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Nobody wants to be on a losing team. When I was in the 4th grade, we used to play two-hand touch football during recess. And although I wasn’t picked last when the captains drafted their teams, I wasn’t picked first either. I got picked in the next to last round, better than maybe 3 guys on the field. And by the time I got picked the teams were just about determined, other than the last picks who didn’t really matter much. And just as the captains were sizing up the players deciding who to take, I would be sizing up the teams, who had the better quarterback, who had the fastest wide receiver, who had the winning team. And I would hope and pray that I’d be on that winning team. And I played a lot harder, ran a lot faster, had a lot more fun, when I was on a team I thought was going to win. 

And this isn’t just something that happens in recess in elementary school. This happens throughout life. I’ve worked for a couple of organizations that were losing, that were cutting back, that were almost bankrupt, and it’s no fun. I’m at a seminary now that’s going to have to sell its campus and downsize, and the attitude this has produced in students is bad. There’s a depression, a malaise around the place. You see this in whole towns. You see it in families and marriages. You see it in countries: everyone resigns themselves to the fact that things are bad and broken and they will never be fixed. 

Everyone wants to know that the things they do matter and contribute to something that will work, that will win, that will endure into the future. And our scripture this morning which comes from Haggai chapter 2 verses 1 through 9 which you’ll find on page 768 of your Bible and I’d encourage you to turn there is about just that. It’s a message from God through the prophet Haggai to the Israelites who thought they were on the losing team, who had given up, who had lost hope. And God is telling them there is another way, that he has a different plan. Listen to Haggai chapter 2 verses 1 through 9. 

 

In the second year of King Darius, in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the prophet Haggai, saying: “Speak now to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, and say: 

Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing? Yet now take courage, O Zerubbabel, says the Lord; take courage, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; take courage, all you people of the land, says the Lord; work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts, according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. 

My spirit abides among you; do not fear. For thus says the Lord of hosts: Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land, and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts. The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts, and in this place I will give prosperity, says the Lord of hosts.”

 

This passage is about God’s house, about the Temple in Jerusalem. And when the Temple was in its full glory, the Israelites felt that they were winning, that they were close to God, that God would help them. And when Haggai spoke the temple was ruined and the Israelites thought they were on the losing team, that they were far from God. But Haggai revealed to them that God had not abandoned them, that the Temple would be rebuilt, and they would win. Haggai talks about the Temple past, present, and future. And that’s going to be our structure this morning as well, God’s house, past, present, and future. 

God tells Haggai to begin his message to the people with these words: Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? Very few. Haggai spoke these words almost 70 years after the destruction of the first temple, the temple that Solomon built. Now for comparison I could say something like how many of us remember what life was like in 1953? But here I believe more than a few of you do remember life in 1953. Those of you who remember life in 1953, have seen a lot in those 70 years. But the Israelites saw more. 

 

They lived through not a cold war, but a hot war, a war that saw their nation conquered by the Babylonians, their cities and even the Temple destroyed. They didn’t struggle through civil rights, they were slaves and captives and refugees in Babylon for a generation. They didn’t see their world changed by technology, but they saw their conquerors conquered, saw Babylon overthrown and replaced by Cyrus the King of Persia. And they and their families were free to return to the land of Israel. And now as Haggai speaks 15 years after that return, 70 years after that first destruction, few remembered what life was like, what the temple was like before it all happened.

And what was that temple like in its former glory? It was built by Solomon in the 10th century B.C. and it stood for about four hundred years. The book of Kings tells us about this project and it was a huge project. Solomon put tens of thousands of men to work quarrying the stones in the hills and bringing them up to Jerusalem. They built it out of stone and covered it with cedar planks. The central chamber, the house of the Lord, was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high. Now a cubit is from your elbow to your fingertip, a foot and a half. so that’s 90 feet long, and 30 feet wide, and 45 feet tall. And the house was surrounded by other rooms and courtyards. They covered the inner room with gold. The whole altar was covered with gold. Even the floor was gold. 

The walls were covered with carvings of angels and palm trees and flowers. Two great pillars of bronze stood by the gate of the temple. And a huge brass bowl that could hold perhaps 20,000 gallons of water stood near the temple for ritual cleansing. There were pots and shovels and lampstands and cups and snufers and tongs and basins and dishes, all of bronze and silver and gold for performing all the sacrifices. And inside the innermost room of the temple, in the holy of holies, rested the ark of the covenant, the box containing the tablets on which the ten commandments were written, the physical record of the promise, of the covenant God had made with his people. 

 

That was the temple in its former glory. When Haggai asked his question. Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? The answer was very few had seen this house in its former glory, but everyone would have heard of the former glory of the house of God. 

 

Now hearing about the temple, about the house Solomon built for God, it can be a little strange or even off-putting for us today. Our church building is nice, it’s in good shape, but there’s not gold on the floor and all the fixtures. There’s not a giant bronze tub. There’s not cedar planks on every surface. And if we went into a church and it was covered with gold and bronze and cedar, we might ask ourselves why? A church building should be nice, but is it really so important to spend so much money on gold and bronze and cedar? Wouldn’t it be better to spend that money on helping the poor, on paying your pastor, on sending out missionaries? What was the point of the temple? 

The temple was a way for the people to draw near to God. The Temple was like a gate between heaven and earth. Not a literal gate, but a metaphorical gate, where God would meet his people. 

Even Solomon, when he built the temple understood that God did not need people to build him a house, that God does not live in a particular place; Solomon said  “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built!” God is omnipresent; he is everywhere. He’s with us wherever we go. 

 

But it’s hard to pray to a God who is everywhere. It’s easier to remember a place where God seems especially present and then pray, to think of his temple and pray. And that’s what Solomon says when he dedicates the temple, that God’s people will pray towards and through this temple, and God will hear them and save them. The temple was a tool to bring the people closer to God. 

 

Here’s an analogy. On the fourth finger of my left hand, I wear a wedding ring. Now my left ring finger isn’t any more married than my right thumb or my big toe or my ear. I’m all married. 100%. But I have this symbol on my hand, a beautiful symbol, an eye-catching symbol, to help me remember I am married. In the same way, the temple was an especially present reminder of God’s presence in a world where he was omnipresent. 

 

But why did the temple have to be so fancy? Why did it have to be huge and covered in gold and bronze and cedar? Here we have to remember two things: God is holy and holiness is dangerous. Holy means separate, set apart, different and God’s holiness is so extreme that it’s dangerous. God calls himself a consuming fire. God is powerful and just and approaching him without humility, without holiness, without the holiness of Christ, is dangerous. And all the gold and bronze and cedar, those are like big warning signs for everyone to be careful. How careful would you be if the floor were made of gold? 

The splendor of the material the temple was made out of represented God’s splendor and warned the people to be careful. This was not just another house. This was God’s house. And God is powerful, God is holy and holiness is dangerous, and the Almighty God the creator of the universe is not to be taken lightly. 

And that was the former glory of the temple. That was the place where the people drew near to God. And who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? Very few of those Israelites had seen it. That was the temple past and it was nothing like the temple present when Haggai spoke. 

When Haggai spoke the temple was basically non-existent, it had been utterly destroyed when the Babylonians conquered the city. And when the exiles first returned from Babylon they began to rebuild, but they didn’t get very far. They started and then they stopped. And one thing led to another and years passed. 15 years passed and now Haggai was reminding them to get going, to rebuild the temple. He tells them to look at. Haggai says to the people:

 

Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing? 

 

None of us saw that temple in its former glory and none of us saw that temple ruined, saw it in our sight as nothing. But a lot of us know what that feels like, to look at something that was once great, and is now almost nothing. 

So often when you visit churches these days, you will hear people talk about how things used to be, about this house in its former glory. People will tell me how their church had two hundred, three hundred people, how wonderful the Sunday School was, how beautiful the singing was, how tight-knit the community was. And now, there’s no one left, there’s hardly any kids, we can’t do this anymore, we can’t do that anymore. 

And there’s a real loss here, a real grief here, just as there was for the Israelites. The Israelites had lost their temple, had lost the house of God, had lost the place that brought them near to God, the place where they prayed and worship. And many Christians today have lived through an experience like that, watching as their churches slowly withered away and even died, as they lost the place, the community where they knew God. And that’s hard. That’s a real loss. 

And it’s not just a matter of nostalgia or wistful grass-is-greener thinking. The 1950s saw a huge historical peak in American religion, with almost 50% of Americans attending church weekly and 75% of Americans holding membership in a church. Today only about 30% of Americans attend church weekly. Here in New England that number is more like 20%. It’s not just imagination, the former glory isn’t there. 

 

On the other hand, someone like me, I don’t remember any of that former glory. I’m 26 years old. I don’t even remember 9/11 let alone the heyday of the American church in the 1950s. But I and a lot of people my age in the church hear all the time about this house in its former glory, how the church used to be, and how it looks now. Is it not in your sight as nothing?

So young or old, it’s not too hard to imagine how the Israelites young and old felt that day, looking at the ruins of their great temple, at a slab of stone covered with toppled rocks and stripped of all the gold and bronze and cedar that once stood there. They felt grief. Grief for what they had lost. Or grief for what they had never had the chance to know. 

And it’s understandable why the Israelites had given up on rebuilding the temple. It’s easy to look at how things are, to look at how things used to be, and say there is no way that is getting fixed. It’s easy to look at what you have and say there is nothing left, just like Haggai did. 

We can do this in every aspect of our life. We can look at our finances, at how much money we used to have, how well we were doing, and how it all changed when we lost our job or the market crashed or we got evicted. We remember the former glory and look at what we have now, and it’s nothing. 

We can look at our marriages. We remember the former glory, how much we loved each other on our wedding day, how young and beautiful and happy and in love we were, and then we look at how things are now, the anger, the resentment, the betrayal, the weariness and the burdens of age. And we may look at it and say, it’s nothing. 

 

We can look at any relationship, with a friend or a child or a parent. We remember the former glory, how close we were, how much time we spent together, how much we loved each other, and now they won’t talk to you, they’ve cut you off, they’ve forgotten about. We look at the relationship, and it’s nothing. 

We can look at ourselves. We remember the former glory. We were young and strong and smart and handsome. We were in control and having fun. We were popular or powerful or loved. And now, now we’re nothing. 

 

That’s hard. It’s hard to look at part of your life, remember the former glory, and say now it’s nothing. And it's especially hard to say that about our relationship with God, to look at the house of God, at the place where we meet God and worship God and know God and to no longer see the former glory, to look at it and say: How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing? It’s not hard to imagine how the Israelites felt when they heard the first part of Haggai’s message that day. 

But what did Haggai say next? What did Haggai have to say about the future of the house of God? Listen again starting at verse 4. 

Yet now take courage, O Zerubbabel, says the Lord; take courage, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; take courage, all you people of the land, says the Lord; work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts, according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. 

 

My spirit abides among you; do not fear. For thus says the Lord of hosts: Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land, and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts. The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts, and in this place I will give prosperity, says the Lord of hosts.

God says: The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former. God says you know how things have been and you know how things are, but let me tell you how things are going to be, let me tell you about the future of this temple: The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former. 

 

And God was right. And God was right in two ways. First, the Israelites rebuilt the physical temple. Inspired by God’s word and obedient to God’s word, stirred up the Spirit of God, Zerubabbel the governor and Joshua the High Priest, and all the people worked and rebuilt the house of God. And this second temple was in fact greater than the first temple. Built under Zerubabbel and then expanded under Herod, the Temple complex came to spread over 36 acres. It was a huge area, the largest gathering place in the city and one of the largest temples in the ancient world. Within the walls of Jersualem the Temple complex took up almost a quarter of the city proper. The latter splendor of this house was greater than the former.

Second, God's new temple was greater in Jesus Christ. Jesus was the new Temple. The gospel of John tells us this: Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body.

 

Jesus’ body is a temple. Jesus’ body brings us close to God. And just as the first temple was destroyed because of Israel’s sin, so too Jesus’ body was destroyed because of our sin. Jesus suffered for us, suffered for our sins on the cross. He was beaten and bruised and whipped. He was hung on a cross and killed. He was wounded for our transgressions. His body was destroyed for our sake. And when he died the veil in the temple, the veil in the holy of holies, the innermost room of the temple, that veil was torn in two from top to bottom because the temple had been destroyed. 

 

But on the third day, God raised Jesus from the dead. God rebuilt his temple in three days. And Jesus' body was a temple because that is where the sacrifice took place that took away our sins, just as the sacrifices cleansed the people from their sins. The person of Jesus is the way for us to draw near to God. Jesus is our temple. By believing in our heart that Jesus is God and by confessing with our mouth that God has raised him from the dead, we come near to God and are saved.

 

Even if you look at yourself and say: Is it not in your sight as nothing? Even if you feel like nothing, God can make you something through Jesus Christ. Belief in Jesus can change your life. And if you’re here this morning, and you’ve never done that, we’re glad you’re here, we invite you to consider belief in Jesus. 

And for those of us who have put our faith in Jesus, we are the church, we are the body of Christ and the body of Christ is a temple, is the house of God. And God has promised to build his temple. God has promised that the latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former. 

 

That may be hard to believe. But God has promised to build the church, to build his temple, and God’s promises come to pass. However good things were in the past and however bad things look now, God will build his church. The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former. God will build his church. That’s the point of Haggai’s message for us so I’m going to say it again, God will build his church; we are his temple and God will build us up. 

 

But that doesn’t mean God is going to do everything. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. No, there are commands in this passage too. There are things for us to do. There are applications for us today because God will build his church. Here are three applications:

 

First, don’t fear. Haggai says take courage. He says it three times, to everyone he is talking to, take courage. Then he says it again. My spirit abides among you; do not fear. It’s easy to be scared in life, to look at your money, your marriage, your relationships, your life and be scared. But as Christians we are called to hope, to trust in God, to trust in God’s plan, to pray without ceasing, and to live lives not based on fear from weaknesses but from hope in God’s strength. Don’t fear. 

 

Second, don’t faint. Haggai says to get to work: work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts. The Israelites had started on rebuilding the temple and then given up. It was too hard, it was hopeless, and lot of life’s problems and the church’s problems and the world’s problems, can seem too hard can seem hopeless. But God did not save us so we could sit around and be depressed all day, God saved us so that we would work for his kingdom, building up his house, doing his work in the world everyday. Being a Christian is hard work. It’s hard work for ourselves, living lives of holiness, and it’s hard work for others, living lives of service. Don’t faint. 

 

Third, don’t forget. Haggai tells us: I am with you, says the Lord of hosts, according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. He reminds them of God’s faithfulness, that God had delivered them before and surely he would deliver them again. When we are trying not to fear, when we are trying not to faint, we should remember what God has already done for us, that he made us, that he saved us, that he has provided for us so much in our life. And when we remember God’s faithfulness, we will take courage and work, so don’t forget. 

 

And God never forgets. God is not like us that sometimes things slip his mind. Although he is the ancient of days and before time itself, his memory is just as quick as ever. And however small however much of a nothing your life may seem. God remembers you and loves you and longs to turn that nothing through the power of Jesus Christ into something wonderful. Let’s pray. 

 

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