Take Courage in God's Presence and Plan

Feb. 18, 2018 Rev. Joe Greene Haggai 2 Think of one person you know who is strong. What makes him/her strong? Review background. OT timeline. Last week: God spoke, the people obeyed, and they rebuilt the temple! By comparison, Christians (our bodies, the church) are the new temple. There is no temple in Revelation because the church is the temple. - Key question last week: Who comes first? (Us or God.) - Review this week’s sermon. Before looking at your notes, what image or idea do you easily remember from the sermon? - Then, review notes, encourage others to flesh out details. - Haggai 2:4-5 “Be strong, Joshua…do not fear…I am with you” recalls God’s words to another Joshua before entering the promised land (Joshua 1). How does Haggai’s Joshua (the high priest) compare with the older Joshua (the general). - Haggai 2:6 “Shake…” Heb. 12:26 says this verse points to Jesus’ second coming. Why would God say, “In a little while,” referring to Jesus’ second coming, which still hasn’t happened? The NT writers used the same language and in Revelation, Jesus says repeatedly, “I am coming soon.” [I’d like to hear what your groups come up with for this question. One response is, God’s timing isn’t our timing…but there’s more.] - Haggai 2:10-14 Why is defilement more “catchy” than holiness? Is this an indication that being contaminated is a natural state but being holy is a choice and an action? - What do you make of Haggai 2:9 – “The glory of the present house will be greater than the glory of the former house”? He just said the foundation “seems like nothing” to the people who saw Solomon’s temple in its former glory. - Regarding the former glory of the temple, read 1 Kings 8:10-11, when Solomon dedicates the temple (about 400 years earlier during the same harvest festival) and “the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.” The key may be in God’s presence in the temple rather than the outward splendor of the temple. The same is true for us, the new temple of God. - End of the book, Haggai 2:23, says God has “chosen” Zerubbabel, who is in the lineage of David, who God said the messiah will come from. Note Mt’s genealogy of the messiah includes Zerubbabel. The Bible is a single redemptive story with a beginning, middle, climax, and resolution. - Haggai’s companion prophet, Zechariah, says of the messiah in Zech 6:12 “And say to him, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, “Behold, the man whose name is the Branch: for he shall branch out from his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD.” This aligns with the key verse last week from Joe Greene’s sermon: Eph. 2.19-22 “21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” - It’s easier to recognize we’re being “built” individually to become God’s temple, but how are we being built “together” as a worldwide church?