Consecrated to the Sovereign God

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Don Filcek; Haggai 2:10-23 Consecrated to the Sovereign God

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church from Madawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsack preaches from his series on the
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Book of Haggai, Realigning Priorities. Let's listen in. Welcome to Recast Church.
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I'm Don Filsack, I'm the lead pastor here and really grateful for the things that God is doing here. Really excited about Ben joining me on the pastoral team, pending your your approval and the things that you have to give feedback.
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And that's not I kind of assured him that that's not and assure you, that's not a slam dunk thing in terms of the elders don't produce elders, the congregation does.
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And so we put forward names and then we look for your feedback and your approval on that. And so please do take advantage of that, as Mark was saying.
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I'm really thankful for another Sunday gathered together. How many of you are glad to be here? Glad. All right. Praise God. I consider it a privilege to lead and to preach here.
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I seek to take his word very seriously. But those of you that know me on a more personal front know that I don't take myself too seriously.
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I like to have some fun and like to like to use humor and different things. And that's been kind of the history of Recast.
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Our goal when we started 14 years ago, approximately 14 years ago, was centered on worshiping him and finding more worshipers for his name.
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And that meant to some degree removing some of the traditions. Obviously, we're not a dressy up kind of church or anything like that.
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We wanted to remove hurdles that would be a hindrance or traditions that might be a hindrance to the average person just kind of walking through the doors and feeling comfortable here.
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But we also started off with a strong desire to hold his word high, to make clear the word of God and to take that seriously, not take ourselves too seriously.
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So over the years, we forged some of our own traditions. And yet we are still sticking tenaciously to the scripture as the truth, our authority.
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The Bible stands over us. The Bible stands over me. And when I get up here, my goal is to make him more clearly understood through explaining what he has told us through his written word.
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This morning, we're going to be wrapping up the Old Testament book of Haggai, a little book near the end of the
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Old Testament. And our passage this morning highlights an aspect of worship that is much needed, I think, in our modern day, because what it's going to kind of address is the fact that we can get caught up in very wrong and dangerous views of the
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Christian faith. The world, I think, out there, outside of these four walls that are kind of mowing their lawn or going for a jog this morning or maybe even hitting the links, the world out there primarily thinks of the
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Christian faith as a list of don'ts. How many of you know what I'm talking about? You know, people who have been like, oh, you're just those don't people.
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Don't lie. Don't steal. Try your best to have no fun. And certainly under no circumstances, rather in all circumstances, don't dance.
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This amounts to don't do bad things. Theology is kind of the way that people view us. And it's a reasonable.
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How many of you know that not doing bad things is a reasonable ethic? I guess reasonable when it comes to ethics.
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Like, don't do bad things. OK, that's good, but it is not the point of Christ, nor is it the main fundamental purpose of his followers.
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And so, unfortunately, in combating the don't do bad things, theology, many have tried to spend
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PR for God and they've spun it out. So then the pendulum swings the opposite way, portraying the
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Christian life as a list of do's. Do go to church. Do give tithes and offerings. Do read your
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Bible. Do share your faith with others. And again, all of those are good things, right? Good things?
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Yeah, but they are not the thing. Because it's quite possible to do the things without the heart change.
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Do you know what I'm talking about? To just go through the motions, just read your Bible, just attend church, and then think that the rest of my week is
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OK because I paid my dues. I sat and I listened to Don for a long time. So I obviously, you know,
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I've paid my penance. I've done my work. The scripture is abundantly clear about two things, about all humanity, two things about us.
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All of us do things God tells us not to. All of us do things that God says don't do.
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And none of us do all the things that God has demanded of us. We don't meet our own ethical standards.
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So even when we lean into an ethical understanding of the faith, every human being comes up short.
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The most religious person needs a savior. And the most irreligious person needs a savior.
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We all need a savior. It's true here in this room. And it was true back in Haggai's time.
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By the close of this message on this Old Testament book, we're going to be talking about Jesus. He is the one sent to sign off on the work of God, reconciling humanity.
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The one who, he is the thing. When we talk about the don'ts and the do's and everything in between, no, he's the thing.
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And he is the one who signs off on God's work. And as I read this passage, you will not hear the word
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Messiah in it at all. You're not going to see the name Jesus in the book of Haggai at all, the name isn't there.
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But to the ancient Jews, they heard Messiah all over the end of Haggai. The way that their ears heard it was different than ours, and we're going to have to talk about it.
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We're going to explain it. But Zerubbabel, the governor in our text, who's addressed directly by the end of the text, is a descendant of David to whom
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God promised an eternal descendant to occupy an eternal throne, the greater son of David promised.
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And now in our text, who will amount to the greater son of Zerubbabel? He is the implement of closure on the very work of God in rescuing fallen, broken, busted up, sinful humanity like us.
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And in our text, we're going to be called into a service from the heart, not a list of do's and don'ts to be completed with drudgery this next week, but a delighted relationship of hope and trust and faith in the
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God who is with and for his people. Going out and working, yes, but working out of strength provided by his grace, love for him expressed.
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So let's open our Bibles or your devices to the little book of Haggai. We're going to read starting in chapter 2, verse 10 through the end.
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And Haggai is between Zephaniah and Zechariah. I haven't mentioned that before, but that probably helps you find it, right? Just kidding.
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I'm sure not many of us can find Zephaniah or Zechariah either. But we're going to read
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Haggai chapter 2, starting in verse 10 all the way through the end of the chapter.
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And as I say, often recast, this is God's holy word, what he desires to communicate to us this morning.
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On the 24th day of the ninth month in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet.
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Thus says the Lord of hosts, ask the priests about the law. If someone carries holy meat in the fold of his garment and touches with his fold bread or stew or wine or oil or any kind of food, does it become holy?
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The priest answered and said, no. Then Haggai said, if someone who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean?
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The priest answered and said, it does become unclean. Then Haggai answered and said, so it is with this people and with this nation before me, declares the
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Lord. And so with every work of their hands and what they offer there is unclean.
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And then consider from this day onward, before stone was placed upon stone in the temple of the
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Lord. How did you fare? When one came to a heap of 20 measures, there were but 10.
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When one came to the wine vat to draw 50 measures, there were but 20. I struck you and all the products of your toil with blight and with mildew and hail, yet you did not turn to me, declares the
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Lord. Consider from this day onward, from the 24th day of the ninth month, since the day that the foundation of the
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Lord's temple was laid, consider, is the seed yet in the barn? Indeed, the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive trees have yielded nothing.
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But from this day on, I will bless you.
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The word of the Lord came a second time to Haggai on the 24th day of the month. Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying,
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I'm about to shake the heavens and the earth. And to overthrow the throne of kingdoms, I'm about to destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations and overthrow the chariots and their riders.
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And the horses and their riders shall go down, every one by the sword of his own brother.
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On that day, declares the Lord of hosts, I will take you, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel, declares the
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Lord, and make you like a signet ring. For I have chosen you, declares the
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Lord of hosts. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for a clear and written word that we can go back to. And even though we read this and I say a clear word, it's something that's established, it's in writing, it's translated in English.
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We can go back and pour over it as often as we need in order to understand it. It's stable, it's firm.
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It's a foundation upon which we can build our lives. Father, I pray that as we wrap up this book of Haggai, thinking about the realignment of priorities, thinking about the things that you desire of us, start off by recognizing our defilement, recognizing that we are not consecrated to you as we ought to be.
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We don't live our days wholly and completely for you. Other glories creep in, particularly our own.
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Our own elevating ourselves and putting ourselves on the throne of our little universes and trying to seek the service of others, trying to seek the glory that is due your name.
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Father, I pray that you would move our hearts to repentance today, turning from our own little kingdoms and turning our focus on you and your glorious kingdom that was ushered in by your son and will be completed on the day of his return.
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Father, may we long for that day. May you place within us a hunger for that day that impacts the rest of this day, the rest of this coming week, the rest of the month, the year, a lifetime of worship to you.
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Father, I pray that you would keep reminding us that we would keep considering, keep following you.
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Father, we have an opportunity to lift our voices to you and I pray that you would receive these songs that we sing together in this gathering of your people, that you would receive them as worship because only you are worthy.
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Amen. All right. Yeah, you can go ahead and be seated and get comfortable.
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And I do ask that you reopen your Bibles or your devices to Haggai chapter 2, verses 10 through 23.
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So we're going to wrap up the book there. Like I say every week, if at any time during the message, you need to get up and get more coffee, juice or donut holes, take advantage of those back there.
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You're not going to distract me. But we do want the majority of the rest of our time to be spent together in God's word, hearing from him.
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Now, what we need to understand in our text this morning is that Haggai receives two distinct prophecies on the same day in our text.
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The date is a real date. It's a date that's given in the text. It's December 18th of 520
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BC. Again, December 18th. That's like 12, 18, 520.
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And if you think it takes time to scroll down to get to your birthday when filling out online forms, to scroll down to this date would take you a while.
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But I point that out tongue -in -cheek because it's interesting. Just as real as your birth date is on that scroll down, this is a real date in real time, in real human history.
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This is a recorded, documented, dated prophecy of God that is given to us.
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What's happening in the context of this time in 520 BC is the people of Israel will return to Jerusalem after about 70 years of exile in a foreign country of Babylon.
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Now, Babylon has been conquered by Persia. And under the first king of Persia that had conquered
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Babylon, he kind of said, we're better than Babylon. We're going to let you guys all reestablish your own areas and territories.
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You guys can go back to where you used to live. So they were told by God to go back to rebuild the temple and to reestablish the worship of God in the land of Israel and Judah near the environs of Jerusalem.
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And they got as far as clearing out the foundation area and then the project stalled just like building projects are known to do.
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How many of you ever had a building project? Did it get stalled out? You can keep your hand up. I know. God rebuked the people for this stalling out on the calling that he's placed on their lives to rebuild this temple.
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He rebuked them. They responded. Then he encouraged them. He's promised his strength and presence with his people so far in this book.
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He's let them know that their work will result in a future glory we saw last week, even including his very glory filling the very temple that they're constructing, that they're called to construct.
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And now we find another point of correction in the form of the word of the Lord coming to Haggai again in this final portion of the text.
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They've been working steadily on the temple now for about three months. When December rolls around, they're about to lay a cornerstone.
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We know that's concluded by comparing accounts with Ezra and Zechariah who were contemporaries of Haggai.
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They lived around the same time. And if you read their letters in the Minor Prophets as well, you can kind of triangulate some times and what's exactly going on on this
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December 18th of this year. Why I think it matters, there are some things that I think matter most for our purposes this morning, some things that we need to understand before we even dive into the outline of the text.
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And here's some things that you need to understand in order to really grasp the meaning of this. The first is that this is written to the people of God.
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Now, often when we approach scripture, it's important to know who's being addressed, who's being talked to.
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This is the people of God. They have been called the remnant in this book. That's a semi -technical term for those that are called out from the masses to be a chosen people for His glory.
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That's an Old Testament concept, the idea that God always preserves for Himself in every generation a remnant, those who really do love
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Him. All churches, all established religion goes the way that they want to go, but God will preserve for Himself in every generation a people who are passionate and genuinely in love with Him, and that's these people.
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In other words, this is written to those, what we might call in the modern -day equivalent, the true church, those who really are born again, those who are really in love with Christ, those who are actually
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His and are really all in with Him. The second thing that sets the stage for our understanding in this text is that they are currently working for Him.
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They're currently working. They're doing stuff. To modernize this, He's writing to people who are attending church regularly.
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They are doing the things. They are giving. They are praying. They are worshiping. If you look at their behavior, everything looks pretty good.
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I would imagine that the average person in this context, if you check the presets on their radio, they're all like Christian radio, right?
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They're like in on doing the things and the stuff. That was a joke, by the way. It might not be, actually.
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It just kind of depends on the quality. The third thing that sets the stage is that this remnant has been chosen by God.
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That's declared to them multiple times throughout this text. They were not chosen based on their performance. Like Jacob the swindler or Abraham the liar or Noah the drunk or Peter the brash,
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God has chosen them because He wanted to. He's chosen them just because He wanted to. So the outline in our text this morning goes like this.
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Here's three points. The indictment in verses 10 through 14. His undeserved kindness in verses 15 through 19.
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I said 10 through 14. 15 through 19. And then the third thing is the end game plan, His end game plan, verses 20 through 23.
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So let's start with the indictment of His people. An indictment that sticks. An indictment that sticks really with us, with them, with all of humanity.
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In verses 11 through 13, we get a brief Old Testament introduction to the idea of consecration, the idea of something being made holy.
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Consecration and holiness was a very important concept under the old covenant law. Something we don't really, we don't spend a lot of time thinking about holy and unholy things.
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Clean and unclean things. Holy or unholy. Sacred or common. These are all categories that mean roughly the same thing.
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And even to some degree, some of those barriers have been removed in Christ, right? Praise God that the temple was torn in two at His crucifixion.
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So that that which was holy became, entered into the common realm. How many of you are glad that you have access to God like wherever?
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Like you can just talk to Him. Are you glad for that? Raise your hand if you're glad for that. Like I'm glad that we don't have to come through a priest.
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You don't have to show up here with a lamb to sacrifice in order to have fellowship with God any longer.
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I'm glad for that. So to boil down the teaching from these verses, verses 10 through 13, it's just simply this.
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There's a simple idea behind these three verses, and I'm not even going to get down into the nuance of these. If you have questions about them or there's something specific about verses 10 through 13 that sticks with you, you can talk with me later, but here's the basic gist of these three verses.
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Uncleanness is more contagious than holiness. Filth is more contagious than cleanness.
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One commentator made this so clear by the simple illustration that when your hands are filthy and you wipe them on a white towel, what happens to the towel?
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The towel shows dirt. But what happens when you wipe your clean hands on a filthy towel?
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Does the towel become clean? Does your cleanness on your hands rub off on the towel and all of a sudden it's clean?
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No, we know that's not the case. And that's equal in the spiritual realm he's saying here.
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When you wipe your clean hands on a filthy towel, your hands don't transfer cleanness. This passage is just kind of that simple, applying that physical principle to the spiritual realm.
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And yet I think it's very helpful to see that in verse 11, God encourages the people to consult with the priest to confirm this truth.
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It's a pretty basic level truth. But God, through the prophet, is speaking. And he can say whatever he wants, and he can just say this is so, and then it's on us to believe that it's so.
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But here he asks them, very directly in the text, to confirm with the more ancient written law through the priest.
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He says, go to the priest and ask them. This points us to God's desire to use people in our lives to help us understand his truth.
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Now this is in counter to what I said last week, that I'm glad that each one of us has access to the word and that the word speaks to the people, right?
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Like all of us have the opportunity to read God's word on a daily basis. How many of you have access to a
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Bible? Hopefully you got one on your lap. So if you have access to a Bible, then you have access to the word of God.
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But how many of you are grateful for people? I'm grateful for commentaries. I'm grateful for guys that are scholars. I mean,
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I read guys who, they have their PhD in the book of Haggai. Like this is the book that they've poured their life into studying, and this is it.
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Like this is their big dance. This is their big game. The book of Haggai. I had the privilege of reading some of those resources.
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There are people who know better than me. Now you have to balance all of it, right? You don't just take hook, line, and sinker.
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Because how many of you know that if you only focus on the book of Haggai, you might get off track a little bit? You need a little bit more than that.
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You want people with the right convictions, with the right allegiances, with a love for Christ, all of that stuff.
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But here in the text, he is using other people in the lives of his people.
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It's good to consult with others. It's good to check with authority of what has been written. It is valuable for us to see that God's word is consistent.
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And as Haggai gets new revelation, you've got to remember that in the context in which he's speaking on this day in December of 520
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B .C., this is new revelation. Not to us, it's really ancient. To them it was fresh, it was new, and it was speculative.
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Is what he's saying from God? And he says, check against the previous revelation. Check against what's already been written.
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See that the things that are being revealed through me are true. But God is not merely interested in a lesson in consecration here.
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Consecration is a word that means setting something apart for God's purposes. That's where the title of the message comes from this morning.
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Consecration means, let me say it again, setting something apart for God's purposes. Every Sunday morning
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I pray a prayer that God would cleanse me, make my words and thoughts and motives pure as I get up here to speak his words to all of us.
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I want to be used by God. I want to be a sharp and useful tool to whatever end he has in mind for me.
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And I would encourage you to that end as well. Maybe even a prayer of consecration to the day would be a good action.
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But anything can be consecrated to God that isn't sin. And so think in terms of time.
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Time can be consecrated. The Sabbath is a perfect example of consecrated time. Time that is set apart for the purposes of God.
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So time can be set apart for God's purposes for us in rest and in reflection on him.
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Sabbath. The temple was consecrated space, right? Setting apart an actual location for his purposes of worship and sacrifice.
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I know that there are places in my life that are consecrated unto God. A place like that for me just personally is
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Camp Barachel. A place where I've met with God over the years multiple times. And he's met me there from all the way back in my college days until even as recently as just last fall.
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Or even last summer. So I know that there are, how many of you would identify that there are some places where God routinely has met with you over the course of your life?
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It could even just be like, I've got a brown chair in my living room. It's a bit of a consecrated space.
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Now granted, I might sit there and watch TV from time to time. But that is a holy place in the mornings where I sit and I meet with God.
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I pray and I take in his word. You have places like that in your life. Consecrated places.
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Consecrated time. And then there are consecrated people. The church, for example.
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The church as the body of Christ is a consecration of people. Setting apart a people for the purpose of his worship and praise forever and ever and ever.
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Time can be consecrated. Places can be consecrated. People can be consecrated. In this sense, anything except for sin can be consecrated to God.
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That is offered up for the glory of his use. That means your skills, your talents, your abilities, your handiwork, your art, whatever it is.
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Your hobbies can be consecrated unto God. If they are done with a mindfulness toward him and for his glory, anything can be consecrated for his use.
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But the people are not consecrated to God in our text. I just said that they were chosen. They're his people.
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They are the remnant. They are doing work for him. But they are not setting themselves apart for his glory.
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They are working. Who are they working for? They're doing the things here without the heart.
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The work of their hands and the sacrifices they make are unclean. And God doesn't reveal to us through the book of Haggai what it was that was defiling the people.
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We just know that they're defiled because the text tells us. They are unclean because the works that they do are unclean because they themselves are transmitting that uncleanness.
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Because they themselves are unclean. And so they're transferring the uncleanness to the work of their hands.
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They are not consecrated to his purposes. They are not seeking forgiveness. They are not repenting of sins.
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They are not confessing. They are not seeking a purity that can only come from God. Instead, they are seeking his favor to some degree, seeking favor from him for the mere work and actions of their hands.
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Note the presence of the word work in verse 14. Take special note of that. They are being called unclean even as they are performing a lot of hard work.
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Even as they're working, they are still unclean. This is his chosen people.
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This is who God has to work with. And I want to point out clearly, he doesn't have anybody better to work with.
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He doesn't have any perfect people to work with. There are no perfect people. He will always work with people who have unclean hands.
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He always calls into his service fallen, broken, busted up, jacked up sinners.
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Or he will call no one. Do you know what I'm talking about? You guys are looking at me blank.
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Do you know what I'm talking about? You getting it? He always has to call sinners because that's all he's got to work with.
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Now, I say always because he did send a perfect one, didn't he? Maybe you thought it was a trick question because he did send somebody perfect.
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Guess where he came from? Heaven. He came from outside of us. Certainly in his mother's womb, he was created human, but God sent forth his son to redeem us.
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The one who is perfect comes from heaven. He didn't have anybody down here perfect to work with.
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And so that leads into the second section here. His undeserved kindness on display.
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His undeserved kindness and it's displayed to a defiled people. His undeserved kindness displayed to a defiled people, verses 15 through 19.
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First, he calls his people to consider once again and to keep on considering. He wants us to be a mindful people.
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He wants us to be a thoughtful people. To consider this from this day onward in verse 15 shows that he wants us to routinely meditate on the way that it went for us before we were brought into God's plan.
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He wants us to be mindful of the past. He wants us to be thoughtful and cognizant of the direction and trajectory of our lives before we were brought in.
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And remember that they were brought into this work project by his stirring in their hearts back in verse 14 of chapter 1 of Haggai.
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It was his stirring. There we were told that the difference between working for God and not working for God is an issue of his stirring up our hearts, of his work in us that leads us to a hunger and a desire for him.
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And he wants them to consider what life looks like without worship. When we center our lives on ourselves and we center our lives on our pleasure and on our glory, we languish and falter.
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We do not succeed in that which we set out to accomplish if we set out to please ourselves.
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We become whiny and grumbly and complaining like a lot when we place ourselves at the center of our universe, do we not?
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And what does that say about us as Americans if there's so much grumbling and complaining going on? Who's the center of our lives?
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Who's the center of our universes? You see, our hearts will never be satisfied.
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Our hungers are never met. Our thirsts are never quenched. It's almost like the human heart is made for an eternity that we cannot provide for ourselves.
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It's almost like God has placed eternity in the hearts of mankind, of men and women, that cannot be satisfied on this planet.
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You will never achieve enough. You will never have enough fame. You will never have enough wealth.
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You will never have enough sex. You will never have enough of anything that you think you need to please yourself. You'll never get enough of it.
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Solomon wrote a book to explain to us that he tried. He said, I tried all that and I came up empty.
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Vanity of vanities, he said. Everything under the sun is just toil and kind of worthless. And he exhausted himself trying to achieve pleasure for himself.
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And he wore himself out. It was just kind of monotony trying to watch that much
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Netflix. Got tired of it. Eventually I had sores on my rear end from sitting so long.
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Or I had sores on my hands from working so hard. Or whatever it might be. Are you guys getting it? It's like we were made for eternity and our hearts can't be satiated here.
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And so verse 16 explains that when they were refusing to acknowledge God at all, they would go to a heap of 20 measures of grain only to find 10.
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It was never enough, in other words. They would go to a 50 -gallon wine vat and find that there were only 20 gallons there.
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I said gallons, but it was some measure. Probably not getting 20 gallons of wine. For us, we opened the bag of sour cream and Cheddar Lays potato chips to find it only half full.
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True story, right? So much air. So much air.
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You're just like, I mean, I think I'd be used to it by now and I'd still open a fresh bag and go, where are the chips?
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Or your Wi -Fi keeps going in and out. Ugh! Oh, it's the end of the world.
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My Wi -Fi is not working. We could go on and on with our routine dissatisfactions while we live in the paradise of history and the globe.
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Do you realize where we live? Do you realize the privileges that we have? Do you realize how much free time we have compared to just around the world there are people who live so that they can eat food.
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Like the goal is to grow some crops so that they have something to eat this year. And I'm not just trying to bash us.
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I'm just saying, where's our dissatisfaction coming from? Is it coming from our circumstances?
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You can't convince me that's the case. It's coming from a heart that is made for more and isn't finding it in the right place.
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You get what I'm saying? We are a case study. Our nation is a case study in the fact that stuff cannot satisfy.
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There's all kinds of problems in our culture, don't we? Demonstrate that the stuff will not satisfy.
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And while they remain disobedient to him, while they remained in a lack of worship for him, he disciplined his people.
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He disciplined them. He says, I brought to you blight and mildew and hail.
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They had a really rough year this year. 520 was a rough year for his people. And they're on the knife's edge.
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At this point, some scholars have actually tried to remove verse 17. And again, I said I read commentaries and I read people who specialize.
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And I think some people are like so nuanced and so focused that they miss the forest for the trees. And eventually, they just kind of go a little bit nutty.
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And they're like verse 17 doesn't belong. It doesn't fit. And it's simply this.
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We have a choice before us in verse 17. We can go with those scholars who want to just try to scrub it out. By the way, there's no evidence textually to get rid of it.
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It's just they don't like it. There's a decision point in front of us. How will you view the
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God of the Bible? Will you take him as your God? Or will you invent one that doesn't agree with verse 17?
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Does your God strike with blight? That's a scorching wind is the word that's translated there, blight.
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Or with mildew? It's the opposite. One is a lack of water. The other is too much. Or with hail?
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Does your God have things like that at his disposal? Or does that make you uncomfortable? I can picture a person.
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In fact, unfortunately, I can picture several people by name and by face. But people have said to me over the years, not my
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God. Not my God. Not my Jesus. They would never do that.
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They would never strike with hail. My Jesus, not my God. He would never strike with blight or with mildew.
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No, that's all from Satan, but not God. I've had people sit in my office and say that.
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And in the most general way, I would like to ask a follow -up question. Notice a pronoun in there.
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That's a pronoun. So let's just run with that and say maybe your God wouldn't do that.
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But look at this verse. Look at this passage. Tell me if the God of the
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Bible would. Would the God of the Bible do that? Would the God of the Bible strike with mildew?
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Would he strike with blight? Would he strike with hail? What do you think? Would he do that?
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It says he did. Now you can try to take that and rip that out of your Bible. You can go all Thomas Jefferson on it and cut that out and throw it away or burn it.
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You know, whatever you want to do. Or just tear the whole page out. Who needs Haggai anyway, some people might say.
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Scripture. It addresses God in a way that ought to make us uncomfortable.
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And if it doesn't ever challenge our view of God, then my question is, maybe the God that we're serving isn't found in here.
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I'd suggest that we all need to wrestle accordingly with who it is that we're worshiping. If we're quick to say, my
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God would never, and it's found in the Bible. God says here that he tried to get their attention, but they would not turn to him.
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He says it in the text. At least not until he sent to them a prophet to speak some sense to them, a prophet named
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Haggai. And some might very well ask, why would we turn to you, God? Why would we turn to you if you strike down your people with blight and mildew and bad things and lack?
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When we consider what hardships really ought to accomplish in us, we should be moved to a new perspective, church.
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In our difficulties, God removes our sense of control in order to intentionally increase our discomfort so that we will depend on him more.
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God will do that. Make us uncomfortable to depend on him more.
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This process, I'm going to say something a little controversial, but this process is pretty sick.
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It's fairly demented. It's kind of psycho. If God is not the greatest good in the universe, if God is not the greatest good in the universe, then this is sick and sadistic on his part to cause pain and suffering among people so that we would turn to him.
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To what end? To what end, church? But if he is the greatest good and worthy of all worship, then he is only right and kind and good and gracious to do whatever it takes in our lives to bring us back to him.
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Then that's grace. It's grace that he would make us uncomfortable in our distance from him because he is our greatest good.
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It's him. Our connection with him is the most vital, life -giving, joyful thing that a human can experience.
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He says, I'll do whatever it takes to draw your attention. I'll do whatever it takes to bring you back in.
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That's our God. Whatever it takes to shake you to see that you will not be fulfilled until you are satisfied in glorifying me because I am indeed worthy and I can't not be worthy.
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I am by definition worthy of your everything. This is our
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God. He is right and kind and good to do whatever it takes to arrest us.
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Arrest our slide away from him and bring us back to him. For him to make a restored relationship with him the top priority, either makes him an egomaniac or the supreme cause, purpose, end, and means of all things.
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And there is no question in this text of Haggai that God is quite literally telling the people, I sent you those hardships.
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I sent you a rough harvest. I know that your barns are empty. And I know why, and I'm explaining to you why.
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It is to draw you back to trust in me. Wake up and turn to me now. What are we to make of dark nights of the soul?
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Those sleepless times, nights that can seem to go on for weeks on end and you're just wracked and troubled with some hardships, some difficulties, some relational things, some diagnosis.
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Even just feeling ill, catastrophes, relational turmoil, scary diagnoses.
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What do we do with those? I suggest more dependence and trust in him.
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I'm not saying not every bad circumstance equals a rebuke. Not every time that we experience bad things is he trying to fix us or correct us or show us that we're too far from him.
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But I say with confidence that every dire circumstance is an opportunity to lean more on the strength of the
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Almighty. Don't waste those hard nights. Don't waste that diagnosis.
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Don't waste the catastrophe. But rather use it as fuel for your relationship with him to lean more in dependence on him.
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Let me remind you that he is painting an image of his chosen remnant refusing to turn to him here in this text.
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Not coming with their hearts but merely with their hands. Defiling their very work with him with a lack of consecration, a lack of devotion to him rather than just going through the motions.
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The people are basically saying, God, you can have my effort, you can have some of my money, you can have some of my time, you can have some of my service, you can have my
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Sunday morning, you can even have a little bit of my wallet, but you cannot have all of me. I'm not yours.
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But I will serve you grudgingly. And again in verse 18, he calls them to consider what things were like during the 20 years between the initial building of the temple and the present.
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The seed is not yet in the barn, he says, speaking specifically of that day, December 18th of 520.
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The seed's not there. Go to your granary and look. Open the door and see that there's nothing there.
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As of the date of this prophecy, by December 18th of every year, the granaries would have been running on low because they would have been planting the winter seeds, the winter grains.
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This is from historians. I don't know that much about agriculture, but I get that from others. They're at one of the most dicey times of the year for an agricultural society.
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Even if the last year was tough, especially, rather, if the last year was tough and then the fruit harvest was bad, as the text tells us was the case this year, through God's provision for them, through God's call of correction to them.
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God is here painting a dire picture for his chosen people. You've been under my discipline. You are now responding to my prophet and the building of the temple, even if your heart isn't in it.
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You find yourself on the edge of the knife when it comes to the food supply. You are serving me grudgingly.
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You are serving me in defilement. You are serving me without consecration. And in that context, flies the undeserved kindness of God.
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His undeserved grace poured out on a defiled and unconsecrated, unholy people. But from this day on,
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I will bless you. From this day on, I'm going to bless you.
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I occasionally hear people say, I'm not an Old Testament person. I like the New Testament because that's where the grace is found.
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Church, I find it everywhere. It's all throughout his word. He is a gracious God from Genesis to Revelation.
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These people don't deserve his kindness. They haven't earned his favor. They are not holy enough.
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They have not worked from the storehouses of joy and grace and peace and gladness that he deserves.
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They are not worshiping him in their actions. They're doing the actions. But from this day on,
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I will bless you, he says. Why? Because he has chosen to. He is not a cosmic vending machine that responds without fail to specific inputs.
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I put two dollars in, I get to choose whether to get a Pepsi or a Mountain Dew or whatever. I get out what
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I put in. No. God has a will. And in Haggai, he shows his will to kindness toward an undeserving people.
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I'm going to be glad that you serve a God revealed like that. Because I would like to see a show of hands.
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I'm going to just ask you to do it. How many of you say, I'm unholy? How many of you say that? I'm unholy.
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I'm defiled. I didn't live today perfect yet. I haven't had a perfect day. But how many of you would say,
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I'm glad for God's grace? That's the rescue. That's the hope. Not perfect.
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I'm declared holy, by the way. I want to clarify that because some of you might be going, wait a minute, are you leaning in the wrong direction, Don? We are declared holy by our
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God. By the basis of what Jesus Christ did for us, holy. That's unreasonable in my mind.
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That God would look on Don Felsick and say, holy. He says that. But we know that we're not living into that perfection yet.
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Praise God that one day, glorification, the return of his son. We will live what we're made to be.
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And we don't do that yet. These people have not earned his favor.
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And he says, I will bless you. This all comes to a head for his ultimate purposes through his people in the final four verses of Haggai's prophecy.
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See, God has a will. And in Haggai, he shows his will to kindness toward an undeserving and a defiled people.
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But now we're going to see him expose an end game that he has for his people. Verses 20 through 23.
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This is a separate prophecy that Haggai received on the same day he declared God's favor to the people despite their defilement, despite their unholiness.
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And God speaks to Zerubbabel, their governor, and lets him know that there is an impending judgment coming on all the kingdoms of the world.
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This is kind of future stuff. This is almost really apocalyptic end times.
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All the kingdoms are mentioned here. All the kings doing this. You ask, when in history did this happen?
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Well, it really hasn't yet. And their understanding of this prophecy, they knew it was coming. They don't know all that was going to transpire between the prophecy of Haggai and the fulfillment.
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There's still stuff coming. But it's helpful for us to get a brief snapshot of who Zerubbabel is. His appointment, he was kind of a puppet governor of the
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Persian Empire. He never really, most scholars believe he never quite really had any authority at all.
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He had a title. But really, Persia was still in charge of Judah at this time.
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If he had sought to go against or say anything against Darius, the king of Persia, it would have been over for this people.
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He didn't really have authority. So he is kind of the puppet leader for the
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Persians. But he was very significant to the people of Judah at this time. There's a reason he's descended from the mighty
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King David. Zerubbabel is like great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandson of King David.
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I might have even got the right number of greats in there. But this is the very, remember David, the very king that God met with at the building of the first temple.
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We went through 1 and 2 Samuel recently. I mean as recent as just a couple years ago.
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And going through that, we saw the Davidic covenant in chapter 8 of 2 Samuel.
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And in that, David comes to God and says, I want to build you a house. I want to build you a temple. Enough of this tabernacle tent moving around stuff.
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I have a palace. You don't. This is unfair. We're going to build you a temple. And God says, he says,
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I want to build you a house. And God responds in an interesting way to David. He says, no, I'm not going to build, you're not going to build me a house.
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We'll leave that to your son. We'll leave that to your descendants. And his son Solomon's indeed the one who does it. He says, not you.
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You're not going to build me a house. I'm going to build for you a house. And it's a play on words where the second meaning of the word house is lineage.
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Because the way that he speaks about it later. I'm going to give you descendants. And I'm going to, I'm going to make your throne glorious.
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I'm going to do some amazing things for you. And God went on to clarify that he would raise up one of David's descendants to be an eternal king on an eternal throne.
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And that one would, one would rise up from the lineage of David who would sit on the throne of God forever and ever and ever and ever and ever.
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Well, the people would have kept wondering, is this a rebel, the dude? Is this the guy? He lacks authority.
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He's a mere puppet administrator for the mighty Persian empire. But they would have kept, they would have kept an eye on this guy.
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They'd have been like, is he going to rise up? Is he going to go against Darius? Is God going to do a David and Goliath thing with him and the
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Persians are all going to fall before us and here we go? I mean, we know God has a way of using small guys to do big things.
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That's what VeggieTales taught us at least. And after an image of destroying all nations in verse 22, it's full of Exodus imagery of the horses and the riders going down into the depths and the words, the very terms that are used are
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Exodus -like. And after that, a Hebrew phrase is employed that was a tell. It is a tell in ancient literature that says we are no longer talking about the immediate era that we live in.
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It's this phrase that starts verse 23 in the English Standard Version, on that day.
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When a prophet says, on that day, when Jesus says, on that day, when the
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New Testament writers say, on that day, how many of you know what day we're talking about? The day of judgment.
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The day that it's rolled up. The day that it's coming. And that's what he's saying here. On that day.
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It's a specific technical language that clues us into the prophecy that the prophecy of Haggai is now entering into an end times discussion.
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And the emphasis on the accuracy of this statement is heightened with three declares the
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Lord's in the final verse of our text. Three times. Declares the Lord. Declares the
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Lord. Declares the Lord. In case you think that Haggai is just kind of going off on his own and is saying his own thing. God promises to do three things at the end of time with Zerubbabel.
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Now how many of you know Zerubbabel is not going to be alive then? Did you already know that? Zerubbabel is not around then. He's talking about a descendant of Zerubbabel on that day at the end of time.
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As a matter of fact, Zerubbabel falls off into obscurity. We just don't know where he went after this. He's mentioned here in Zechariah and Ezra and then he's gone.
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But he says, I'm going to take Zerubbabel as my servant. I will make him like a final stamp with God's imprint sealing up history and the world.
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How many of you know a dude named Zerubbabel is not going to do that? And he will do this by his sovereign choice.
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I cannot emphasize enough that to our ears this sounds like mental gymnastics to get to Jesus from verse 23 and some of you might even be speculating sitting there,
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Don, are you sure that's what this is about? I couldn't be more confident that verse 23 is absolutely about the coming
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Messiah. And even the Jews to this day interpret that to be about the
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Messiah. Even the Jews today see the Messiah in this passage. They just don't see Jesus as that Messiah.
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But Jesus taught his followers to understand the end times to be like cycles of Antichrist, cycles of tragedies and cataclysmic activities, cycles of war, all ending like in the book of Revelation with a final
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Antichrist, a final great tribulation, a final great cataclysmic activity, a final war to end all wars, and the final coming forth of the
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Messiah. This imagery is used here including a Messianic figure in the line of the one true final coming
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Messiah who will come through David, come through Zerubbabel and his name is Jesus. Haggai's prophecy ends with the promise that God has the end game in the bag.
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He's got it done. What do we see here? We see God's undeserved grace toward his people, God's final plan to fix it all through a greater descendant of David and a greater descendant of Zerubbabel.
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By the way, you can find Zerubbabel in, that's kind of fun to say, I say that a bunch of times and then it starts to sound weird.
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You can find Zerubbabel in the two New Testament genealogy of Jesus. You can look that up in Matthew chapter one and you can find his name right there in the middle.
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And so what do we do having heard this prophecy from God and having concluded Haggai? Three applications pressed on me this week.
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I'll run through them quick. The first is acknowledge your defilement. Acknowledge your defilement. It would be good for us all to open ourselves up to the conviction of God.
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Maybe even this morning during communion to take the cracker and the juice, take it back to your chair. I don't know what you usually do but take that back to your seat.
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Spend a little bit of time in consecration of just asking God, see if there's anything in me. Is there wickedness in me that's unconfessed?
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Is there anything here? And then talk to him about that and make that right before you participate in that which has set you free.
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We all fall short. So we need to keep on considering, keep on confessing, keep on trusting his goodness towards his people even when it includes his discipline for seasons.
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The second thing is let his grace lead you to consecration. Consider his undeserved grace and allow that to be the force behind your dedication to live for him.
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Someone once said to me that I already heard it said that the tricky part about living sacrifices is that they have a tendency to keep jumping off the altar.
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That's my experience. I need routine mornings of reminding myself that this day belongs to God.
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Sunday mornings will never be enough for us. I need prayers throughout the day. I need times of reflecting on his undeserved kindness.
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I need to hear from him things that stoke love and joy and peace and thankfulness within me.
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A life of consecration is a life regularly connected with the power of forgiveness given to us at the cross of Christ.
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And that leads to the final application from our text. Even this morning, consider the final signature of his kindness in Jesus.
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The signet ring mentioned in the last verse was worn by rulers as their signature. Often worn around the neck, sometimes worn as a ring.
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They would finish writing an edict or a letter and they would melt or drip some wax on the edge of the fold or the rolled up paper on the edge of the scroll and then press their unique identifiable ring into that soft wax leaving an imprint.
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What does God mean to say that the final Zerubbabel will be his imprint?
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Church, fix your eyes on the seal of history. Christ, the greater son of David.
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Christ, the greater son of Zerubbabel. He who bears the perfect imprint of his father.
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He who was chosen to be sent forth by the father to redeem us at the cross.
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And he who will return and roll it all up like a scroll and be the sign off of the almighty on this sin -cursed human history that we're all living in.
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We come to the tables to celebrate that one. Jesus Christ, our hope of glory.
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If Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior and you're at peace with others in this fellowship as much as it's up to you, then please come to the tables and take the cracker and the cup of juice to remember his body and his blood shed for us.
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And you can take that after a time of considering your defilement and then considering his great grace toward we who are unholy.
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This might very well be a good time for some of you to confess before God as you consider what he has done for you even in your defilement.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your grace and mercy that is poured out to us in your son that he is the final imprint, the exact imprint of your nature.
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The one who is going to seal it all up and roll it all up in the end. Father, we long for that day.
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We long for the day of his return when this world will be set right and your people will live with you for eternity without sin.
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But in the meantime, I pray that you would help us to keep on considering, to keep a short account with you, to be ready and quick to come to you, to repent, to apologize, to acknowledge our sin and that even this morning during communion it would be a time of repentance, a time of turning from sins to embrace your forgiveness given to us at the cross.
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We take the cracker to remember his body broken in our place. Take the juice to remember his blood shed.
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It should have been our blood. It should have been our brokenness. It should have been eternity of punishment but he took that eternal punishment on himself there.
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So, Father, I pray that you would allow this to be a springboard for our week to be launched out into a life of gratitude and thankfulness.
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That we who are not a perfect people are being made perfect in the blood of Christ. We thank you for his sacrifice in Jesus' name.