Put Your Heart into God's House
Emptied by the recession? Plateaued in a relationship? Frustrated by a faith that doubts, wavers, and gives into sin? Put Your Heart into God's House and acknowledge him not as your heart's guest but as your heart's owner. August 15, 2010.
(Haggai enters the Grace chancel, marveling at the art and architecture … the angel stained glass window, the baldachin, the pulpit and pulpit canopy, the vaulted ceiling, the lectern and baptismal font, the nave stained glass windows) …(turning toward the altar with hands raised) … “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty! My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God” (Psalm 84:1,2) … (Haggai notices the worshippers and addresses them)…
The Lord bless you. I see this is the house of God you have built. It reminds me of Solomon’s temple that was destroyed 70 years ago when the Babylonians crushed Jerusalem and captured my people. The special presence of God in the glory of his house became only a memory, but God kept his word. He sent the Persians to defeat the Babylonians and had King Cyrus issue a decree for us to return to Jerusalem, to the temple, the house of God! Sadly, our worst fears came true. The temple we once knew as a magnificent house of God greeted us like a decayed corpse: heaps of blackened stone, rotting timber, and ashes overgrown with weeds. We tried to rebuild it but, well, I’ll get to that later. For now, “O Lord Almighty, my King and my God, blessed are those who dwell in your house” (Psalm 84:3,4).
The Lord bless you. You have Put Your Heart into God’s House. These high, vaulted ceilings direct your eyes to the heavens where the angels worship God and we will worship him there someday too. The stained shines with the Light of the World as he glows his grace onto you and as he emits his grace to passersby. The elevated pulpit shows that here God’s Word and ways are higher than any word of humans; how you must love God’s Word in this congregation, reading the Scriptures every day in your homes, and filling every seat of Bible studies. The baptismal font with its forward placement reminds you that baptism is your entry into God’s kingdom and that your baptism remains front of mind in your decisions and behavior as a child of God, dying to sin and rising to a new life. You have spared no expense in this building; the excellence tells me that you must be generous, cheerful givers of your firstfruits offerings much like my people who thrilled to give back to God 10% of our income, our grain, and our flocks. The church bells ring through the streets, inviting people in your neighborhood to turn to the Lord God; with such zeal you must surely send representatives of your congregation into the neighborhood to share the good news, you must fund advertising so that everyone in your great city hears about the saving God and feels welcome to worship here, you must talk to your friends about the Savior and bring them here with you. Oh, no. I am afraid your enemy has poked holes in your ceiling. Is that what has happened? (child responds that the holes are air conditioning) Ah, with such luxuries as air conditioning, padded cushion seating, and underground parking I am sure your congregation has a vibrant ministry to care for the those less fortunate: the homeless, the poor, the sick, the unemployed, the divorced and widows and lonely college students. Your attention and devotion I see here in this building must mean that you put your heart into God everywhere in your life with the same devotion. Your calendar has daily appointments with God in Bible reading and prayer. Your finances put God first and never give him less than he deserves or leftovers after selfish spending. Your conversations are seasoned with the words of God so that anyone who knows you or meets you knows you love the Lord? Your clothes, your home décor, your internet bookmarks and text messages all give glory to God. Your heart is God’s more than your own.
(Finding the Christ crucifix and focusing his attention there) … And who is this dead man, on the tree that looks like a stick, maybe a staff? Is this … a sheep … the Lamb of God, like on your altar? Is this the Christ? Is this what he looked like? I see his agony from the nails, the spear, the sins – our sins – that caused him to suffer and die. Yet the prophets foretold he’d live, and I see him there (pointing to the Christ statue) alive, with scarred but glorious, victorious hands raised in blessing on everyone who believes. Is this Christ the One you trust to save you from your sins? Is this Christ the One you love first before all else? Is this Christ the One whose words you believe more than your own thoughts? Is this Christ the One you follow even when other voices try calling you away, even if it means death? (Haggai turns to the altar and speaks these final words before exiting character into the pulpit) “O Lord Almighty, blessed is the one who trusts in you … who dwell[s] in your house” (Psalm 84:12,5,4).
The first wave of Israelite exiles returned to Jerusalem and began reassembling the rubble. Their hands ready; their hearts resolute, they made an initial burst of excited rebuilding but then other concerns got in the way. This new temple wasn’t nearly as glamorous as the previous one. Nosy neighbors opposed the project. And many of them just became too busy furnishing their own houses with décor featured in the fine living magazines they read in Babylon. So their fervent spirit dampened. They too readily regarded anything as a good excuse to stop rebuilding. They became satisfied worshipping among ruins. “The time has not yet come for the Lord’s house to be built,” they’d remind each other year after year. 15 years later the Lord dispatched Haggai to the disaster sight. Quickly he got to the heart of the matter. “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while [God’s] house remains a ruin?” The people became satisfied having and doing what they wanted instead of what God wanted. Even the pagan nations and their rulers around them gave more to the rebuilding of the temple than the Israelites! “All their neighbors assisted them with articles of silver and gold, with goods and livestock, and with valuable gifts … Moreover, King Cyrus brought out the articles belonging to the temple of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem” (Ezra 1:6,7).
To get the attention of people he was determined to save and bless, God frustrated some of their most central activities. He told them through Haggai, “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 … 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.” In order to bless us with what he knows as good, the Lord sometimes first blesses us with what we see as bad. He has storehouses of blessings – both spiritual and material – waiting for us but can’t give them to hands and hearts already full of worldly treasures, so sometimes he’ll take some of them away to make room for much, much more. “Give careful thought to your ways,” Haggai urges us. A more literal translation of the Hebrew says, “put your heart in the way.” The answer to a recession is often found not in new cures to diseases, new financial measures, new government laws, new home improvements, or new jobs. It is found in the heart. Putting their hearts in the way. Disrupting our pattern of thinking and living worried more about self-pleasure then self-denial, more about what we want than what God wants, more about our own easy luxury the others’ eternal life.
What would Haggai say if he visited Grace Lutheran Church? At Grace total membership, worship and Bible study attendance has plateaued for the last eight years; and Haggai would agree that challenges like parking and organizational dynamics play a role in that, but he’d ask us to search our hearts. What role do I play? How much has my heart plateaued, and like the Israelites become complacent, happily worshipping among what I don’t realize are ruins. “It’s not time,” I say like the Israelites. Churches are begging for money during a historical recession, and Haggai would see the hurt of people who have lost salary, jobs, and investments. But if we readily explain that even the church is not immune to the recession than we must be ready to admit that the church is definitely not immune to the promises and commands of God that have not lost their value and never will. “The people obeyed the voice of the Lord their God … and the people feared the Lord … they came and began to work on the house of the Lord.”
Toyota has launched its “Now’s the Time” sale. Ads feature confused car shoppers wondering if they should buy, and surrounding them are banners, balloons, and booming voices from above all saying, “Now’s the Time!” We are wondering if we can turn back to God and say we’re sorry, if we can trust him to keep his word, if we can rebuild his house both as this church and as our own personal hearts where he dwells. All around us he is sending the message, “Now’s the time!” The Israelites believed that when they looked and saw not just empty hands but empty hearts. Before they could wonder how they’d fill them up God promised through Haggai, “I am with you.” God lived in the house of their hearts all along, and would continue to do so. Now they saw God not as the guest in their heart but as the owner of their heart, his house. “So the Lord stirred up … the spirit of … the people.”
Emptied by the recession? Plateaued in a relationship? Frustrated by a faith that doubts, wavers, and gives into sin? Put Your Heart into God’s House and acknowledge him not as your heart’s guest but as your heart’s owner. “I am with you,” he promises. Your heart, filled with him, is ready for him to stir, and to stir, and to stir. He mixes and blends him and you, his house and your heart, his promises and your faith so that you obey the voice of the Lord your God, fear the Lord, and began to work on the house of the Lord too. That faith project you’ve put off because it seemed impossible, those charity plans you’ve filed away because they seemed too risky, the witnessing you’d like to do with a few friends but you want to cultivate the friendship a little more first and that takes too much time. Not any more. Now’s the time for God’s house in your life and God’s house here at Grace Lutheran Church to be rebuilt. “Do not be afraid,” Jesus reassures us, “for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom … a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted … for where your treasure is there your heart will be also” (Luke 12:32-34). Your treasure is a gift from God: a heart that is his house. Our treasure of ministry here at Grace is a gift from God: a Church that is his house.
God is stirring him and you and the circumstances around you and the treasures he promises are yours by faith. And his house becomes a temple. You are that temple. This church is that temple. “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty” (Psalm 84:1)! Put Your Heart into God’s House. Amen.
Preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI (www.gracedowntown.org) on August 15, 2010
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