When I am speaking to my mother on the telephone, she will often end with a British expression that might be taken as a word of advice.  Overall, though, it’s a word of care.  It’s a word of love.  She will say “Mind how you go.”  Watch how you go as you are going along.  Be careful how you are going.  Paul’s version of “Mind how you go” is found in Ephesians 4:1, which comes right after the verse we alluded to last week, though we didn’t read it.  It’s about the Spirit of God at work in us to accomplish far more than we could ever ask or ever imagine.  Here’s the verse:

“Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church (the Temple)  and in Christ Jesus (the Temple) to all generations, forever and ever.  Amen.”  (Eph 3:20-21)

Listen to what comes after it.  “I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called…what does this look like?... with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace…” (Eph 4:1-3)

A sort of Pauline “Mind how you go.”  Let us hear it with the love and care with which it is intended.  Let us tell it to one another with that same love and care (because it’s very easy not to care how each other are going or live lives that are cut off from one another).  I beg you.  Lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.  Lead a life worthy of the set apartness for which you have been set apart in Christ.  Lead a life worthy of the holiness for which you have been made holy in Christ. 

Why is this necessary for us to hear?  Because doing wrong, sin, our tendency to mess things up, is pervasive and invasive.  Let us take our tendency to mess things up seriously.  Let us take the Word of God for us seriously.  Too often it seems that we attribute wrongdoing to stupidity or a lack of knowledge – at least in other people.  “What an idiot!” we say or “How could they be so stupid?!”  Let us not forget that we are in a war against powers and principalities that want nothing more than disruption in our loving relationship with God and with one another and with God’s good creation.

Thankfully we are not left alone in this war.  We’ve been hearing this message through these three weeks.  “I am with you,” says the Lord. “Take courage, take courage, take courage,” says the Lord, “For I am with you.  My spirit abides among you.  Do not fear.”  Thankfully we are not left unequipped in this war. (armour of God)  Let us ask God to bless his word to us and give us attentive hearts this morning.

It's now the ninth month (December in our calendars) and this third word from God comes from the prophet Haggai.  It’s a day of ceremony to mark the foundation of temple being laid – the equivalent of one of the ground-breaking ceremonies that we still have today.  They used to be about golden shovels, and everyone being dressed up.  Today they’re more about ribbons and giant scissors, but we get the idea.  Before he talks about the problem of the day, the issue against which one has to be on guard, Haggai asks a question of the priests.

Interlude – Holiness:  There are two concepts of holiness in the OT.  The first has to do with the nature of God as holy – wholly holy, separate from limitation or sin.  The second has to do with objects or people being set apart for God’s purpose or service.  In this case it’s meat that would be consecrated or set apart for God’s purpose in a sacrifice, being brought home where it would be eaten with a day.  So we have the notion of things being consecrated or defiled, clean or unclean. End of Interlude  

Here's Haggai’s illustration – “Ask the priests for a ruling: If one carries consecrated meat in the fold of one’s garment, and with the fold touches bread, or stew, or wine or oil, or any kind of food, does it become holy?  The priests answered, “No.”  Then Haggai said, “If one who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean?”  The priests answered, “Yes, it becomes unclean.”

Someone has put the question like this - “Consider the contagious power of dirt. It takes only one drop of motor oil to pollute a gallon of water, while innumerable gallons of water will not turn motor oil into something drinkable. When children touch the wall with their dirty hands they leave a dirty mark, yet if someone touches the same wall with clean hands it doesn’t leave a clean mark. Dirt is far more contagious than cleanliness.”  One pair of dark wash jeans thrown in with your light laundry is going to turn everything a little blue, while WHATS THE OTHER SIDE TO THIS ANALOGY?

“So it is with this people, and with this nation before me, says the Lord; and so with every work of their hands, and what they offer there is unclean.” (2:14)  The exiles who had returned to Jerusalem had constructed an altar.  Sacrifice and worship were happening, but that was as far as things went.  Remember the situation that God addressed through his Haggai in chapter 1.  These people say the time has not yet come to build the Lord’s house.  It was not the time to give God a foundational place in their lives, they had other things to attend to after all.  It was not time to cultivate and foster a place of centrality for Yahweh in their lives.  They were going through the religious motions, but God didn’t have much meaning beyond those prescribed worship times.

Do we know what that’s like?  To offer to God little more than a prescribed time and place to come before Him?  Once a week and that’s it.  Once a month and that’s it.  Twice a year and that’s it.  I knew a time in my own life when worship of God didn’t mean much more than a particular time and a particular place and that was church on Sunday morning.  Vast areas of my life were reserved from God or anything God might require of me/any way that God might require me to be that I didn’t want to be.  This is what I thought freedom was, you see.  “Before a stone was placed upon stone in the Lord’s temple, how did you fare?”  How was that for us?  How is that for us?

We looked last week at the message to take courage and to work.  We said that working in our context means to carry on with patterns of worship praise and prayer together and individually;  of gathering in small groups; of acts of hospitality and welcome; of acts of generosity and kindness and compassion.  As we encourage one another in these patterns, we’re called to mind how we go.  We’ve spoken of opening ourselves up to God building us as individual stones in the temple that is the church.  In this we must mind how we go.  It's been said that the ultimate danger of temple building or any works of religion is the temptation for us to find our righteousness or our holiness within ourselves.  To think that we’re pretty good at this God thing and God and everyone else should feel lucky to have me on the team.  The danger is “to believe that association with the things of God automatically communicates moral purity, right judgement, unconquerable power – all of those qualities associated with holiness, that is, the total otherness of God.  How many futile crusades have been launched on the basis of such blind assumptions!  How many communities have been split by those claiming such rightness! How many presuppositions of such superiority have prevented the communication or the receipt of the gospel!”  To know the words of Scripture; to be familiar with the hymns of the faith; to be able to speak pious sounding words; to volunteer 20 hours each week; none of this conveys holiness/cleanness/righteousness. We are not left there of course!  No matter how these words resonate with us now or resonate when we consider our past, we are not left there.  Look at verse 15 and those words of which we spoke last week that turn everything around.  “But now…”  But God.  But now.  Consider what will come to pass from this day on.  God does not abandon His people, even in our disobedience and disregard.  God does not abandon us.  The promise is one of blessing – “From this day on, I will bless you.” (2:19)  It’s December and next year’s crops have been planted.  The storehouses are getting depleted.  The vine, the fig tree and the pomegranate are bare.  The promise here is one of new life.  “From this day on, I will bless you.”

Consider what will come to pass from this day on.  From this day on which the laying of the foundation of the temple is celebrated.  This talk of sacrifices might seem strange to us, but we get it. The sacrifice has been made.  We get it.  I pray we get it.  Christ has become the sacrifice by which we are brought into a right relationship with God.  The good and right and fitting and proper response to this truth is to offer our gifts, our praise and prayer together, our faith, our acts of love, compassion and generosity.  The good and fitting and proper response to the truth of Christ’s sacrifice is to offer these not in a compartmentalized way, but based on offering ourselves – all that we are -  as living sacrifices, made holy and pleasing to God through Jesus with hearts transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

“From this day on I will bless you,” says God through the prophet.  I know we often think of being blessed in terms of being in good circumstances.  The blessing promised here that is fulfilled in Jesus goes beyond any circumstance.  Again we go back to the words of Paul to the Ephesian brothers and sisters.  “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places…” (Eph 1:3)  What kind of blessings?  Adoption as his children. (Eph 1:5)  Redemption through his blood. (Eph 1:7)  Forgiveness of trespasses. (Eph 1:7)  The seal of the Holy Spirit. (Eph 1:13)

From this day on.  There was a significance to this day of foundation laying and I pray that there is a significance for us who are hearing God’s word this day. For us as a temple of living stones, our role is to anticipate and be a signpost pointing toward the restored, renewed relationship with God that will characterize the new heaven and new earth.  This is an all-of-life role.     

The warning in our passage is against empty worship of God that has little meaning to the rest of our lives.  The warning is against the invasive and pervasive nature of sin.  Is there a room in our heart that we want to keep God out of?  Is there an area of our lives that we reserve for ourselves?  Is there a matter of sin/doing wrong/our tendency to mess things up in our lives that we need to bring to God?  We’re going to have a chance today to affirm our desire to be built as living stones in the temple of God’s church.  We’re going to have the chance to leave what needs to be left as we pray “From this day on Lord, build us together as your church.”  We have a basket of stones here that we’re invited to take in a few moments and lay them on the table.  As the music plays, the invitation to us is to lay our lives down before God as we lay our stones; to lay those things aside which need to be laid aside with the help of the Holy Spirit.  Let us do so secure in God’s promise of blessing, and secure in the promise that the Holy Spirit is at work in us to do far more than we could ever ask or imagine.  May we remind one another to mind how we go as we go along with one another and with our loving God. Amen.