Then spoke Haggai the Lord's messenger in the Lord's message
unto the people, saying, I am with you, says the Lord.
Haggai 1:13 KJV
During this past Saturday's worship service in the chapel, I was asked to give a message of encouragement to those in attendance...
unto the people, saying, I am with you, says the Lord.
Haggai 1:13 KJV
During this past Saturday's worship service in the chapel, I was asked to give a message of encouragement to those in attendance...
Knowing this ahead of time, I was able to seek God's guidance on what to say, and on what passage of the Bible I would use as the main text. It was the Old Testament's book of the prophet Haggai. Which, I could tell as soon as I asked the men to turn to it in their Bibles, that some of them were unfamiliar with it.
Haggai, according to the Scriptures, was a man called by the Lord to rally the people to help rebuild the holy Temple in Jerusalem. It had been abandoned for seventy years when the Israelites were carried off by the Babylonian army. Then, after being held in captivity for seven long decades, they were finally allowed to return to their homeland. And when they did, they found their Temple to be in ruins.
Haggai, therefore, had to rally the people to allow the rebuilding and restoring of the holy Temple to become their top priority. "How could we allow the Lord's Temple to lay in ruins any longer?" he shouted. "God has a work for us to do. So let's lay aside our own selfish plans and join together to rebuild the Lord's house first, even before we fix up our own homes."
And that is what the people did. Excited with a fresh sense of purpose and new vision, they got busy and went to work. The Lord declared, "I am with you" (verse 1:13), and this became the rallying cry of both the young and old.
But from this, my question to the congregation was, "How does this story apply to us?" So I reminded them that, according to the New Testament, we who are members of the body of Christ have now become the temples of the Holy Spirit. Today, in what we call the "church age," God no longer dwells in temples made by human hands, but now He dwells in us.
This was all a part of the Lord's prophecy which was revealed by prophet Isaiah, "A virgin shall bring forth a son, and He will be called Immanuel, meaning God is with us" (Isaiah 7:14). I then went on to explain that, because each of us are now temples of God's Spirit as well as members of the body of Messiah Jesus, we have the responsibility to take care of our temples (our bodies) which the Lord has entrusted to us.
In fact, I told the men, this is such a serious matter that the Lord himself, speaking through the pen of the apostle Paul, warned us by saying, "Don't you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you? God will destroy anyone who destroys His temple. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple" (1 Corinthians 3:16-17).
Watching their body language, I could tell this passage hit home.
We looked at several other passages as well, such as 1 Corinthians 6:18-20, Ephesians 2:21-22 and 1 Peter 2:5 to name a few. My prayer is that the men see ourselves in a way similar to how Haggai wanted the people to see God's holy Temple in Jerusalem. That our temples are to be pure and not filled with sin because we are the property of the Holy Spirit.
I ended the message by having the men read Galatians 2:20. How Messiah Jesus now lives inside us, but he also loves us, and desires we live in such a way that we honor him with our lives. I also added how I needed this message for myself, as well.
D.B.
Haggai, according to the Scriptures, was a man called by the Lord to rally the people to help rebuild the holy Temple in Jerusalem. It had been abandoned for seventy years when the Israelites were carried off by the Babylonian army. Then, after being held in captivity for seven long decades, they were finally allowed to return to their homeland. And when they did, they found their Temple to be in ruins.
Haggai, therefore, had to rally the people to allow the rebuilding and restoring of the holy Temple to become their top priority. "How could we allow the Lord's Temple to lay in ruins any longer?" he shouted. "God has a work for us to do. So let's lay aside our own selfish plans and join together to rebuild the Lord's house first, even before we fix up our own homes."
And that is what the people did. Excited with a fresh sense of purpose and new vision, they got busy and went to work. The Lord declared, "I am with you" (verse 1:13), and this became the rallying cry of both the young and old.
But from this, my question to the congregation was, "How does this story apply to us?" So I reminded them that, according to the New Testament, we who are members of the body of Christ have now become the temples of the Holy Spirit. Today, in what we call the "church age," God no longer dwells in temples made by human hands, but now He dwells in us.
This was all a part of the Lord's prophecy which was revealed by prophet Isaiah, "A virgin shall bring forth a son, and He will be called Immanuel, meaning God is with us" (Isaiah 7:14). I then went on to explain that, because each of us are now temples of God's Spirit as well as members of the body of Messiah Jesus, we have the responsibility to take care of our temples (our bodies) which the Lord has entrusted to us.
In fact, I told the men, this is such a serious matter that the Lord himself, speaking through the pen of the apostle Paul, warned us by saying, "Don't you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you? God will destroy anyone who destroys His temple. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple" (1 Corinthians 3:16-17).
Watching their body language, I could tell this passage hit home.
We looked at several other passages as well, such as 1 Corinthians 6:18-20, Ephesians 2:21-22 and 1 Peter 2:5 to name a few. My prayer is that the men see ourselves in a way similar to how Haggai wanted the people to see God's holy Temple in Jerusalem. That our temples are to be pure and not filled with sin because we are the property of the Holy Spirit.
I ended the message by having the men read Galatians 2:20. How Messiah Jesus now lives inside us, but he also loves us, and desires we live in such a way that we honor him with our lives. I also added how I needed this message for myself, as well.
D.B.
