Whose house are you building – yours or God’s?

Sermon Outline (06 August 2023) Speaker: Luther-King Ekama. Song: Atmosphere Shift (our God is champion) - 5 minutes Title: Whose house are you building - yours or God's? Text: Haggai 1:1-14, Matthew 5:14-16 (NIV) Time: 30 minutes Introduction. [3 minutes] > Icebreaker introduction o Talk about the way you felt when Pastor invited you to preach - speechless. o Thank God for the grace to stand on this altar to be His mouthpiece. o Thank the church leadership for the opportunity to share and to grow. o Thank your wife for allowing you room to pray and to prepare. o Cheer the bravery of your listeners to sit to listen to you. > Short testimony/highlight from the Faith Conference 2023. o God stirred my spirit, like a chef would do. o Bishop Masinde - walk blameless before God; our faith is countercultural. o Bishop Mnkandla - living in the fear of God and in anticipation of the second coming. o Pastor Anderson - the marketplace is the largest mission field, pray for my workplace. Read text aloud, with all standing in reverence. [2 minutes] Pray. "Whose house are you building - yours or God's?" Objectives. [2 minutes] Through this teaching this morning, I'm trusting God to: > help us better understand who He is, and to fear and revere Him a bit more than we did yesterday. > help us understand what 'The House of God,' as referred to by scriptures, means. > stir in our hearts the urgency and importance of His house being built. > help us see the roles we must play in the building of His house. A background story. [3 minutes] > Do you know when democracy started? God intended to be King over His people, but they rejected Him and yearned for a human king (1 Samuel 8). > Samuel, the priest, ordained Saul --> Saul lost his kingdom because of his pride --> God anoints David to replace Saul. > After God gave David victory over his enemies and settled him as king in Jerusalem, David had the ark of God brought to Jerusalem (1 Chronicles 13-16). > In 1 Chronicles 17, king David sought to build a house for God, but God prevents him from doing so because he was a man of war. God then promises to establish the kingdom of David forever through his offspring, and then appoints this offspring as His designated servant to build His house. > Solomon successfully built a temple for God to dwell (2 Chronicles 2-6), but this temple was destroyed by the Babylonians when they conquered Jerusalem and led the people of Israel and Judah away in exile to Babylon in 587/586 B.C. Babylon was then conquered by Cyrus of Persia. > In a bid to deliver His people from bondage back to Jerusalem to rebuild the destroyed temple, God stirred the heart of Cyrus to release willing Jews back to Jerusalem with lots of gifts to rebuild the house of God, to fulfill prophecies spoken by God's prophets - Isaiah and Jeremiah (Ezra 1:1-3, Isaiah 44:28). Some observations from the text. [5 minutes] * It was God who called them out of exile (bondage/death) to Jerusalem (God's holy city/life) to rebuild his house, and HE made all necessary provisions available for the work. Ezra 1:1-3, 4 * The people of God abandoned the rebuilding project [Vauxhall & Tithe]. Haggai 1:2-4 [the right time - Hebrews 4:7] o Fear (Ezra 3:3, 4:9-10) o Comfort (Ezra 3:1-2, 6, 8-13; follow-through) o Opposition/discouragement/past failures (Ezra 4:1-5, 24 [Hebrews 12:2-4, Romans 5:3-5]) o Lack of knowledge (Ezra 6:4b [Haggai 2:3-9]) - SCC Discipleship Tracks "Don't give up, rebuild, shine your light." - school, workplace, community. * Their disobedience/negligence led to a God-ordained series of disappointment in Jerusalem. Haggai 1:5-6, 9 Consider your ways - what are you doing to advance and build the house of God? * God didn't leave His people in their fear and shame, HE sent the prophets Haggai and Zechariah to challenge and encourage them to do the work. Ezra 6:14-15, Haggai 1:12-14. Who's calling you to build His house? [3 minutes] * The LORD All-Powerful, LORD of Hosts, LORD of Heaven's armies, is Sovereign [my dad's sneeze would shake the house growing up; constitutional vs absolute monarchy]. Haggai 1:2, 9-11, Psalm 135:6-7 * The LORD provides. Ezra 1:4, Genesis 22:14 * Immanuel (the LORD is with us). Haggai 1:13, Isaiah 7:14 This all-powerful God, to whom all the gold and silver belongs, will provide all we need and will be with us. What, then, is the house of God? (Psalm 23:6, Haggai 2:1-9, 20-23) [5 minutes] * The corporate body of Christ - the church. Ephesians 2:14-22, 1 Peter 2:4-5 Consider your ways - what are you doing to advance and build the house of God? How does God want us to build His house? [5 minutes] * Acknowledge that it's the LORD who builds His house. Matthew 16:13-19 * Go up into the mountains. Haggai 1:7-8, Matthew 5:14 Yes, trees can grow on mountains. The tree line is the edge of the habitat at which trees are capable of growing. It is found at high elevations and high latitudes. Beyond the tree line, trees cannot tolerate the environmental conditions (usually low temperatures, extreme snowpack, or associated lack of available moisture). Trees grow shorter and often at lower densities as they approach the tree line, above which they are unable to grow at all. o Encounter GOD (Isaiah 9:2) o Throw yourself into the word of God (2 Timothy 3:16-17, Deuteronomy 6:6-9) o Gain strength in the place of prayer (Luke 18:1;8b) * Christ began His earthly ministry praying after His baptism (Luke 3:21) * Christ prayed during His earthly ministry (Luke 5:16) * Christ prayed before He chose the twelve apostles (Luke 6:12-13) * Christ prayed at the brink of his death (Luke 22:39-44) * Bring down timber. John 15:1-4, Galatians 5:22-24 * Build the house of God. o Love one another deeply. (John 15:12-14, Romans 12:10) o Serve each other faithfully. (John 13:12-15, Romans 12:3-8) o Meet (LTGs, MLCs, Sunday Celebration, etc.). (Hebrews 10:23-25, Ephesians 4:11-16) o Obey and pray for your spiritual leaders. (Hebrews 13:17-18) Conclusion. [2 minutes] God isn't asking us to build His house and leaving us to it, HE has given us all we need to build, via His Holy Spirit. God wants to equip and anoint us so that He can build His house by our hands, the hands of His holy devoted army. And as our General, Jesus has given us this command: Matthew 28:18-20. Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Pray that God will make you willing and obedient and ask Him to stir your heart! 2 | Page