The Story of Return

Haggai 1:1–15 ESV

In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest: “Thus says the Lord of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.” Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins? Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes. “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord. You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors.” Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him. And the people feared the Lord. Then Haggai, the messenger of the Lord, spoke to the people with the Lord’s message, “I am with you, declares the Lord.” And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and worked on the house of the Lord of hosts, their God, on the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.

By show of hands, how many of you in the last two weeks to a month would have described your life… your schedule… as “busy”?

How many of you would have described your life in the last two weeks as REALLY busy?

Just think about all the responsibilities and people that pulled you in different directions this week:

Maybe you had a project at work that took some extra hours to complete...

Here’s a chart from an organization called “Sloww” that plotted statistics from the the US Bureau of Labor from the American Time Use Survey.

Maybe your kids had sports to get to...

The long lines you see at the top are personal care including sleep… so that totally makes sense… the lines top out around 9.5-10 hours each day...

Kids and teens… maybe you had big projects in 7 different subjects at school and all the teachers wanted them due at the same time...

Eating and drinking is next, around an hour...

Maybe you actually took some time to get away, only to feel like you had to jam all the same amount of work in as if you never left...

Jump down to the next longest line… working and work related activities average around 4 hours per day, wiith the longest line there representing men on weekdays averaging around 6 hrs… I know in our church, that number is MUCH higher.

Maybe your house needed work… or someone else needed help with their house...

Leisure and sports is the third set of long lines… averaging between 5 and 8 hours a day...

Maybe you volunteered time for a local organization who had some needs...

Maybe you received mail from an organization asking you to donate more time or more money or just do something more for them...

And all of that is supposed to somehow fit around a regular healthy routine of eating, sleep and exercise… not to mention reading your Bible and praying...

In any given week, there are a million demands pulling us in what seem like a million different directions...

And the set of lines above leisure activities is organizational, civic and religious activities, averaging between 30-45 minutes.

It seems like everyone is saying the same thing, “Make MY thing YOUR thing...” and the noise of the requests can be deafening.

Now obviously I don’t show that chart to suggest a 1:1 correlation between length of hours and how much you care about certain things...

Sleeping is just a necessity of life… God created us that way...

But I mainly show that chart to show how many things are pulling us in a million different directions...

And I probably don’t have to tell you that or show you that in a chart… most of us feel it in our bones…

I wrote to you all this week that the world and its demands seem to pull us in like a vortex…

There is a constant crying out from all directions: “make MY thing YOUR thing.”

Our bosses… and the activists on the news… and our kids’ schools… and other organizations… and our family members...

But in the middle of all the noise, there is ONE voice that matters saying the exact same thing: “make MY thing YOUR thing.”

It’s the voice of the Lord that we need to learn to listen to… and it’s his activity and his concern that we need to make our highest aim in life.

Today, as you hear this message, what I don’t want you to hear is PASTOR Ben saying, “Make MY thing YOUR thing.”

I have to be honest, there is a bit of fear that you will hear this message that way.

That you

That I would just be adding to all the noise of people making demands on your time.

That someone here would think, “Oh he’s the pastor… of course he’s supposed to tell us to stay focused on this thing…

just like my teacher is supposed to tell me to make my schoolwork a priority...

or my boss is supposed to tell me to make my work a priority...

and my spouse is supposed to tell me to make my family a priority…

the PASTOR is the one who is supposed to nag me about the church… and I’ll just have to drown out the message in the midst of all the other messages.

But here’s deal… the church of Jesus Christ… the church here at Oak Hill... is not my thing… or the elders’ thing… it’s God’s thing… and it needs to be OUR thing together.

And so with fear of the Lord and great care for you, I’m praying that you would hear HIS VOICE cutting through the noise saying, “Make MY thing YOUR thing.”

It’s only when we do that, that we can actually experience freedom from all the noise.

Really that’s been the goal of this whole series: God’s Story, My Story… That we would find our place in God’s unfolding story of salvation in Jesus Christ.

And it’s in this

That we would find our place in God’s unfolding story of salvation in Jesus Christ.

God is writing a story that has been unfolding since the beginning of time… and we are part of that greater story...

We need to hear his voice saying, “Make MY thing your thing… make MY story the greatest concern of your story...”

And it’s when we hear him cut through the noise of our busy lives that we find the reason for which we were created.

Today I am closing out MY contribution to the Old Testament section of this series…

next week we will have my friend Ricky Beck, pastor at Harvest Bible Chapel Buffalo with us to preach from the book of Proverbs because the wisdom literature is a big part of the OT story…

Then the month of November we will cover the New Testament portion of the series…

So as we come to the final period of time recorded in the OT, let’s go after this big Idea together:

Big Idea: Return to the priority of building up God’s church in the present age.

Return… The title of today’s sermon is “The Story of Return...”

and by that, I mean primarily the RETURN of the kingdom of Judah from Exile...

But really, the whole story of God is one of his people needing to RETURN to the Lord...

The story begins with God creating a world where everything was GOOD for the flourishing of his relationship with with humanity...

But then Adam and Eve sinned… and God expelled them from the garden… he scattered them across the face of the earth...

But after many generations, he brought a man named Abram from the land of Babylon to RETURN him to a place of blessing and a land of promise…

Abram and his family line lived there for a little while, but because of a famine, Abram’s descendents ended up in Egypt… for 400 years… and they were subjected to slavery...

So God delivered them and RETURNED them to the promised land...

And once in the promised land, these people… we come to know them as the nation of Israel... rebelled against God…

God gave them judges to RETURN their hearts to him…

Eventually God gave Israel Kings to represent him on the earth… making a promise to David that if his sons followed after him, he would bless them… and if they did not he would discipline them...

Which ultimately led to a divided kingdom…

the Northern Kingdom called Israel… Always rebelling against the Lord...

Always rebelling against the Lord...

The Southern Kingdom called Judah… usually rebelling against the Lord...

Which ultimately led to both kingdoms being conquered and the people carried off to this place of Babylon...

First, the Northern Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Assyrians...

Then the Assyrians were conquered by the Babylonians… that’s who conquered and carried off the Southern Kingdom of Judah into Slavery...

And then 70 years later, the Babylonians were conquered by the Persians… who allowed the Jews to RETURN to their land.

God had put it on the heart of King Cyrus of Persia to allow any Jew who wanted to return to Jerusalem to RETURN and rebuild the temple...

And he appointed a guy named Zerubbabel… who just HAPPENED to be in the line of King David… to be governor over that area…

Now during this period of time, we see three waves of Exiles returning under three leaders with three different priorities that God had for them...

Now during this period of time, we see three waves of Exiles returning under three leaders with three different priorities that God had for them...

Zerubbabel and the first wave of returning exiles, like I said, were to make sure the temple was rebuilt after it had been destroyed by the Babylonians…

The second wave came with Ezra who was a priest… and his priority was to restore the temple worship and restore Israel’s obedience to the covenant law...

And the third wave came with Nehemiah who was to oversee the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem that had been destroyed so that God’s people could dwell secure.

And all of these goals centered on this one priority: God’s people in God’s place experiencing God’s presence.

The temple was the place where God had promised his presence would be specially located...

In addition to that, proper temple worship… with all of its sacrifices and cleansings... was essential to dealing with sin so that the people could maintain their covenant relationship to God...

And Jerusalem was the central place of God’s reign on earth…

So this RETURN had everything to do with getting God’s people back to God’s place to experience God’s presence.

But just like all of us… in all three waves of returning exiles… they got distracted by other priorities...

They had their own houses to build instead of God’s temple...

They had their own carnal desires instead of obeying the covenant law...

There were people who threatened their safety and progress in rebuilding the wall… and rebuilding the kingdom of God...

And so God sent PROPHETS to say, “Return the priority that God has set before you to build!”

Haggai was one of those prophets… he was sent to call Zerubbabel and the first wave of exiles back to the building of the temple…

Read with me in .

If we are going to return to God’s priority, it has to start here:

1) Discern God's priority in our part of the story: building his church (v. 1-4)

Explain: So Cyrus, the King of Persia who allowed the Israelites return to the land, is now gone and Darius has assumed the throne back in the capital city of Persia… he’s been reigning for over a year… which means that the exiles have been back in Jerusalem somewhere between 13 and 15 years… the temple project has been underway for a LONG time…

Just to put it into perspective: Oak Hill has been a church for 11 years… 13 years ago would have been 2005… that’s two years before the first iphone was released...

So the temple project has been going on for at least 13 years… and we are going to see that the project has actually stalled out.

Zerubbabel and Joshua… the general contractors… had let their subcontractors get lax… they let them get busy doing other things.

So on the first day of the sixth month… which (according to commentator Joyce Baldwin) that puts us right in the prime harvest season in Israel… Israel is PRIMARILY an agricultural society… so right in the middle of their harvest season, God gives this message through the prophet Haggai.

According to commentator Joyce Baldwin, that puts us right in prime in harvest season in Israel…

It’s a busy time… but the first day was also a new moon, which usually was a day of rest… a holy-day observance...

So in the midst of all their busy distraction, they’ve come to worship together for a moment. This is a prime opportunity for God to send a prophet to talk to a BUSY people.

And God sends a message THROUGH Haggi TO Zerubbabel and Joshua the High Priest… and the message is pretty simple:

Thus says the Lord of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.” Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?” (, ESV)

This is a pretty sharp rebuke from God.

In other words, “You say you have no time to build my house… but you seem to have a enough time for you to keep building and enjoying your own houses...”

And we are going to see in the next verses that farming… their work… was also keeping them from rebuilding the temple.

Now remember what the temple was and what it meant to the nation of Israel:

The temple was the place where God’s presence powerfully dwelled with his people...

It’s where the ark of the covenant was kept in the middle of the Holy of Holies...

And when Solomon built the first temple (the one they are now reconstructing) God’s glory initially came down with FIRE there to consume the burnt sacrifices...

So it wasn’t just that the presence of God was ther, but it was also where people brought their sacrifices to deal with their sin and enter into right relationship with God.

The temple was the place where God’s presence was made known and their relationship was maintained.

And beyond that, when Solomon dedicated the temple, he said that it was to become a house of prayer for all nations...

That as the other nations saw God work on behalf of Israel, they would come and seek their Creator there THROUGH Israel’s covenant.

The temple was an important place in God’s plan.

It was God’s priority in that part of the story.

But we don’t go to a temple to worship… God’s presence is IN us through his Holy Spirit… and the once-for-all sacrifice has been made by Jesus Christ...

And so how does this relate to us? Well… Just like in their part of the story, God’s priority was the temple… In OUR part of the story, God’s priority is building the church.

And God set a priority before them: build the temple. Restore temple worship. Rebuild Jerusalem’s walls.

It’s not primarily an individual focus that God has like we often think about in salvation in American Christianity…

But over and over again, they let their own thing distract them.

They were busy building their own houses… harvesting their crops...

God is still concerned with gathering a whole PEOPLE to experience his PRESENCE together…

All GOOD things when put in their proper place… but they had forgotten that apart from a relationship with God, NONE of it mattered.

and instead of one specific place, he has promised to reveal himself in powerful ways wherever his CHURCH gathers together locally in the way that he has called us.

And so they said, “It’s not the right time.”

Let me show you this from a few scriptures.

I think we say that a lot to God. “It’s not the right time.”

In their part of the story, God’s priority was building the temple… In OUR part of the story, God’s priority is building the church.

In OUR part of the story, God’s priority

Jesus said in - “...I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (, ESV)

Jesus did this by dying on a cross to pay for the sins of Jews and Gentiles alike… and just when it looked like Hell had won, he rose again to new life so that Satan, Sin and Death could have no victory.

And as the message of Christ’s salvation is proclaimed and believed that JESUS is the Savior King… the Christ… the Son of the Living God… he is building his church…

He is building his church as he sends the Holy Spirit to indwell those who put their faith in him… so that they become more like him together and use their spiritual gifts and his spirit-inspired word… and spirit-transformed character… to build up his body...

And he is building his church as they go out as Spirit empowered witnesses to call more people to experience his presence...

Paul wrote to the Ephesian CHURCH - “In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” (, ESV)

The CHURCH… not the building, but the people… is the TEMPLE in this part of the story… they are his priority…

And notice he says we are being built TOGETHER...

We aren’t cement blocks laying around the stock yard over at Walter and Jackson… all doing our own thing...

We are blocks being laid TOGETHER to create a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

He wrote to the Corinthian church as a WHOLE (not individual persons in context) - “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.” (, ESV)

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

And then Paul charges them to be careful about how they BUILD upon the foundation that he has laid which is Jesus Christ.

He wrote to the Corinthian church as a WHOLE (not individual persons in context) - “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.” (, ESV)

And then Paul charges them to be careful about how they BUILD upon the foundation that he has laid which is Jesus Christ.

The TEMPLE God is building in the present age is his CHURCH…

And specifically, he is building LOCAL churches… local groups of believers committed to helping one another live out their faith in Christ in the way God has described in the New Testament.

In the church, we experience his presence in a unique way TOGETHER…

In the church, we represent his presence to the watching world… we become the house of prayer to all nations...

That’s the building project that God is most concerned with right now.

Now back to Haggai… when God’s priority in their part of the story was a very literal building project of the temple, their response was, “It’s not the right time.”

I have house projects to do at home… I have a harvest that needs to be brought in…

Illustrate: And isn’t our response often the same: “It’s not the right time.”

It’s not the right time for me to share the gospel with that person… I’m just too busy to invest in that relationship for the gospel...

It’s not the right time for me to pursue biblical community or accountability like the Bible talks about… I’ve got soccer games to go to (I use that as an example because that’s what’s been keeping us busy this Fall)

It’s not the right time to step up into a ministry opportunity… or leadership role: I’ve got too many other things going on right now.

Apply: And maybe God is saying to some of us, “It’s not the right time??? You sure seem to have time for everything BUT the thing that I am building in the present age.”

I have to tell you… this is a hard thing to say… because again, I don’t want to be the guy saying, “Here’s MY thing… get on MY thing...”

But like Haggai, I have been called to preach the word of the Lord… to deliver a message that comes right out of the scriptures he inspired… and I believe with all my being that he has led us to this portion of his word TODAY…

And I just want to lay out this question, “Are you busying yourself with your thing while God’s work remains unfinished?”

In OUR part of the story, God is building his church. That’s his priority in this time.

-Build Foundations

That’s not just full-time pastors… that’s every single one of us. We need a shift in perspective on how we think about priorities.

We aren’t people who go to work and then who happen to also come to church on a Sunday like they are disconnected realities.

We are people who together ARE the church and who carry our Sunday worship and celebrations and prayers for one another with us into our work week...

-Strengthen the walls

Teens, kids… if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you aren’t friends with unbelievers at school and then just happen to go to youth group because it fits in...

You are followers of Jesus who NEED each other as you reach out to your unbelieving friends in the opportunities God has given you.

We aren’t people who go to work and then who happen come to church on a Sunday...

Parents, we aren’t mom’s and dad’s who need to make our kids successful through every opportunity under the sun… and if we make it to a Sunday gathering, it’s a good thing to help make them better people...

We are families who DESPERATELY need God’s bigger family to help us raise our kids in a way that they see and experience the presence of God together.

We are people who together ARE the church and who carry our Sunday gathering worship and our prayers for one another with us throughout the week...

Teens, kids… if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you aren’t friends of unbelievers who happen to go to youth group when it’s convenient...

You are followers of Jesus who need each other as you reach out to your unbelieving friends in the places God has put you.

-Finish the details

Parents, we aren’t mom’s and dad’s who need to make our kids successful through every opportunity under the sun… and if we make it to a Sunday gathering, it’s a good thing to make them well-rounded...

This is a MASSIVE shift from the cultural way of thinking about church as just one thing among many things.

We are families who DESPERATELY need God’s bigger family to help us raise our kids in a way that they see and experience the presence of God together.

This is a MASSIVE shift from the cultural way of thinking about church as just one thing among many things.

We can discern through a faithful reading of the scriptures that... in the present part of our story... God’s thing IS the building up of his church.

Building a people

Listen: I’m not saying right now that the church of Jesus Christ… or the church at Oak Hill is lying in ruins.

And we will know when that work is finished when we get to the next part of the story: the calls us up to be with him and returns again to the throne of David.

I’m saying the work of building up the church is yet unfinished.

-“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (, ESV)

And we will know when that work is finished when we get to the next part of the story: when he calls us up to be with him and returns again to the throne of David and the next part of the story begins.

The work isn’t over until it’s over.

-In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. ( ESV)

And God has written YOU into THIS part of his story… and he has brought yout to THIS church…

He’s given YOU spiritual gifts… tools to work with.

He’s given YOU a local expression of his body to work on.

He’s given YOU people to gather in through the gospel so that they can become part of this dwelling place he is building...

And listen: if you are visiting with us today… or you haven’t commited yourself to a local expression of the church… you’re not a member… you haven’t been baptized… whatever it is...

We’d love to have you… we’d love to see you come to know Jesus… and then to get to work alongside us in God’s priority for the present age.

What could POSSIBLY be more fulfilling in our stories than doing the very thing that God said is his priority right now?

That’s not just a rhetorical question… that’s a question to seriously consider. That’s where Haggai takes us next:

Read 6

Consider your ways. That’s our second step of returning to his priority in the present age.

2) Consider your ways in relationship to his priority. (v. 5-11)

Explain: He points out that they have been experiencing some seriously unfulfilling… unproductive work. All of the things they have concerned themselves with fall short of being truly satisfying.

They work crazy hours sowing, but they don’t get much of a harvest.

They love their delicious food, but it leaves them wanting more.

They drink, but they are still thirsty.

They have their nice clothes but it doesn’t keep them warm.

It’s like they have holes in their purse… their money is spent as fast as they can earn it.

Illustrate: And don’t we experience this?

Do you ever feel like your wheels are spinning, but you are going nowhere? That’s what the Lord is talking about here.

For all of the things that we seek after… all of the pleasures we pursue… all of the things we think will satisfy…

They leave us feeling anxious… and stressed… and still needing more…

And we think the answer to that is to go find more activities or different activities that will relieve the stress or get us more money or whatever it is… and it just never works.

Apply: So let me ask you this based on verses 5-6: Are you experiencing God-glorifying fruitfulness or busy toil?

-Are you experiencing God-glorifying fruitfulness or busy toil?

Always busy, but never content.

Always going for more, but never having enough.

When we go after the paycheck… when we live for the food and drink and the nice clothes… when we put our hope in the money… it doesn’t satisfy.

It’s not enough.

Are you experiencing God-glorifying fruitfulness or busy toil?

That’s the first way we need to consider our ways in relationship to his priority… then he says it again in v. 7

[Read ]

So here God reveals: you know why you were experiencing such poverty despite all your busy toil??? Because I made that happen.

You know that bad farming weather that’s been happening… yeah, that was me. I’m the Creator of heaven and earth… and I will work everything together for my glory and your ULTIMATE good.

God loves us too much to let us be satisfied with something other than his priority.

And so he makes our busyness futile.

And he tells them why: BECAUSE my house lies in ruin while each of you BUSIES himself with his own house.

Again this comes back to the purpose of the temple: this was the place where they met with God and experienced cleansing from their sin…

This was the building where the nations were to come and it would become a house of prayer.

That was God’s priority… and they neglected it… it still was in ruins…

Consider your ways: do your priorities match God’s priorities as your story unfolds?

Are you busying yourself with your personal comfort or with seeking God's presence among his people?

Consider your ways in relationship to his priority.

Now here’s the cool thing… the remnant of Judah did just that. They took Haggai’s message to heart and they resumed the work of the Lord.

Look at verse 12 [Read ]

3) Pursue Spirit-filled devotion to his priority

3) Pursue Spirit-filled devotion to his priority

Explain: Check this out… verse 15 said that it was the twenty fourth day of the sixth month…

That means that they went from ruins to finished restoration in 24 days.

Put those people on that old show Extreme Home Makeover.

This was an IMMEDIATE change in priority.

No saying, “yeah, we should really think about doing something about this temple thing sometime… “

No waiting around pouting about how they had done it wrong and God probably didn’t want them to be his people anymore...

No saying they were committed out of one side of their mouth while doing the same old thing in their actions.

THEY GOT AFTER IT!!!

But we have to see the reasons why… the end of verse 12 says they got after it because they feared the Lord.

They revered him as holy. They recognized that he is God and they are not.

Then verse 13 says that Haggai encouraged them with these words: “I am with you.”

This is what Jesus said in the Great Commission: Go and make disciples of all nations… and behold I am with you always.

God doesn’t just give us a job to do… he gives us his presence while we do it.

He fills us with his Spirit who empowers the work.

Then verse 14 says that the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel and the spirit of Joshua and the spirit of all the remnant of the people.

This is the time that Zechariah prophesied about in chapter 4:6… “Then he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.” (, ESV)

The work of finishing the temple wasn’t in the power of the people… it wasn’t in the might of the King of Persia… it was in the power of the Spirit of God.

And listen: this is my heart’s cry for our church…

Not that you would hear this message and feel like I twisted your arm and now you have more to add to your schedule because Pastor Ben wants me to be about his thing…

Not that you would have to come up with some more energy within you because God is expecting you to do his work all on your own...

My heart’s cry for our church is that we would embrace THIS word: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord of hosts.”

That we would be a church that is on our knees and on our face regularly before the Lord calling him to build his kingdom.

That we would be a church that works with God wherever we see him leading… not trying to bring him along to our own programs...

That we would be a church who exercises SPIRITUAL gifts in humility for the building up of the body because our own skills can charisma can’t cut it.

That we would be a church who WALKS BY THE SPIRIT and so demonstrates the fruit of the Spirit...

That we would be a church where those who are spiritual restore the brother who is caught in sin in a spirit of gentleness.

That we would be a church who experiences power from on high to be his witnesses in our towns and region and nation and world.

But it has to come back here: Return to the priority of building up God’s church in the present age.

-Build Foundations

-Strengthen the walls

-Finish the details

Discern that his priority in our part of the story is the building up of his church..

Consider our ways in relationship to this priority...

And then pursue spirit-filled devotion to his priority.

The work is not in ruins… but the work is not yet over.

The worship team is going to come… and I want to give you some time today to consider your ways today.

I have to be honest, I’ve felt like as a church, even though our discipleship efforts are more focused and clear than ever... through this story theme this fall… the demands of our lives are taking us in more different directions than ever.

And it’s not like the world is ending and Oak Hill is in ruins… no one (as far as I know) has even stopped being a part our church…

but many of us are gathering together less often…

And many of us are feeling the frantic nature of being crazy busy… we are concerned about many things when one thing is necessary.

And it’s usually not some sinful activities… it’s usually not even a choice to just sleep in or something...

It’s usually good things… but MANY good things that create a pattern of busy-ness that send us in many different directions.

And for some of us it is going to take a radical reorientation of our priorities… right in the month of harvest, the Israelites dropped what they were doing and finished the work.

For others, God is saying, “You are doing the work… you have made my priority your own… just see it through.”

For still others, you don’t have a clue of what I’m talking about because you have never experienced the work of Jesus Christ in your life.

And that’s where it needs to start for you today.

Wherever you are at this morning, I want to call us all back to this focus: we are a family on mission…

Jesus Christ is building his church and he’s using US… his body… to do it.

Our story is HIS story… and our thing must be his thing.

Let’s pray.