Tuesday, Aug. 21

Tuesday

 Then the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai: “Is it a 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.”   - Haggai 1:3-6

You can sum up the problem in a simple sentence - They had put the needs of their own house before the needs of God’s house.

Shortly after returning from exile, the people had made an attempt to rebuild the Temple, but the opposition had stopped the project. Gradually, they had lost their vision and had drifted into a lifestyle where God’s house was no longer the priority. They probably viewed it as nice, but not necessary; extra, but not essential.

If you had asked them why the temple had not been built, they would have responded, “Don’t get me wrong! I’m all for rebuilding the Temple. It’s a great cause. But the timing just isn’t right. We’re in an economic down- turn right now. Everyone’s pinched for money. There aren’t enough good jobs. It’s all I can do to provide for my family. But times will get better, and then we’ll rebuild the temple!”

We need to see ourselves in this picture. If you know Christ, there was a time when you made a personal commitment to Him. You decided to follow Jesus, as the chorus goes. At first, you were zealous for spiritual things. You read your Bible every day. You got involved with groups, you got involved serving in a local church. But perhaps your efforts met with difficulties. You had a personality clash with another Christian, or you were disillusioned with the disappointing results, or you encountered personal trials that God didn’t remove, even after much prayer.

Meanwhile, life moves on; you started a career and a family. You had bills to pay and other demands on your time. Church and the Lord’s work drifted into the background. You still attend church as often as you can, but it has become a slice of life, not the center. You tell yourself that you just don’t have time to serve as you used to. Someone else who doesn’t have the responsibilities that you have will have to get involved. Without deliberately rebelling against God, you have drifted into putting your house above God’s house. 

We’re all prone to make up excuses for why we are not obedient to put God first with the time and money He entrusts to us -  “I’m just trying to obey that verse by providing for my family. But someday I’ll have all the kids through college and the bills paid, and then we’ll give more to the Lord’s work.”  Or, “This is a hectic time in our family life. The kids demand so much attention. Every day is taken up with meeting their needs. But someday we’ll be through this phase, and then we’ll get involved in the church.”

We must deliberately and continually put God’s house above the needs of our house.

Let me clarify what I mean by “God’s house.”  In the context of Haggai, of course, it refers to the temple in Jerusalem, which was the center for worshiping God.  Although God is everywhere, the temple was the place on earth where God dwelled in a special sense.  He revealed His glory there.  The sacrifices offered there pointed ahead to the coming of God’s Messiah, Jesus, who would offer Himself as God’s final and complete sacrifice for our sins. To allow the Temple to lay in ruins was to neglect the worship of God, in other words, to ignore Him. 

In the church age (today), God’s temple is not a physical building, but rather, His people, both individually and corporately,  Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? (1 Cor. 3:16). God dwells in individual human hearts, and together we are being built into the temple or house of God, In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.  And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Eph. 2:21-22).  To make God’s house the priority in life means that your number one aim is to make your own body a fit dwelling for the Holy Spirit and to devote yourself to building others in Christ so that their lives are a proper dwelling for God. It means that your main goal is to know Christ at home in your heart by faith and to do all that you can to help others do the same.

Jeff Frazier

Monday, Aug. 20

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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 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 a 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.   
- Haggai 1:1-5

Every day you exchange a day of your life for something. It’s as if at the start of life each of us were issued a certain number of coins. Each day, we are issued a new coin. It may be the last coin we get, or we may get many more. All we know is that the average person in America gets between 70 and 80 years’ worth, but some get far less; a few may get more.

You take each day’s coin and exchange it for something: a day at work or school, shopping, church, leisure, or whatever. Once spent, you can never get the coins back to spend them differently. The art of living wisely is largely a matter of spending your coins on the things that really matter in light of eternity and not frivolously wasting them. 

The Book of Haggai, second shortest in the Old Testament, has a potent message. It tells us to put first things first in our lives. It was written to people, like us, who would have told you that God must be first. They believed that; we believe that. But, they had drifted into a way of life where their intellectual belief in the supremacy of God was not reflected in the way they were living. They gave lip service to the priority of God, but in fact they lived with other priorities. God sent this prophet to help His people get their priorities in line with what they knew they should be.

The historical setting is the early chapters of Ezra (see Ezra 5:1). In 536 B.C., a remnant of about 50,000 Jews had returned from Babylon to Judah under the decree of Cyrus, King of Persia. They quickly rebuilt the altar and began offering sacrifices. Two years after returning, they had laid the foundation to rebuild the temple.  Shortly after the foundation was laid, the work came to a halt due to difficult conditions, and hostile opposition from neighboring people.  At least 14 years had passed. The people got caught up in the routine of life—farming, building houses, raising families, and that sort of thing. They got used to life without a temple. Even their leaders, Zerubbabel the governor and Joshua the high priest, had gotten used to things as they were. Into that scene, God raised up Haggai and (two months later) Zechariah to proclaim His message to this returned remnant.

“In short, Haggai is saying, ‘Give God the supreme place in your life.’” Or, as Jesus put it, “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you” (Matt. 6:33). We all know this, but ...

We are still prone to put the needs of our house above God’s house.  This is the default mode of our hearts.  If we give no thought to how we’re living, we will naturally live for our agendas, not for God’s.  All of us who have trusted Christ as Savior know (intellectually) that it is foolish and vain to live for the things of this world.  We know that these things never deliver the satisfaction that they promise.  We know that we will not find true happiness apart from God. And yet we keep drifting towards loving the world if we don’t fight against it.

C.S. Lewis puts this brilliantly in his essay First and Second Things...”every preference of a small good to a great, or partial good to a total good, involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice is made. . . You can’t get second things by putting them first. You get second things only by putting first things first.”

Jeff Frazier

Friday, August 17

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Zephaniah 3:9-17

“Then I will purify the lips of the peoples, that all of them may call on the name of the Lord and serve him shoulder to shoulder.

From beyond the rivers of Cush my worshipers, my scattered people, will bring me offerings.

On that day you will not be put to shame for all the wrongs you have done to me, because I will remove from this city those who rejoice in their pride. Never again will you be haughty on my holy hill.

But I will leave within you the meek and humble, who trust in the name of the Lord.

The remnant of Israel will do no wrong; they will speak no lies, nor will deceit be found in their mouths. They will eat and lie down and no one will make them afraid.

Sing, O Daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O Daughter of Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away your punishment, he has turned back your enemy. The Lord, the King of Israel, is with you; never again will you fear any harm. On that day they will say to Jerusalem, “Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands hang limp. 

The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”

Several times a year I get some version of the following question:

“Pastor Brian, I’ve been trying to read the Old Testament but there’s just so much judgment and violence! How can that be the same God we see in Jesus in the New Testament? Why do we as Christians have to read the Old Testament at all?”

It’s a good question! 

The answer lies in a full understanding of the gospel; for before the gospel is good news it is bad news. Before we can talk about the grace of Jesus Christ, we must understand the absolute holiness of God. And when we understand even a part of God’s holiness we begin to see the ugliness of sin.

In the prophet Isaiah we read:

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple…

(v.3) And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;

The whole earth is filled with his glory.”

(v.5) “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty,”

Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” Isaiah 6:1-6 selected)

Here we see what might be called the “gospel pattern” quite clearly. Isaiah begins with the absolute holiness of the Lord Almighty; which, in turn, makes him acutely aware of his own “uncleanness”; which then allows him to experience the forgiving grace of God.

And this is why, in the big picture, we must venture into the strange and sometimes frightening world of the Old Testament! From beginning to end; from Genesis to Malachi; the Old Testament overwhelms us with the holiness and glory of Almighty God. In fact, one could accurately say that without an understanding of the Old Testament the New Testament doesn’t make much sense!

Think about it. If God is not absolutely holy; if sin is not a life and death issue; if the eternity of every human soul isn’t hanging in the balance, why would God send his own Son to take on human flesh through incarnation, die a horrific death on a Roman cross, and then rise from the dead to demonstrate his authority over death and sin so that we can experience his salvation? None of it makes sense without the holiness of God!

But because God is holy our sin matters to him. And because our sin matters to him God not only calls us to himself in repentance, but provides for our atonement and forgiveness through his great love for us.

Sing, O Daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O Daughter of Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away your punishment, he has turned back your enemy. The Lord, the King of Israel, is with you; never again will you fear any harm. 

If you’ve seen any of the Olympic coverage at all you’ve undoubtedly watched as the camera is turned on an athlete’s parents as they are watching their son or daughter compete. You can almost feel their anxiety as they root their children on toward a medal of some kind. When their child falls off the balance beam you can see their obvious pain and disappointment. But when their child wins the race or performs a near-perfect routine; when their son or daughter stands on the podium to receive a gold medal, you can see the joy and pride explode from their hearts with tears and great laughter. And in both cases, when the competition is over and their son of daughter finds them in the stands, they embrace them with both tenderness and delight.

This is the image in my mind as I read the words of the prophet:

The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.

Pastor Brian Coffey

Thursday, August 16

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Zephaniah 2:1-3

Gather together, gather together, O shameful nation, before the appointed time arrives and that day sweeps on like chaff, before the fierce anger of the Lord comes upon you, before the day of the Lord’s wrath comes upon you.

Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, you who do what he commands.

Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the Lord’s anger.

One night when I was a junior in college my roommate and I decided to walk across campus for a late night snack at the Student Union. We took a short cut through the main administration building, which was always open all night. As we walked down the long deserted hallway, my roommate suddenly and inexplicably leaped up and punched a ceiling tile. The tile split in half and fell to the floor. As I stared in shock he looked at me and said, “There! Bet you can’t do that!” 

Knowing I was a better leaper than my roommate, I responded without thinking about what I was doing. I jumped up and punched out my own ceiling tile. We laughed as if what we had done was great fun – and continued on our mission for late night snacks.

The next morning we returned from class at about 10 am to find a note on our dorm room door that said the Dean of Students wanted to see us in his office. We assumed we were busted. 

As we walked into his office the Dean looked up from behind his desk and said, “What in the world were the two of you doing in the administration building at midnight?”

We immediately repented on the spot. We blurted out something like, “We’re sorry we broke the tiles, it was a dumb thing to do, we’ll never do it again, please let us pay for the damage!” 

When we finished the Dean responded with a surprised look on his face, “You guys did it!? Someone just told me they saw you in the building last night and I thought you might have seen who did it!”

When I look back on that story I smile at the foolishness of my youth. There’s something funny about a couple of guilt-ridden college kids confessing even before they were confronted with their deed! But I also see a picture of repentance. We knew we had done something wrong even before we were confronted with any evidence. We actually wanted and needed to confess before we walked into the Dean’s office. His question simply provided the opportunity for both confession and repentance.

“Repentance”, Biblically speaking, is both confession and commitment. Repentance begins with a sense of sorrow over one’s own sin and continues through the humility of confession and then a return to God. 

And this is the invitation God provides his people in Zephaniah:

Gather together, gather together, O shameful nation, before the appointed time arrives and that day sweeps on like chaff, before the fierce anger of the Lord comes upon you, before the day of the Lord’s wrath comes upon you.

Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, you who do what he commands.

Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the Lord’s anger.

A couple of weeks ago Pastor Ali Kalkandelen from Turkey spoke of what he called “100% repentance.” I love that phrase! But it occurs to me that the only way we can be 100% repentant is to be 100% certain of God’s love and forgiveness. 

God calls us to seek him in humility and repentance because he loves us. And because he loves us we can come to him in 100% repentance.

Are you 100% certain of God’s love for you?

Pastor Brian Coffey

Wednesday, August 15

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Zephaniah 1:4-6

“I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all who live in Jerusalem.

I will cut off from this place every remnant of Baal, the names of the pagan and the idolatrous priests – those who bow down on the roofs to worship the starry host, those who bow down and swear by the Lord and who also swear by Molech, those who turn back from following the Lord and neither seek the Lord nor inquire of him.”

Years ago, when I was serving in Student Ministries, I was wrapping up a Bible study session and I invited students to share their prayer requests. Several kids asked for prayer for the typical kinds of things kids are worried about; upcoming tests, family members struggling with poor health, etc. 

But one young man, who was very new to the group, raised his hand and said, “Pray that my parents won’t ground me.” 

Of course, I immediately wondered about the story that was behind that curious request. So I said, “Do you mind me asking why you think they might ground you?”

He said, “Because I went out to a movie late last night and missed curfew – then I decided not to even go home at all.”

I said, “So this is Wednesday night and you haven’t been home since yesterday (Tuesday) after school?”

“Yeah,” he said.

I said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can pray that prayer for you.”

He looked surprised and a little disappointed.

I said, “I can’t pray that your parents won’t ground you. I’d rather pray that God will give you the courage to go home tonight, admit to your parents what you did, and humbly accept any discipline that they feel is appropriate, and then promise never to do that again,” or something very close to that. 

Then I took a few minutes to explain to the whole group why I responded that way. I explained that asking God to remove the consequences of his decision to disobey his parents would not only be a dishonest prayer, but would be to deny his parents the opportunity to express their love for him through discipline. It would also have robbed the young man of a chance to grow wiser and more mature through that same discipline.

In the same way we can understand God’s discipline of his people:

“I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all who live in Jerusalem.

I will cut off from this place every remnant of Baal, the names of the pagan and the idolatrous priests – those who bow down on the roofs to worship the starry host, those who bow down and swear by the Lord and who also swear by Molech, those who turn back from following the Lord and neither seek the Lord nor inquire of him.”

God loves his people and has promised them his blessing. He is also the sovereign Lord to whom alone belongs the worship and obedience of his people. Throughout the reigns of Manasseh and Amon the people of Judah had slipped further and further away from YHWH and toward the worship of pagan idols like Baal and Molech, gods of the surrounding Canaanite culture. Some even worshiped the stars that God had created rather than the creator himself.

God knows that their fascination with other gods will ultimately destroy them because those gods are not only impotent, but do not love them and cannot offer them either protection or salvation. So God, in his love, is willing to discipline his people just as a loving parent is willing to appropriately discipline a child for his or her ultimate good.

J.D. Greear writes, “An idol is whatever takes the place of God in our lives…an idol is not necessarily a bad thing…it is a good thing made into a god-thing.” (From Greear’s book, “Gospel”)

That young man who broke curfew years ago needed the discipline of his parents because he needed to know he was loved. In the same way, when we make “god-things” out of good things we need the discipline of God so that we will know his furious and everlasting love for us.

Pastor Brian Coffey

Tuesday, August 14

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Zephaniah 1:2-3; 7

“I will sweep away everything from the face of the Earth,” declares the Lord. 

“I will sweep away both men and animals; I will sweep away the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. The wicked will have only heaps of rubble when I cut off man from the face of the earth,” declares the Lord

(v.7) “Be silent before the Sovereign Lord, for the day of the Lord is near.”

As I mentioned yesterday, I love the Olympics. One of the things I like most about sports is the clarity. By “clarity” I mean that in most sports, especially most Olympic sports, you get immediate and clear feedback about your performance. You finish a race, look up and see that the clock says, 9.63 seconds (the time it took for gold medal winner Usain Bolt to cover 100 meters - or roughly the time it takes me to move from the recliner to the refrigerator!), and that’s it. That’s what you did. There’s no debate, no wondering, no one else to blame; that’s your time. We see essentially the same thing in gymnastics (I never did figure out exactly how they score that sport), basketball (that one I get), and skeet shooting.

In most sports, judgment is swift, clear and final. So it will be, says the prophet Zephaniah, on the day of the Lord.

“I will sweep away everything from the face of the Earth,” declares the Lord. 

“I will sweep away both men and animals; I will sweep away the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. The wicked till have only heaps of rubble when I cut off man from the face of the earth,” declares the Lord

(v.7) “Be silent before the Sovereign Lord, for the day of the Lord is near.”

As we have seen throughout this study of the minor prophets God’s message has been quite clear: judgment is coming.

God is the sovereign authority over all the earth and he will judge all people and nations according to their deeds. Many scholars believe that the “Day of the Lord” points to three “horizons” of God’s judgment.

First, God is warning his people of imminent judgment in the form of the hostile armies of Babylon, which destroyed Jerusalem in 586 BC.

Second, the prophet is pointing toward the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD at the hands of the Roman Empire.

Third, God’s word is looking forward to the final judgment described in the great book of Revelation (19:11 – 22:5) when sin, death and Satan are utterly destroyed by the sovereign and eternal reign of Jesus Christ.

“Judgment” is not a fun word. Most of us would rather just skip over this part of the Bible. While we don’t really mind other people being judged by God – you know, the really bad people – we don’t much like the idea of being judged ourselves. 

But judgment is an important word; and, according to God’s word, judgment is coming for every human being who has walked and breathed on this earth. Judgment is also a good word because judgment, properly understood, flows from God’s holiness and love.

It is difficult to find language to describe the Biblical concept of God’s holiness. The word “holy” means “set apart” or “utterly distinct,” and when used in reference to God means that God is set apart by his absolute purity, absolute goodness, and absolute authority. God’s holiness, therefore, is a form of power that is found nowhere else in our experience. In fact, the Bible makes it clear that, if we as sinful human beings were to come into direct contact with the holiness of God, we would be utterly consumed (see Leviticus 10:1-3).

The best analogies to holiness that I have heard would be either electricity or nuclear power. Both are “holy” in the sense of being “set apart” as forms of energy and in the sense that a human being must be fully and uniquely prepared before coming into contact with either one. You can’t just stand in a lightning storm with a metal pole in your hand for the fun of it. If lightning touches that pole you are seriously fried. And it wouldn’t be because the lightning is angry with you – it would be because that’s just the nature of electricity – and that you approached it frivolously. The same would be true of nuclear energy and radiation.

God is holy; and in his holiness he must be approached on his terms not ours. In fact, when you think about it, if God were not holy he would not be God at all. Who wants a God who is ordinary; who is not “set apart”; who is not holy?

How, then, can we dare to approach our holy God? 

We approach God on the basis of his provision of grace alone. There is nothing we can do to earn his favor; there is nothing we can do to deserve his love. He has, however, offered us his own righteousness and holiness as a gift in the person of Jesus, who became the final sacrifice for sin.

On the “Day of the Lord”, on that day when God’s judgment comes, those who have received the gift of God’s grace through Jesus Christ will not fear for they will be found righteous.

Pastor Brian Coffey

Monday, August 13

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Zephaniah 1:1

The Word of the Lord that came to Zephaniah son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah, during the reign of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah.

Like most of the known world that owns a television, I’ve spent the last couple of weeks more or less glued to the 24/7 coverage of the Olympic Games in London. I love the Olympics butI’m amazed and somewhat concerned about my capacity to suddenly pay great attention to sports that I not only do not watch regularly, but sports about which I don’t even know the rules. I’m talking about sports like fencing, badminton, table tennis (O.K., I know the basic rules of the sport but that is NOT the same game of ping-pong I played growing up!), and gymnastics. I mean, after watching four nights of tiny but spectacularly gifted human beings cavorting about on the balance beam, uneven bars and floor exercise, I found myself saying things like, “Oh, she didn’t point her toes – that’s a deduction!”

I pay attention to the Olympics; I pay attention to athletes I don’t know and will never meet because I perceive them to be important. 

As we have worked our way through the minor prophets this summer we have learned at least one thing with great certainty: God is paying attention! He pays attention because the world he created and the people he loves are important to him! Sometimes we think of God as being distant and aloof; that he created the universe then just kind of let it go to run on its own. That’s not the God we see in books like Zephaniah. Notice the detail in the opening verse:

The Word of the Lord that came to Zephaniah son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah, during the reign of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah.

How many of us come up with the first name of our great-great-grandfathers without help from some extended family member or from ancestry.com? Here we see that God not only has spoken to Zephaniah, whose name, by the way, means “defended by God”, but he knows his father, grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather. You get the sense that God has been preparing Zephaniah for this moment for four generations!

We also see that God is paying attention not just to Zephaniah’s life but also to the people of Judah. Josiah was only 8 years old when his father, King Amon, was assassinated. Young Josiah inherited a kingdom that had been in spiritual decline for decades under the idolatrous reigns of both his father and grandfather (Manasseh). At the time he ascended to the throne, Judah was surrounded by hostile enemies like Assyrian king Ashurbanipal and Babylonian king Nabopalassar, and was therefore extremely vulnerable and needed strong leadership. 

Into this specific historical and spiritual situation God sends a specific prophet named Zephaniah, a man who he has been preparing for this moment for at least three generations, with a specific message for his people who are on the brink of destruction.

And so we learn in the very first verse of the book of Zephaniah that God is paying attention. This fact may seem somewhat trivial at first glance, but the truth is, nothing could be more significant! For if God is paying attention to Zephaniah’s life as well as his family tree; if God is paying attention to the people of Judah and the surrounding nations; then God is also paying attention to your life and to my life. And if God is paying attention then two things are equally true. First, we are all accountable to him for our lives and behavior; and second, he is present and available to us if we seek him.

Do you live with an awareness of God’s attentiveness? Do you know you are important to him? Do you know your life matters in the eternal scheme of things? 

Ask God by his Spirit to help you be more and more aware of his presence in, and attentiveness to, your life.

Pastor Brian Coffey