assisted them with articles of silver or gold, goods and livestock, with valuable gifts in addition to the freewill offerings.”

See, when God calls us to do His work, He always pays the bill. It is utterly wondrous and amazing to me. From these slaves to temple builders – freedom, God’s provision, a protective King – it must have felt utterly surreal to them; they must have pinched themselves and said ‘How could this be?’ See, that’s the difference between dead works; the things that we do in our own strength and being about God’s business, in His time, according to His plans.

The difference is, God always, always provides everything we need to be about His business. He pays for His build – He brings the people and the money and the resources. When we start walking in His plans and purposes – now, there’s going to be sacrifice; make no mistake – there’s going to be pain – there’s going to be opposition. We will look at those things over the next few weeks.

And make no mistake here – don’t lose heart. Along the way, He is in that place to provide, to strengthen, to comfort but only when we are building His house.

I truly believe that it is time to stop labouring in vain and to get about His business.

When God deals with hard things in our lives, you know, He’s not about condemning us – not at all – He’s about leading us back into His blessing.

From Exile to Blessing

Last week on the programme we began a new series that I’ve called ‘It’s Time to Stop Labouring in Vain’. I see so many people in this world working so incredibly hard and yet, it never amounts to anything – something I spent much of my life doing. You work hard, you earn money, you buy this, you build that and you look back on it all and think ‘But what does it really amount to? What does it really mean? Is there any real satisfaction in all of that?’

And you know something – this is true of people who claim to believe in Jesus and to be following Him as much as it is of people who have never, ever given their lives over to Him. Lots and lots of people in this world are labouring in vain. And from where I sit it’s a pretty grim way to live your life, isn’t it? If you’re going to labour; if we are going to pour our energies and our finance into something then wouldn’t it be great if the house we built – whatever that is; whatever it looks like in your life – was something significant and worthwhile; something that makes a difference in this world instead of something that is selfish and narrow and lonely and pathetic.

Last week we focused on what I think is a brilliant verse in the Bible. There are all brilliant, this is brilliant-ter! This is Psalm 127, verse 1: “Unless the Lord builds the house, the one who builds it labours in vain.” Gulp! And then we began to look at what this meant in the life of Israel, through the Book of Ezra. And if you have a Bible, I’ll get you to open it – we are going to Ezra and to Haggai today, in the Old Testament.

Israel has just returned from seventy years of exile in Babylon and I always like to position this in the history of the Nation of Israel because unless we have that clear in our minds, it doesn’t really make sense. God promised Israel the Promised Land through Abraham and Abraham had a son called Isaac, who had a son called Jacob, who had twelve sons one of whom was Joseph. And they were the fathers of the twelve tribes of Israel.

Now, those tribes found themselves in slavery in Egypt for a few centuries and God ultimately hears their cry. Moses is sent to bring them out into the wilderness for forty years in the exodus and finally, they make it, under the leadership of Joshua, into the Promised Land. And they have some leaders called judges and they have a few kings and then the nation splits into north and south and the people just go on their own way – they worship idols, they ignore God.

Now God said ‘Here’s the Promised Land, here’s the blessing; I’m going to bless you but you have to honour Me and if you don’t, I’ll take it all away.’ And in five eighty seven/five eighty six BC – that’s exactly what happened. The Babylonians were the dominant world power – they came and attacked Jerusalem; they destroyed the temple and they took what was left of the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin – the southern tribes – into captivity for seventy years.

And that was always part of God’s plan. He sent His prophets, Isaiah and Jeremiah and others, to tell God’s people that this was going to happen. “This whole country will become a desolate waste land and these nations will serve the King of Babylon for seventy years.” So, the promise of God was blessing in the Promised Land in prosperity but the promise relied on His people; the Israelites, worshipping Him as their God – they didn’t! And He brought judgement on them.

Seventy years in exile as slaves again, just as they were back in Egypt and they must have been despair and ‘What’s going on?’ but ultimately God brings them back. God raises up King Cyrus of Persia over Babylon – Cyrus defeats the Babylonians and as we saw last week, God moves in Cyrus’s heart to let the Jews not only return to Jerusalem but to rebuild the temple – and that’s a big deal. This is a big deal.

See, it’s easy for us to look at this as some remote, historical, geopolitical tale – ‘Great! Let’s keep it at a distance’, – but if we put ourselves in the shoes of those returning exiles, it’s a really big deal. I mean, most of them except the really elderly, were born in exile as slaves in Babylon. They had never lived in the Promised Land.

Now, that wasn’t a great existence in Babylon but they got used to it – that was home. And now there’s this big power shift and the all powerful Babylonians are overthrown – they have freedom – they have a four month journey on foot from Babylon to Jerusalem – they get there, the place is in ruins – they get back there, there is uncertainty, there’s fear. They look back and think ‘Well maybe things would have been better in Babylon.’

And the natural desire in that situation is to look after yourself and your own family; to build a house, to build a life, to build up your farming business or your carpentry business or whatever it is that you do to get some money rolling in.

So the overwhelming desire would be to get settled, get organised, get comfortable – all that pretty basic human stuff and that’s exactly what they did. They became very comfortable – so comfortable; in fact, they forgot that a key part of God’s plan was to be their God and to have His temple rebuilt – so God sends them the prophet Haggai to drag them out of their comfort zones.

Have a listen: “This is what God has to say “You people say the time hasn’t yet come for God’s house to be built but let me tell you, is it time for you yourselves to be living in your fancy houses while My house lies in ruin?” You see what’s going on here? In a sense, what the people were doing was natural; they were looking after themselves but they forgot completely about God’s plans. See they were living out an ‘exile’ mentality.

Let me share a story with you. My father’s family emigrated from Europe to Australia at the end of World War II, like a lot of post-war immigrants did and so the Government here in Australia put them into immigration camps for processing. I remember my grandmother telling me how, when they arrived they would go to the dining hall in the immigration camp and all the condiments were out on the centre of the tables – you know, the tomato sauce and the jam and the honey and the mustard and the salt and all that stuff. And the immigrants, who had come from starvation and the ravages of war, took all those things and began to hoard them and any spare food that was lying around. And on and on they were hoarding this food.

You see they were approaching this new life of freedom with the ‘survival’ mentality that came from their war time experiences. It’s the same with Israel – they were living their new life of freedom with an ‘exile’ mentality; in survival mode – get there, get food, get job, build house, get settled – and they completely forgot God’s plans and purposes – His house and His glory.

I wonder whether it isn’t the same thing for someone who comes from the exile of living apart from God into the freedom of a relationship with Him. But we try to live that freedom out with an exile mentality, with the idea that there is not enough for me and God and so I have to put me first and then God gets what’s left over. And so what happens, whether you are living amidst the affluence in the West or whether you are living amidst poverty in a refugee camp, is we get this idea that all our money and resources and food and time and energies – well it’s always the way it used to be – there is never enough to go around and so I have to hoard those things – I have to build ‘my’ house before I get God’s house and God’s plans going.

The problem with that approach is enough is never enough! It doesn’t matter how rich you are, the bottom line is; you can’t live out a life of freedom with an ‘exile’ mentality or mindset because that mindset ends up robbing you of God’s freedom and blessing and prosperity.

Panelled Houses

You know, the thing I think we so often miss, is that we focus on our day to day realities – you know, our needs and our work and our family and entertainment and all the stuff we do because it’s what we can see and touch and feel and we miss the fact; the great unseen reality, is God Himself. See we can’t see Him so we miss Him and the sad thing is that so many people who call themselves Christians spend so little time in prayer and reading His Word, that they just don’t hear Him. And they focus on their needs and their priorities.

But get this: God is the great unseen reality. He has chosen to hide Himself from the wise and the proud and reveal Himself to the humble and the meek. God has a will; God has purposes and nobody – not you nor I nor Israel or Babylon or anyone else; not all the armies and powers of every country on this planet combined – can stand against Him. And when we forsake His plans and His purposes and His glory, well things just aren’t going to go particularly well for us.

I want to read the next passage in the Book of Haggai. We kind of had a fleeting look at this last week but I want to go deeper into it this week. God speaks to us today through His Word and He wants to reach into our hearts and change our hearts and that’s why we are going deeper into this place this week.

Haggai chapter 1, verse 5: “God says, “Look, have a think about your ways. You have planted so much but you have harvested little. You eat but you never have enough – you drink but you never have your fill. You put on clothes but you are never warm – you earn wages only to put them in a purse with holes in it. Carefully consider your ways. Get up to the mountains and bring down the timber and build My house so that I may take pleasure in it and be honoured,” said the Lord. “You expect much but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home I blew away. Why? Because My house still lies in ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house and that’s the reason the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth it’s crops. I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains and on the grain and on the wine and on the oil and whatever the ground produces, on men and cattle and on the labour of your hands.”

See in this passage, God is sending His prophet Haggai, a man of God; a man whose job it is to speak the word and the will of God into the lives of the people of Israel. And here, God is dealing with the innate capacity of human beings to indulge in self delusion – the delusion that because we can’t see God, well, there’s no impact if we don’t put Him first.

This is a wakeup call to Israel back then and to you and me here and now. And it’s interesting that God points out the folly of their ways by pointing, not to spiritual things but to their physical reality. He says: “Look, you have planted much but you haven’t harvested much. You eat but you never have enough; you drink but you never have your fill; you put on clothes but you are not warm; you earn wages only to lose them in purses with holes.” See, you people are kidding yourselves – the more you look after your own interest and your own business, the less all your work and money and building and sowing amounts to.

“You are off running around putting your needs before My will and My glory and you are so full of yourselves that you haven’t even noticed, it’s not working – it’s not amounting to anything – it’s not going anywhere. Life isn’t getting any better. Why? Why do you think that is? Well, here God joins the dots for them; He joins the link between the cause and the affect. Because My house….My house; God’s house, still lies in ruin while each of you is busy with your own house. That’s why the heavens have withheld its dew and the earth its crops.”

People, wake up! God is God and His plan is to shine His love and His glory into the hearts and lives of men and women around this globe. And the way He has always done that, since time immemorial, is to use His people and their resources to build His house and shine His light. Right?

It’s a tragic delusion for people to think that they can be off making themselves comfortable and just doddle down to church once a week and nod in the right places during the sermon, but when the plate comes around to take up an offering for the poor, they just throw in their loose change. When one of the elders asks for volunteers to visit the sick in hospital, they find an excuse. When they see a single mum struggling with her children, they don’t have the heart to invite her home for a meal and see how they can help. Do you see the stinking hypocrisy of that?

This is what God is calling Israel to account for; this is what He is giving you and me a wakeup call about. No I’m sorry, it’s not pleasant; it’s not comfortable but God is in the business of shining His glory into this world and He is calling His people; the people who have received His grace and His blessing and His forgiveness, to get off their comfortable padded pews and pick up their cross and follow Him.

“Unless the Lord builds the house, the one who builds it labours in vain.” You know what I have noticed – the moment…..the very moment that I got about the business of building the Lord’s house; just in the place and in the way He called me to do that; the moment I finally got this reality through my thick skull, the Lord blessed me in areas in my own life that I’d been labouring away at in vain for years.
Wake up, you who are God’s people! His house; His purposes; His glory comes first and then everything else falls into place after that.

The Role of the Prophet

Now it’s great to hear the story of Israel and what God did in their history and the lives of that remnant of returned exiles – it’s great – but the point of getting into God’s Word is for Him to speak to you and me, here and now, about His plans and purposes for our lives.

Haggai, as I said, was a prophet; a man whom God appointed to speak God’s specific will into the lives of those people whom He decided to bless; His chosen people, whom not by power nor by might but by His Spirit, He had returned to the Promised Land. God’s plan was always to bless His people, outrageously.

Right back when Israel was a nation in slavery in Egypt, centuries after He’d promised this land to Abraham and He was about to free them to go on the forty year exodus towards the Promised Land, God spoke these words – you can read them in Exodus chapter 3 and verse 8. He said: “I have come down to rescue My people from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land; a land flowing with milk and honey.”

And He took them there but they strayed from Him and He dealt with that through the Babylonians and through the seventy year exile – and now, here they are back in this place of blessing and promise and prosperity. And He would bless them again and again but they are putting themselves first and Him last. And so He sends them a prophet, Haggai, to call them back to His blessing.

That’s what the prophet was for – not to make them feel guilty, but to bring them back into the blessing of God. Listen to how Ezra, the scribe, puts it: “When finally the nation of Israel took heed of what God was saying through the prophet – “Stop building your own house and build God’s house,” this is what happened. The elders of the Jews built and prospered through the prophesying of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah.” You can read that in Ezra chapter 6, verse 14. Listen again: “The elders of the Jews built and prospered through the prophesying of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah.”

Do you get it? They finally set about building God’s house because they listened to God’s Word through the prophets and they built and prospered through the words of the prophets. When God deals with hard things in our lives, you know, He’s not about condemning us – not at all. He’s about leading us back into His blessing. Is that awesome or what? I have no doubt that the same thing is going to happen in the lives of every person who receives His Word today.

I just don’t pick Scriptures out of the air or sermons out of my head. I pray about them, I wait on the Lord’s leading – I have nothing to say except what He lays on my heart through His Spirit to share His Word with you.

And today……today God wants to talk to some people who are so wrapped up in themselves they have forgotten to put Him first. And when we are in that place, the more we try and meet our own needs and fill our coffers and ease our pain, the more we focus on me, me, me, the worse it gets because “Unless the Lord builds the house, the one who builds labours in vain.”

Only you know what that might mean in your life; you and God. I don’t! And maybe you have to get down on your knees and pray and say ‘God, what are You saying to me today? What is it that I am putting ahead of You? What house am I building and what house do You want me to build?’

God is calling us back today – I have no doubt – into the blessing that He has planned for us. But that blessing will only happen when first we lay down the things that we are hanging onto ahead of Him. Lay them down and be prepared to lose them completely. He doesn’t always take them away, but if we truly want to put Him first, we have to be prepared to lay those things down and put His plans and His purposes first, whatever the cost might be – His priorities first and foremost.

It’s a step of faith! Jesus, the Christ, put it this way: “Seek first the Kingdom of God (the rule, the reign, the authority of God) and His righteousness and all these other things will be added onto that.”

As much as we may try and push and hope, it just doesn’t work the other way around – it doesn’t work when we cook up own priorities and our own blessings and then want God to tag along behind us – it doesn’t work that way. The moment; the very day that Israel began to get back about God’s business of building the temple; the moment they laid the foundation stone, His blessing began to flow.

Have a listen – if you’ve got a Bible, open it up at Haggai chapter 2 and verse 18: “From this day on; from this twenty-fourth day of the ninth month – give careful thought to the day when the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid. Give careful thought: Is there any seed left in the barn? Until now, the vine and the fig tree and the pomegranate and the olive tree, have not borne fruit but from this day on I will bless you.” God doesn’t muck around!

Now next week we are going to pick up with the laying of the foundation stone. We need to know how to build and what opposition is going to come and how to handle that.

But today….today I believe that God is calling us to get our priorities in order. It’s just not going to come together if we get busy about doing all the things that we want to do – spending our money and our resources and our time and our gifts on those things and putting God in the back seat.

I truly believe God is calling us back, to get our priorities in order, to put His plans, His purposes, His priorities up there ahead of ours because if there is one thing that you discover about Him and His Word, He wants so outrageously, to bless us.

You know the whole point of bringing the people of God; His chosen people, into the Promised Land, was so that they could honour Him and He could bless them. “I will be your God, you will be My people. I won’t abhor you, I’ll walk in your midst.”

God wants to bless us, people, that’s the whole point. He wants to bless us His way in a relationship with Him and we are the ones that get in the road of that. We are the ones that rob ourselves of the blessing of God when we go off and build our house instead of His.

When our hearts are set on His plan, opposition will come, things will grind to a halt some days but “No weapon forged against you will prevail.”

The Miracles that God Does

Welcome to the third programme in this four part series that I’ve called ‘It’s Time to Stop Labouring in Vain.’ Sounds like kind of an odd title for a series, doesn’t it? But there are so many people burning up so much energy doing so much stuff that isn’t amounting to anything.

We somehow get set on a course or a track in life, we’re doing this or doing that – maybe it’s something we really set our hearts on and we just go for it. Or perhaps it’s something, well, we kind of fell into without thinking too much about it. Perhaps it’s a career choice early on and you wake up one day and you think to yourself ‘I am doing so much hard work here and what for? What is it amounting to? It’s not fulfilling; it’s not really benefitting anyone and I’m not sure I’m really cut out for it anyway.’

I guess that’s what we have been looking at over these last couple of weeks in our own lives through the story of Israel after the Babylonian captivity. Remember, way, way back, God promised the Promised Land – the land that we now know as Israel – to Abraham and a few centuries later; through the exodus out of Egypt, He brought them to the Promised Land and God’s plan was always for Him to be their God and for them to be His people and for them to honour Him – but they didn’t.

And ultimately, God became angry with Israel and He brought judgement on them through the Nation of Babylon. Babylon was the dominant world power at the time. The Babylonians came, destroyed Jerusalem, destroyed the land, took the people into captivity and for seventy years they were captives as slaves just as they were in Egypt – now in Babylon. It happened around 586/587 BC.

But after seventy years were over it was always God’s plan to bring them back out of Babylon and into Jerusalem. And so God did miracle after miracle to get them out of that captivity. Let me just read to you again Ezra chapter 1- if you’ve got a Bible, please open it – Old Testament, Book of Ezra chapter 1, just the first four verses:

“In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, in order to fulfil the Word of the Lord spoken through Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus, the King of Persia, to make a proclamation throughout his realm and he put it in writing. This is what Cyrus, King of Persia said: “The Lord, the God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and He has appointed me to build a temple for Him at Jerusalem in Judah.

Now, Cyrus isn’t one of God’s chosen people – he is not one of the Jews. Cyrus is the King of Persia – what an amazing miracle that Cyrus should do this. Listen to how Isaiah puts this miracle in Isaiah chapter 45, verse 1: “This is what the Lord said to His anointed; to Cyrus whose right hand I take hold of, to subdue the nations before him and to strip Kings of their armour, to open doors before him so that gates will not be shut. I will go before you; I will level the mountains; I will break the bronze gates and cut through bars of iron. I will give you the treasures of darkness; riches stored in secret places so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel who summons you by name.”

So Isaiah is saying that God called Cyrus and in fact, see what Isaiah writes: “This is what the Lord says to His anointed; to Cyrus.” ‘God’s anointed’ – you know the word that’s used there? ‘Messiah’ – that’s the name used of Kings of Israel; it’s the name used for Jesus. You see what a mighty miracle this is! God moves Cyrus to defeat the Babylonians, to release the Israelites out of their slavery, send them back to Jerusalem but not only that, to provide for them to build God’s temple; to build the house of the Lord.

See over these last few weeks we have been looking at this verse in Psalm 127, verse 1, which says: “Unless the Lord builds the house, the one who builds it labours in vain.” God had a purpose – His purpose was to bring His people back to His Promised Land to build His temple so that He could be in their midst. And if you read on here in chapter 1 of Ezra you see that God pours out untold wealth through His own people and through Cyrus, for the building of His temple.

See, God had a plan to build His house and He does it miracle after miracle after miracle to get His people to that point. And that’s how often God works. God still has a plan for His people to build His house for His glory throughout the world. For His people to do what He calls them to do – to reach the lost and the hurting world with the love and the grace and the mercy of Jesus Christ. And so often He does a miracle to get us to that point.

In my life, I was a consultant in the IT industry, I was making money, I was after recognition in career, I pushed God completely away and yet God brought me to my knees and I came to Christ thirteen years ago. A few months later I’m in Bible College and a year into that I’m involved with this ministry of Christianityworks as a student volunteer, doing some little bits and pieces and the then CEO, my predecessor, invited me to do a couple of small radio programmes.

It wasn’t easy but it was new so I learned it and the more I did that, the more I sensed that this was God’s calling on my life. Yes! I was finally on God’s path. I could see the little miracles all lined up, all the little ducks in a row. I could sense the calling in my spirit and then, disaster – things fell apart. The CEO was dismissed from the ministry, a new one appointed – not me, another one – and his decision was to take us completely off radio – no more radio programmes.

I was devastated! You know why? Because I could see the lengths that God had gone to; the miracles along the way, to get me to that point – I knew it was God’s plan. But then I ran into the most fierce opposition. And I wonder whether that hasn’t happened in your life too because it’s exactly what happened to Israel in building the temple – miracle after mighty miracle and then they ran into fierce opposition – we will have a look at that in a moment.

You know what happens in that place though? You kind of look back on the miracles that God did to get you to this point and you think “Well, I must have been imagining it or perhaps, they weren’t really miracles’ and you compare those things you once held to be miracles with the reality of the opposition you are facing right now and you think ‘Oh well, I must have been labouring in vain.’ See, that’s the confusing thing.

There are so many people out there doing stuff they were never meant to do and then on the other hand there are people walking in God’s plan and they face opposition and it’s so easy in that place to get the impression that we are on the wrong path – that we are labouring in vain when actually we are exactly where God meant us to be in the first place.

What’s Going On?

I don’t know about you but there is something inside me that expects, that when I’m on track with God’s plan for my life, well, it should all go smoothly, swimmingly well, just click into place, just happen because after all, it’s God’s plan and He’s done all these miracles to get me to this point and well, it should just work. And somehow it has taken me a long time to learn that opposition inevitably comes.

And we only learn that by confronting and dealing with opposition over and over and over again. An area where most of us, frankly, are slow learners. This quiet confidence in God is something we learn by experience as He shows up every time we face opposition. And it’s something that Israel had to learn when they returned to Jerusalem from Babylon.

See God did all these amazing miracles to set them free and Cyrus blessed them and they had more wealth than they could have imagined poured out of heaven because God had a plan for them to go back to this Promised Land of milk and honey to build the temple so that He would be in their midst, to be their God and they, His people.

Now, if you have your Bible, we are going to have a look at the opposition they faced. We are going to go to Ezra chapter 4 – let’s see what happened. “When the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the exiles were building a temple for the Lord, the God of Israel, they came to Zerubbabel who was the leader and to the heads of the families and said “Let us help you build because like you, we seek your God and have been sacrificing to Him since the days of Esarhaddon King of Assyria, who brought us here.”

“But Zerubbabel, Jeshua and the rest of the heads of the families of Israel answered “You have no part with us in building a temple to our God. We alone will build it for the Lord; the God of Israel as King Cyrus, the King of Persia commanded us. Then the peoples around them set out to discourage the people of Judah and make them afraid to go on building. They hired counsellors to work against them and frustrate their plans during the entire reign of Cyrus, King of Persia and down to the reign of Darius, King of Persia.

See, the people of Israel could have been forgiven for thinking ‘What the blazes is going on here?’ This letter that they wrote – and you can read about it in the rest of chapter 4 of Ezra – was full of accusations that they were setting up a power base against the King of Persia and that these Jews were setting about rebellion and sedition and if this temple went ahead it would be bad for the King.

And so all this work on the temple that came about through God’s miraculous overthrow of Babylon and freedom and return and provision and protection of Cyrus, all of God’s work, ground to a halt. That’s the point of opposition, to stop the work of God on this earth. The devil doesn’t want the love and the grace and the mercy of Jesus to spread around. And a whole bunch of people don’t want that either. They will call you names, they will label you with stereotypes, and they’ll frustrate your ability to live out God’s plan.

I mean, that happens – it feels like such a defeat. I was sharing before – I cannot tell you how utterly devastated I was when I felt like I had the rug pulled out from under me. My predecessor pulled radio programmes off the air. But ‘this is God’s plan’, I thought and yet there was nothing, absolutely nothing I could do about it.

And that must have been how Israel felt too. No doubt, you’ve been in that place as well – frustrated, disappointed, hurt – it feels like you have had your guts ripped out, because you have been labouring for God’s plan and all of a sudden, bang, it stops. It feels like the world has come to an end and all the work stops.

Let me say this – that place of opposition and defeat – that sense of all being lost, is a very special place. That is holy ground because that’s the place were only God can make a difference and that’s the place where He forges our faith into something that’s strong and real and vibrant – that is the place when we look at Him in complete vulnerability with a complete inability to make any difference. That’s the place that we have to wait on Him to act.

Either this call that we had in our hearts is from God or it’s not. Either God is going to show up and make it happen or it’s not from Him – one or the other. In a very real sense this is our ‘Calvary’ – Jesus died in faith that His Father would raise Him again.

You see what’s going on here? God’s plan ultimately doesn’t depend on you or me. We have emotions – we get ups and downs and sometimes we fail and sometimes we are downcast and sometimes circumstances and opposition are completely beyond us. And that’s when we get confused – ‘Am I labouring in vain or am I on the right track? Is God going to show up or is He not going to show up?’

This is the hidden place where our faith is forged; this is the place where we wait quietly in our pain and our loss. The Psalmist puts it this was in Psalm 46: “Nations might be in uproar, Kingdoms may fall but God lifts His voice and the earth melts. The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Come and see the works of the Lord; the desolations He has brought on the earth. He makes wars to cease, to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear and burns the shields with fire. Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations – I will be exalted in this earth. The Lord Almighty is with us.”

The Word of the Lord

Alright, so we have the picture – Israel were in Babylon; they were in captivity – God moves Cyrus, the King of Persia, miraculously, to send them back home to Jerusalem to provide for them, to protect them to start building the temple. And they did that – they stepped out; they laid the foundation of God’s temple for His glory, His will and then they faced opposition.

And Israel faced opposition and you and I are going to face opposition. Opposition comes and then God’s plan seems to grind to a halt. ‘What happens now?’ Well, God does what He always does – when we are in God’s plan, God speaks and when God speaks, things happen.

Do you want to listen to how Ezra records God’s mighty intervention? Ezra chapter 5 if you have a Bible, go there with me – beginning at verse 1. Remember, the peoples around Jerusalem – not the Israelites, but the other people – accuse the Jews of sedition before the King – they discouraged them that building of the temple ground to a halt and now what?

Have a listen: “Now, Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the prophet, a descendant of Iddo, prophesied to the Jews in Judah and in Jerusalem, in the name of the God of Israel who was over them. Then the leader of the Israelites Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel and Jeshua, son of Jozadak set back to work to rebuild the house of Jerusalem and the prophets of God were with them helping them.”

This is great – the people have lost heart; the people have lost sight; they are discouraged; they’re stopped. If they work the King might come against them but God sends His prophets – men whose gifting it was to speak God’s will into the life of Israel and they spoke.

We looked at the Book of Haggai in the Old Testament last week and we will have a quick look again today. God’s prophet said in effect: ‘People, get on with it – ignore the opposition, just do it.’ And look again at the second verse: ‘Then Zerubbabel and Jeshua set back to work to rebuild the house of God in Jerusalem and the prophets of God were with them helping them.”

See, God told His people to keep building despite the opposition – in the face of the opposition. Let me say that again: God told His people to keep building, despite the opposition – in the face of the opposition. That was a risky business because they were defying the King. They had been accused of sedition and treason and yet they trusted in God; they trusted in the word that came through the prophets.

Now God went on and had the King of Persia, King Darius, who it was then, search his archives and what he discovered when he did that was that years earlier, his predecessor, King Cyrus, whom God used so miraculously in the past, had decreed that this temple should be built. And so Darius – you read about it in chapter 6 of the Book of Ezra, made an even stronger decree, saying the temple was to be completed and dedicated.

See, when God speaks His Word it rings out across the earth and nobody can stand against Him – not all the armies of the world amassed against God can stand against His plans. See, back, way back when, Cyrus decreed God’s will and it didn’t matter what the other people tried to do, God was going to win. God’s plan to build the temple was going to be realized. And those people who wrote those false accusations in the letter, they were actually told by Darius to help.

Have a listen in Ezra chapter 6, verse 6: “Now then, Tattenai, governor of Trans-Euphrates and Shethar-Bozenai and you their fellow officials of that Province, stay away from there. Do not interfere with the work on this temple of God. Let the governor of the Jews and the Jewish elders rebuild this house of God on this site. Moreover, I hereby decree what you are to do for these elders of the Jews in their construction of this house of God.

“The expenses of these men are fully to be paid out of the royal treasury, from the revenues of the Trans-Euphrates, so that the work will not stop. Whatever is needed – young bulls, rams, male lambs for burnt offerings to the God of heaven and wheat and salt and wine and oil; whatever they request must be given to them daily without fail so that they may offer sacrifices pleasing to the God of heaven and pray for the well being of the King and his sons.”

Don’t you love that? These people thought that they would undermine God’s plan by making false accusations but God turns the whole thing around and those very same people making those accusations now have to front up with cash to pay for the building of God’s temple – and that’s how God works. See, this story isn’t just Israel’s story; it’s God’s story; it’s the story of a mighty, powerful God.

Let’s take it back to our own situations. When I felt God’s plans for my life being frustrated, it just thought ‘God what’s going on?’ and by a miracle God brought me to a conference and a man walked up to me and just gave me a word from God. His name was Dennis Adams and he looked at me and he said “Berni, I’ve never met you before but you have to start doing radio programmes again.” It was a prophetic word; it rang in my heart. All this opposition – God said ‘Forget the opposition – start producing radio programmes. Just get going, I’ll do the rest.’

That was just three and a half years ago. We just went to a studio and started recording programmes – this very chair that I’m sitting in at the moment, and today these programmes are on seven hundred and fifty stations in one hundred and twenty countries, with millions of listeners. It’s not me; it’s not the people in the ministry – that is God. His plans and His purposes will never be defeated.

See, those times when God’s plan for our lives seems to grind to a halt, it’s so easy to make the mistake of thinking ‘We are on the wrong track’ and forgetting the miracles He did to get us to this point. We want to pull over and give up but then, just like in Israel’s life, God speaks His Word. Maybe He is doing that through His Word in your life right now. Perhaps He will bring someone else to confirm it – perhaps He’ll speak to you in a time of prayer or as you read His Word for yourself. God’s plans can never be defeated.

Isaiah puts it this way in chapter 54, verse 17: “No weapon forged against you will prevail and you will refute every tongue that accuses you for this is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and this is their vindication from Me”, declares the Lord.”

When we are about the business of building the Lord’s house, hearing Him, following hard after Him, we are not labouring in vain. Never make that mistake when opposition comes. If we are not following His plan; if we are out there on our own, sure, that’s labouring in vain. But when our hearts are set on His plan, opposition will come; things will grind to a halt some days, but “No weapon forged against you will prevail” – no accusation, no falsehood, no scheme of the enemy, nothing that anybody on this earth can do will derail the plans of God for your life.

God will have His way – of that we can be absolutely sure. I want to encourage you today – if you’re in that place, get up and keeping going with God’s plan, despite the opposition and see what the Lord will do for you.

God never calls us to do something He doesn’t provide for. God loves you and me so much He will shake heaven and earth to get us back.

Rebuilding What Once Was

Over these last few weeks we’ve been working our way through a series that I’ve called ‘It’s Time to Stop Labouring in Vain.’ So many people put so much energy into so many things we build for ourselves and our families’ lives and careers and homes and all that stuff. Now there is nothing wrong with any of those things, per se, but we can build and build and build and then, after what seems like a life time of building, well, you look back on it and you think ‘All that effort has amounted, really, to nothing.’

Right now where I live, inflation is starting to rise in the economy so interest rates are going up and people’s houses are being repossessed by banks at record levels because people can’t afford to pay their mortgage repayments. I can’t imagine how devastating that must be.

But in our economy we have seen good times for, well, over the last twenty years. There’s a whole generation out there that has never travelled through hard times; through a recession. People have been spending money as though there is no tomorrow and now all of a sudden people are starting to lose their houses.

It’s an extreme picture of what I was talking about – people labouring so hard for so much of their lives, building something for themselves and then waking up one morning and discovering it was all in vain. In a sense, it was something I went through in my life thirteen years or so ago. To wake up one day and discover that everything you had worked for was in vain was a devastating thing.

And it’s something that the nation of Israel went through as well and we have been looking at that over the last few weeks. We are seeing how Israel came out of a promise from God to Abraham about this Promised Land and eventually the twelve tribes of Israel were in captivity in Egypt and they went through under Moses’ leadership, those forty years of exodus and they made it to the Promised Land.

And then eventually, because the people weren’t faithful to God, God used the Babylonians in 586/587 BC. They were the dominant world power and they came and attacked Jerusalem, destroyed the temple where God is –‘What’s happened to my God?’ and the Babylonians took the remainder of the Israelites into captivity for seventy years.

Now it was part of God’s plan – He sent prophets to warn them. He said ‘Look, if you don’t come back to Me you’re going to be punished,’ and they were. But God’s promise was always a promise of blessing and prosperity and after the seventy years in exile as slaves, just as they were back in Egypt; God’s plan was to bring His people back into the Promised Land. Once they had come to their senses He brought them back and the Book of Ezra and Haggai is about their return out of that Babylonian exile, back to the Promised Land.

And when they got back they started looking after themselves but they forgot about building God’s house, the temple and that’s what we have been talking about these last few weeks. Haggai said “This is what God says to you: “You people say that the time hasn’t come yet to build God’s house but let me tell you, is it time for you yourselves to be living in your fancy houses while My house lies in ruins.”

See, it’s so easy for us to be focussed on our needs that we forget about honouring God. We are into the ‘me’, ‘me’, ‘me’ thinkers, that’s what our culture and our society is about. And God seems to get what’s left over – our money that’s left over, our time that’s left over, our resources that are left over.

Right through the Bible there’s a concept of first fruits – let me explain. God expects us to give Him the very first; the very best, rather than the dregs that are left over. ‘Me’ and then God is the wrong way around! Nevertheless, that’s what the people did when they returned from this exile where they were supposed to come to their senses. They looked after themselves.

But as we have looked over the last three weeks, what we are seeing is all this looking after ‘themselves’ never really amounted to much – the labour was in vain. And the reason for that is the spiritual principle that’s been the centre of this series and it comes from a beautiful verse, Psalm 127, verse 1 that says: “Unless the Lord builds the house, the one who builds it labours in vain.”

In other words, when we do things for ourselves, by ourselves, the reality is it will all be in vain. See, the temple is the place where God was worshipped and honoured. It’s the place where His presence dwelt. It’s so important in the history of Israel and when they returned to Jerusalem after those seventy years, the place was raised to the ground – it was completely destroyed.

Imagine, some of the people who had lived there seventy years earlier, a few of the older people that were left, looking at what was once this great city with this splendiferous, glorious, amazing temple – this amazing building – it was massive, it was ornate. The thing took decades to build and now it was just a pile of burnt out rubble. Imagine how disheartening that must have been.

And in their hearts they knew that it was their own fault because they had forsaken their God. They had worshipped other gods and idols and done what was wrong in His sight – because of them this thing had happened.

So they set about building their homes….. and God’s house? Well, that was this massive thing that would take forever to build ‘Let’s leave that bit till last.’ And you know something? It’s not surprising – building that temple was a daunting thing. They had a cloud of guilt hanging over them and anyway, something wonderful was now lost. It didn’t matter whatever they did, however hard they laboured, this new temple could surely never be anything like the old one that Solomon built.

That’s what I want to talk about today – that sense of opportunity lost and having to come to a point of rebuilding. See, it’s so easy for us to think the same way as Israel. There are plenty of people who’ve walked with God and done things for Him and with Him, perhaps even mighty things but then drifted. Maybe turned their backs on God and had this sense of living in exile and watched everything they had ever built in the strength of God, turn to rubble. Have you ever felt like that?

Perhaps you have been listening to these messages of the last few weeks and beginning to contemplate this rebuilding of your relationship with God – going back to Him and building His temple again in your heart and your life – putting Him first. Yet this sense that it could never be the same again, hangs over us like a cloud. Surely not – I failed Him. No, rebuilding that relationship is just too hard.

Well, God knows that – He knew that about Israel and He knows that about you and me, here and now. So He specifically talks about that thing in His Word and we will look at that – what He has to say – next.

A Word for the Heart

Ok, well, it’s time to rebuild; it’s time to get the house of God built in our lives – to turn around; to repent but it was so hard for Israel; so hard! Our hearts are faint and uncertain and it was the same with Israel, so God sent them the prophet Haggai – not just to give them a wakeup call and say ‘Look, it’s time for you to rebuild God’s house,’ but also to encourage them.

We are going to look at that encouragement right now in the Bible; in the Old Testament, in the Book of Haggai chapter 2. Now Haggai, I always find it hard to find – it’s only a very short book – a couple of pages. So go right to the end of the Old Testament in your Bible – it’s the third last Book, just a few pages back from the New Testament. Haggai chapter 2 – let’s have a read of the first few verses.

“On the twenty first day of the seventh month, the Word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: “Speak to Zerubbabel and Joshua (that’s the governor and the High Priest) and to the remnant of the people and ask them “Who of you is left who saw this house; the house of God in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Doesn’t it seem like nothing to you?”

See, there it is – the same heart problem that we have about rebuilding our relationship with God. Remember the house of God in its former glory and now it’s nothing. It was this amazing temple that Solomon built with gold and it was just amazing and now it is just lying there, a bunch of burnt out old rubble with weeds growing in it.

You know, in my early years in high school, I actually gave my life to Christ – I had quite an amazing relationship with Him. I even had it back then in my heart to become a minister, whatever that meant. But then as a young man I turned my back on Him for eighteen years – I laboured in vain, doing my own thing, making a whole bunch of money, getting a career, ignoring God.

And I can remember the sense when God was back on my case in my late thirties of how hard it would be to turn back to Him. And I tried to avoid that because there was a sense of guilt and the relationship was destroyed and it could never be the same again. And it was the same with the temple back then in Israel. That’s the place where they worshipped Him and honoured Him and sacrificed to Him and the place where they put Him first.

See, we learn in the New Testament that we are the temple of God – our bodies, that’s where God’s presence dwells in us and turning back to Him and putting Him first is like rebuilding that temple. And the problem is that right at that point, we remember that the temple; the relationship, well, back in its former glory days; back when we were really powering on with God – it was wonderful – oh, but now, look at it – it’s a pile of rubble. ‘Surely it could never be the same’ we say deep in our hearts.

Well, let’s see what God says next to His people, right in that very same situation, right in the face of the rubble and the daunting task ahead and the sense of shame and guilt – all that stuff that we go through – in Haggai chapter 2, beginning at verse 3: “Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Doesn’t it seem like nothing? But now be strong Zerubbabel,” declares the Lord, “be strong Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; be strong all you people of the land”, declares the Lord,” and work, for I am with you,” declares the Lord Almighty. This is what I promised to you when you came out of Egypt and My Spirit remains among you – do not be afraid.”

I love that – “Be strong and work for I am with you,” God says through His man, the prophet, to the people. See, we’ve been busy off working over there without God, for ourselves and it has amounted to nothing. We’ve been flat out building a career and financial stability and a life and a reputation and one day we realise that it amounts to nothing because “Unless the Lord builds the house, the one who builds it labours in vain.”

And that’s exactly what’s been happening but now listen to what God is saying when it comes to building His temple – this intimate relationship where He becomes the Lord of our lives. “Be strong and work, for I am with you. My Spirit remains among you; do not be afraid.”

I passionately believe that there are a lot of people listening today that need to hear this word from the Lord. It’s time to start rebuilding that God honouring, God first, God worshipping temple in our lives – the Kingdom of God; the reign of God in our lives. And we stand at the beginning of that and perhaps the relationship isn’t what it used to be or maybe it’s bankrupt or our spirit is depleted or our hearts faint and we are wondering where we can ever possibly begin to rebuild.

And today God comes along and speaks His word right into our very hearts. “Be strong all you people of the land,” declares the Lord “and work for I am with you,” declares the Lord. My Spirit remains among you; do not be afraid.”

I wonder if you need to hear that today. I wonder if God’s reaching out to you through His Word. I can speak it but only His Spirit can lay it on your heart. Only His Spirit can give you courage. Only His Spirit can fill you with that wondrous sense of joy that will cause you to pick up that first stone and start building in His power and His strength, knowing that this time He is building the house and so we are not labouring in vain.
God is calling some people back into His Kingdom today. God is calling some people back into a warm and intimate and wondrous relationship with Him today. God is speaking His encouragement into those people’s lives today. Is that you? You know what encouragement is? It’s God putting His courage into us – His courage so that we will get started.

There’s some work to do but today, if we would set about rebuilding the temple of God in our hearts He wants us to know this – today, He is building the house and it will not – it will not be labour in vain when we do that. It’s a word of God for our hearts.

How’s it Going to Turn Out?

So, this task of rebuilding is a daunting task. See, we remember the former glory; we remember the things of the past; we remember all the great things we did with God and now we are drifting out here in the wilderness and the thing we see now is just the rubble. The relationship we once had with God…..maybe that has evaporated; maybe that’s gone.

And when you contemplate the task of rebuilding that; of establishing a prayer life, of getting into God’s Word, of dealing with the rubbish that we know is in our lives – the addictions and the sin and the stuff we have to lay down. When we look at how we spend our money and making a fair chunk of that available to God – when we see the sacrifices, the work, the labour involved in this, you think ‘Will it be worth it? How will it turn out? Will it ever be worthwhile or am I just kidding myself?’

Just as those questions are running through our heads, our eyes fall again to that pile of rubble that speaks so loudly of what once was, but what is no more, how will it turn out? That is the very same problem that Israel faced. Listen to what God goes on to say to them through the prophet Haggai about rebuilding the temple.

Chapter 2 of Haggai, verses 5 to 9: “This is what I promised you when you came out of Egypt and My Spirit remains among you; don’t be afraid.” This is what God says: “In a little while, I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land; I will shake all the nations and the desired of all the nations will come and I will fill this house with glory,” says the Lord Almighty. “The silver is mine, the gold is mine”, declares the Lord, “the glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,” says the Lord Almighty, “and in this place I will grant peace,” declares God.”

There are a few things God says in that passage. The first one is: I know it looks daunting but God is going to provide for our labours. He is going to shake the nations; the silver and the gold belong to Him. See, we see the work involved in all those things, yet God is the provider – He wants us back. He wants His house to be built in our hearts and He will provide whatever we need to do that.

See, God never calls us to do something He doesn’t provide for. He will move heaven and earth – “In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land; I will shake the nations.” God loves you and me so much, He will shake heaven and earth to get us back.

The second thing God says is: “I will fill this house with My glory and My splendour.” In other words, as we set about this task of rebuilding the house of God; the reign of God; the Kingdom of God in our hearts – and it is a task and it is a process – God will be in that place. He is building the house; He is honouring this; He will inhabit the relationship that we seek to rebuild with Him.

The Book of James in the New Testament says that: “If we draw near to God, He will draw near to us.” God honours those who honour Him and God was saying to Israel back then “You start building My house and I will fill the house with My glory and My splendour. I will be there and I will honour your labours.” And He is saying exactly the same to you and me. You start rebuilding the relationship with Me; you take some little baby steps towards Me and I am going to show up. I’m going to honour you; I’m going to fill that with My glory and My splendour and then – I love this next bit – This new house you are building – the glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house.

See, this answers the deepest question of all – ‘Is it worthwhile, will it work?’ This former glory – I remember the past; I remember the old temple; I remember how wonderful it was and the relationship I had with God and now it’s just a pile of rubble. Can it ever be the same again? And God comes along and says “You know something? Remember the former glory; remember all the things of the past? You start rebuilding the temple of God; you start honouring Me and worshipping Me with all that you are and compared to that former glory, this glory will be much greater.

Isn’t that about the awesome grace of God? We don’t deserve this! You know, when we stray off and go into the wilderness and ignore God, what we deserve is to be punished by Him but God wants us back so much, He let His Son die on the cross so that we could have this. We don’t deserve that; we get to building that relationship and this current glory will be so much greater than the former glory.

And finally, to finish off this passage, God says “And in this place I will grant you peace.” And finally, above all other things, He will grant peace – the strife between God and us; the battles – He will give us peace. God is talking to us today; to you and to me – the question is will we listen? Will we take God at His Word? Come on, this is where the rubber hits the road – will we set about the task of rebuilding an awesome relationship with God or will we continue to spend our lives; use up our time and our energies and our resources, just labouring away in vain?

God has a mighty plan for your life and for mine. Can I truly say? As I look back on the last thirteen years since I returned to Him and started this rebuilding process, that this latter glory is far greater than the former one. I could never have believed how wondrous this temple could be; how wondrous this relationship could be. I could never have believed that He would use me as He has and I wouldn’t swap this latter glory for the former glory for anything in the world.

How about you? Only you can decide! But listen to me – truly I tell you whatever you do with your life; however you spend your energies…..”Unless the Lord builds the house, the one who builds it labours in vain.”

Isn’t it time to stop labouring in vain? Isn’t it? Isn’t time to say ‘You know, I don’t care how daunting this task of rebuilding my relationship with God is, but Jesus Christ died for me that I could have an awesome and intimate and wonderful relationship with God and no matter what it costs me, I’m going to start building because I know my God will honour that. And I know He will fill it with His glory and His peace and what I will get out of that will be so much greater than anything I’ve ever know in the past.’

“Unless the Lord builds the house, the one who builds it labours in vain.”