|
A Pocket Paper
from
The Donelson Fellowship
______________
Robert J.
Morgan
March 19, 2006
Over the years, I’ve read a great number of
missionary stories, and one of favorites is the autobiography
of Lillian Dickson, a missionary who worked among the mountain peoples
of Formosa
(modern Taiwan). In her book, Lillian tells of working in
a particular village where they needed a
meeting place for their church. Most of the other villages built their
church buildings out of bamboo or wood, but after a few years of typhoons
and heavy weather, these buildings would blow down. So Lillian proposed
a different idea and made a unique appeal. She suggested they build a stone
structure—a church made out of river rock. And she asked every Christian family
in that village to make a commitment to carry up
a certain number of stones each day from the river. And that’s what happened. Every family sacrificed the time and
effort to hike down to the river, select appropriate
stones, and carry these heavy rocks back up
to the building site. And as
every person did his or her part,
the church building was built and presumably
is there to this day.
In a sense, this is the pattern
that was established in the Bible and that that it has been in operation
since Old Testament times. As
God’s work grows, it needs tools and facilities to fulfill its purpose
and mission; and so everyone sacrifices, everyone pitches
in, everyone gives as they can, and together the
work moves ahead.
In the Bible, there are five major stewardship
campaigns. The first was to raise the money for
the Tabernacle. The second was to
raise the money for the Temple. The third was for the rebuilding of
the walls around Jerusalem during
the days of Nehemiah. (I’m not
planning to devote a message to that just
because of time). Today I’d like to deal with the fourth major
stewardship and building campaign
in the Bible, which was for the building of the Second
Temple,
and this story is given to us in the book of the prophet
Haggai. That’s where
I’d like for us to turn today for our Scripture
reading.
In the second year
of King Darius, on the first day of the sixth month,
the word of the Lord came through the prophet
Haggai to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel,
governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest.
This verse gives us the historical setting for the book of
Haggai, and it’s impossible to
understand this story if we don’t know something of the
background. Last week, I talked
about how King David raised the funds for the building of the First
Temple. His son, Solomon,
was in charge of building that Temple;
and that magnificent building sat atop Temple
Mount in Jerusalem
for hundreds of years. But in the
year 586 B.C., it was destroyed by the Babylonians, the city of Jerusalem
was burned to the ground, and the Jewish people
were exiled from their land.
Seventy years passed; and
just as the prophet
Jeremiah had predicted, in the timing and in
the providence of God the Persian Emperor
passed an edict allowing a remnant of the
Jewish people
to return to Jerusalem to
reestablish the city and to rebuild their Temple. The book of Ezra describes how a
delegation of thousands of Jews packed their
bags, said goodbye to their friends in the Diaspora,
and returned to Jerusalem. Their hearts were broken as they
arrived in the city of their fathers and saw that the site of the once-great Temple
of Solomon
was nothing but an overgrown field of charred ruins, the home of foxes,
snakes, and jackals. The people
started to work, cleared the site, erected an altar, and laid the foundation;
but the work was hard, their resources were meager, and they faced mounting opposition
from the Palestinians.
Finally, this remnant just stopped
working on the project altogether. They settled down into their own homes
instead and built houses for themselves and began enhancing their own
lifestyles. And the work on the
House of God lay dormant for eighteen years.
Then the Lord raised up
two preachers—Zechariah and
Haggai. Last year, I preached
a series of sermons from Zechariah, and I’ll not revisit him today; but
I’d like to focus on what Haggai had to say. He preached
several sermons on this subject, and I want to show you two of them. The first sermon is in chapter
one, and the second sermon is in chapter
two.
God Will Build It (Haggai 1:2-15)
Haggai’s first sermon could be titled, “God is
Going To Build It Through Us.”
Let’s continuing reading with verse 2:
This is what the
Lord Almighty says: “These people say,
‘The time has not yet come for the Lord’s house to be built.’” Then the word of the Lord came through
the prophet
Haggai: “Is it time for you
yourselves to be living in your paneled
houses, while this house remains a ruin?”
Now this is what the
Lord Almighty says: “Give
careful thought to your ways. You
have planted much, but have harvested
little. You eat, but never have
enough. You drink, but never have
your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”
In other words, you are always struggling financially, and
there is never enough to make ends meet.
Why is this? Well, read
on:
This is what the
Lord Almighty says: “Give
careful thought to your ways. Go
up into the mountains and bring down timber
and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says
the Lord. “You expected much, but see,
it turned out to be little. What
you brought home, I blew away.
Why?” declares the Lord Almighty. “Because of My house which
remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house. Therefore, because of you the heavens
have withheld their dew and the earth its crops.
I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain,
the new wine, the oil and whatever the ground produces, on men and cattle, and on the
labor of your hands.”
That passage does not
require much commentary. The people
had been dragging their feet with the Lord’s work, they had evidently
been withholding their tithes and fund offerings, and they were using their
money for their own purposes,
to put nice paneling
in their own houses and to build up their
own portfolios. But in the process,
they had lost the blessings of God on their finances. Haggai was very bold to tell them this,
but his message touched a cord.
Look at what happened.
Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel,
Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the whole remnant of the people
obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and the message of the prophet
Haggai, because the Lord their God had sent him. And the people
feared the Lord. Then Haggai, the
Lord’s messenger, gave this message to the people: “I am with you,” declares
the Lord. So the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel
son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua son of Jehozadak,
the high priest, and the spirit of the whole remnant of the people. They
came and began to work on the house of the Lord Almighty, their God, on the
twenty-fourth day of the sixth month in the second year of King Darius.
So the people
made some significant changes in their lives. They gave of their means and they
re-allocated their time, and they went to work with their hands; and the Lord
was with them, and the building project
resumed after eighteen years of inactivity.
As I have studied these various passages,
I’ve become increasingly convinced of the main thesis I’m presenting
in these series of messages. There
are two ways of financing God’s work. The first involves the day-by-day expenses
of kingdom work, which is to be funded by the faithful tithes and offerings
of God’s people. But, secondly, there are occasional
moments of special opportunity
when we can go above and beyond our regular gifts, committing ourselves to
make a series of sacrificial gifts that will help
the kingdom work advance in a quantum way. These are occasions when we can do
something for the Lord that will set the stage for future generations to
minister. As we are obedient to
the heavenly mandate, the Lord opens up
the windows of heaven and blesses us in needed and unexpected
ways.
I want to give you an example. Last Sunday night, instead of meeting
here for our regular Sunday night service, we divided into Home Fellowships,
based on our Sunday School Life Groups. Each of these Home Fellowships
viewed a video about our Loving God, Loving People
building program, and prayer
was made to the Lord in each of these sessions. I’ve been so very gratified by
reports from these Home Fellowships. Everyone who has talked with me about
their own particular one has been moved; and
the only complaint I’ve heard is that
some of the groups wanted more time. Isn’t that wonderful? The Home Fellowship
I attended was packed, and there were tears
in our eyes as we thought of what the Lord is doing here among us.
Well, this week my mind traveled back ten years ago, to
another set of very similar Home Fellowships. It seems hard to believe, but it was
in the fall of 1996 when we had a similar set of meetings throughout our
church as we prepared
to build this Celebration Center. Our theme was Faith That Builds, and we produced
a video much like the one we showed last Sunday night. Shortly after those Home Fellowships,
I received a letter from one of our members. It’s dated October 3, 1996, and I want to read a little of
it to you.
Dear Rob,
Committed faithful tithing has always been a problem for me—not in
believing that tithing is biblically based or commanded by God—but,
rather, by personal commitment and personal surrender by faith
to God’s promises.
This has been a special personal problem in the last year
during a time of financial struggling…. Due to financial struggles and excessive
work times, I have been diligently searching for another job for over a
year. I have sent over 150
resumes to prospective employers and received enough “no
thanks” letters to discourage anyone. In the last year, I have been
interviewed about 10 times. Still
no luck….
Yet, in all this, I remained faithful to prayer and the Bible. But not fully faithful. No tithing. On the rare occasion that a tithing
check was written, it would often be held for weeks until I was sure we would
not need the money. Obviously,
there was no faith in God’s promise of provision. That was until the Home Fellowship of September 22. After viewing the Faith That Builds video and discussing the topic afterwards, I made a personal, silent commitment
to begin tithing on a regular basis.
Guess what happened in my life based upon this commitment. Here is a chronology of events…
And my friend went on to describe how, within the course
of one week, things begin to come together regarding a new job opportunity,
and literally moments after writing the tithe check, he received a phone
call from a potential employer,
scheduling a second interview. The
next week, he was offered a job resulting in a 30 percent
increase in his income and tremendous opportunities
for advancement and pay increases.
He ended his letter saying:
As I look at his chronology, I am convinced that
it is the blessings directly from the hand of God in response to a sincere promise made in silence and
put into motion by faith at
the next opportunity. Now I am “afraid” not to
tithe… God is faithful to
His promises and abundantly more faithful to His children. I look forward to having the opportunity to make
sacrificial gifts over the next three years to our expansion program.
Isn’t that a wonderful testimony? And it’s typical
of what the Lord does in our lives.
As we give of our money and means, the Lord takes our funds, large and
small, and uses them as He builds His work through us.
You say, well, how much should I pledge
in this stewardship effort? Let me say several things about that.
- On
Palm Sunday, we’re going to ask everyone to make a three-year
commitment to this building program. Some of our leaders will have
made their commitments in advance, but we’re asking everyone in
the church to make a three-year commitment on that day. You can do this with
confidentiality, because it’s between you and the Lord. Unless you tell me personally,
I will never know what you have or have not committed. We’ll receive those on Palm
Sunday, and on Easter Sunday, we’ll have the First Fruits
offering, in which we ask everyone to make the first gift toward this project
based on their commitment.
- I
know that many people
in our church can give more than they are thinking about giving. This isn’t about what you
can give right now. This is about what the Lord can
enable us to give over the next three years. To be honest, I’m
stretching my commitment over four years in order to give a little bit
more and take advantage of the tax deductions. But it is a faith-gift, and many people
really and truly can take the amount they are considering right now, add
a zero to it, and trust God to provide
that amount by faith. By
God’s grace, we can give more than we think we can.
- Third,
there are no small gifts. The
commitments will all come in varying amounts, but there is no such thing
as a small gift. All the
gifts are large in the Lord’s eyes and in our eyes. In my files is a clipping
of a little girl who, many years ago, developed
a burden to share the message of Christ with those who have never
heard. She had very little,
and these were in the days when money was hard to come by; but she managed
to save one penny, and she sent it to a
missionary in Burma. The small coin was all she had,
but she gave it with her heart.
The worker on the foreign field was deeply
touched by the child’s earnestness, and he decided he would do the
most he could with that money.
After careful thought, he purchased
a Gospel tract and personally
gave it to a young Chieftain.
The tribal leader was unable to read, but as the young man looked
at the tract, he grew intensely curious, and he finally left home and traveled
250 miles to find someone who could translate and read it to him. After hearing the Gospel
message, he came to faith in Christ. Returning to his own people,
he told them what the Lord had done for him, and he invited missionaries
to come and to preach to his entire
village. Many tribesmen were
converted and a church was planted—all
because of one little girl whose gift appeared
very small by human standards, but it was very large in the sight of
God.
Little is much if God is in it; so here in chapter
1, Haggai’s first message was:
God is Going to Build It Through Us.
God Will Bless It (Haggai 2:1-9)
Now, in chapter 2, Haggai
preached another sermon, and we can title
this one: “God is Going to
Bless It For Us.”
Let’s read this portion:
On the twenty-first
day of the seventh month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet
Haggai: “Speak to Zerubbabel
son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, to Joshua son of Jehozadak,
the high priest, and to the remnant of the people. Ask
them, ‘Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it now seem to you like
nothing?’”
I love this passage. What happened,
of course, is this. As the work
resumed on the Temple,
the old timers who remembered the great and glorious Temple
of Solomon
grew discouraged and disappointed,
because there was no way that this new building could match the splendor
of the previous one, which they remembered. Solomon’s
Temple
had been the most expensive and extravagant
structure on the face of the entire earth. It was a wonder of the world. There was no way this tattered remnant
could replicate the ornate splendor
of the Temple
of Solomon. They were building a functional
building, but it wasn’t gilded in gold or lined with marble. And the present
reality, when compared to their prior
memories, cast a pall of discouragement over
them. But look at what the Lord
is going to say:
But now, be strong,
of 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 covenanted with you
when you came out of Egypt.
And my Spirit remains among you. Do not fear.
In other words, you may not be able to build a palace,
but you will be able to enjoy a Presence. It may not be overlaid with gold, but
it can be filled with God. It may
not be dazzling with silver, but it can be filled with His Spirit. But there’s more. The next verse brings to us one of the
great Messianic promises of the Old
Testament.
This is what the
Lord Almighty 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
nations, and the desired of all nations will come, and I will fill this house
with glory,” says the Lord Almighty. The silver is mine and the gold is
mine, declares the Lord Almighty.
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 the Lord Almighty.
Here’s what the Lord was saying: You are rebuilding this temple,
but you think that it will never match the glory that belonged to the Temple
of Solomon. But you’re wrong about
that. Because the time will come
in days ahead when I will shake the nations, and a person—a
Messiah—will appear
on the stage of history, and He is the Desired of All Nations. And this Temple
that you are building right now is the very building in which He will be
taken to as an infant to be dedicated to Jehovah. He will come back here and confound
the rabbis as a twelve-year-old boy.
He will come here and teach the nations as an adult. And this Temple
will become His place of ministry. You are building this building, not
for yourselves, but for Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Desire of all Nation. And even Solomon’s
Temple
in all its glory cannot compare with that.
Do you remember that stanza from Charles Wesley’s
Christmas Carol on this theme? It
says:
Come, Desire of Nations, come;
Fix in us Thy humble home….
That’s what they were doing; and with all my heart,
that’s what I think we are trying to do here. I want our building and classrooms
here on this property
to be a place where Jesus Christ ministers
and where He does a great work. I
want Him to tend the babies in our nursery and create a heavenly atmosphere
which will penetrate their tiny hearts. I want Him to teach our children in
our new children’s ministry center. How well do I remember Marge Bailey
and Jean Campbell, those dedicated godly
women who taught me, when I was a little boy in primary
and junior Sunday School, and who helped me
memorize my first Bible verses. I
want the Lord Jesus to head up our Youth
Ministry, grabbing the heart of our students and turning them into a
generation of world-changers for Him.
I want the Lord Jesus to encourage our singles and to build up
our homes and to win men and women and boys and girls to the Lord Jesus
Christ.
Haggai said:
God is Going to Build It Through Us, and He is Going to Bless It For
Us. It is all of Him, from first
to last. The glory of this present
house will be greater than we could ever imagine; God will use us in marvelous
ways; Jesus will be here among us—reaching, teaching, winning, and
sending; and in this place He will grant peace.
Copyright
Statement
We grant permission
for any edition of The Pocket Paper to be photocopied
for use in a local congregation or classroom, provided
no more than 1,000 copies are made, the
material is distributed free, and the copies
include the notice: "Copyright (year)
The Donelson Fellowship."
For any other use, advance permission
must be obtained from The Donelson Fellowship
church office.
|