"A Reason to Rebuild ", Min. Elijah L. McDavid, III

0:00 God, our creator. We thank you today that the old promise has remained true. The water has not overtaken us and the fire has not burned us. Indeed, oh God, you've been our protection and our shield even in the midst of uncertain times. So we thank you, oh God, for bringing us again to another moment of worship. Ask now that your Holy Spirit would rain down in this place. We thank you that your spirit transcends both time and space to allow us to commune together. Now, God, we ask that as you would place us back on your potter's wheel, oh God, that we may be the clay that molds into something beautiful. God, we thank you that your hands are still working on us, and we thank you that you are not finished with us yet. Spirit of the living God, fall fresh in this place. Move by your power, and as you move, oh God, we'll be careful to give your name all the glory, all of the honor, and all of the praise. In Jesus' name, amen and amen.

1:00 Greetings, Alpha Treat Baptist Church family. Indeed, I greet you with Jesus' joy on this, another day that the Lord has made. I want you to help me virtually give God thanks for the gift of our amazing pastor, the Reverend Dr. Howard John Wesley. Indeed, I salute him and I thank him for the opportunity to share in this moment of preaching. I recognize that in the course of a given year at the Alpha Treat Baptist Church, I most often am the youngest preacher to stand behind this sacred desk. And I do not take that opportunity lightly. I know I'm a little rough around the edges, but I'm grateful for the way that this church family, for our pastor and our leadership, for the way that they've entrusted me with these moments. Thank God for them. And I thank God for our amazing audiovisual ministry that allows us to stay connected, even in this season of social distancing. And I thank God for each and every one of you, my sisters and brothers who do the amazing thing of walking by faith and not by sight. Today, I invite you to grab your Bibles and turn with me to the prophecy of Haggai. Haggai chapter 2, the second chapter of the book of Haggai. We're continuing our series majoring in the minors, realizing that these prophets who we call minor are not minor in their significance, just short in their length, but their words still speak volumes to the situations that we find ourselves in. So when you found Haggai chapter 2, I invite you to meet me at verse 1. We'll read verses 1 through 9, believing that therein we may find a word. Haggai chapter 2, you'll find words similar to these. In the second year of King Darius, in the seventh month, on the 21st day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the prophet Haggai, saying, Speak now to Zerubbabel, son of Shealtel, 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 that 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

3:11 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 shall 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. And 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. Thus far, the blessed word of God.

4:09 Today, I want you to pray with me on the sermon subject, A Reason to Rebuild. A Reason to Rebuild. One of the great challenges of faith is to be able to embrace a God who will allow our dreams to come to ruin. The honest believer can admit that it's sometimes frustrating to trust in a God who will let everything crumble. God, I know you love me and I know your presence is here with me, But why would you allow everything around me to fall apart? Beloved, might I suggest that we are in relationship with a God who believes in our ability to start over. The God of the resurrected Christ does not acknowledge the defeats that we so often lament.

5:11 God believes your career can start over. God believes you can rebuild your reputation from the ground up. God believes that you can salvage the thing that everybody else told you to throw away. And whether you feel it or not, God is confident that you can get back up and dust yourself off. God sees in you the potential to triumph over grief and heartbreak and abuse and neglect. In fact, always remember that God always has more confidence in you than you ever had in yourself. And that includes a confidence in your ability to rebuild. You can put the broken pieces back together again. You can salvage the scraps. You can make the best out of a jacked up situation and find beauty for your ashes.

6:06 Elijah can't explain why this had to happen. I'm not wise enough to make sense of all of the tragedy in your life. But I can let you know that your defeat is not permanent and your ruins do not have the final say. The fact that you are still breathing in spite of everything you've been through means that God still has more. I serve a risen Savior who stands over the circumference of your future, declaring that you have what it takes to start over. not only do you have what it takes, you've actually got a reason to rebuild. There's some pressing imperatives. There's some ministry moments in 2021. There's future generations in the years to come. There's some vulnerable populations in the here and now, and all of them are calling on you to rebuild. In fact, your very purpose and destiny is crying out from the dungeon of your fear and your disappointment, begging on you to rebuild. If you don't sense that voice in your own spirit, maybe you'll hear it in the words of the prophet Haggai, for Haggai offers a prescriptive imperative for all of our lives. These words echo out of the sixth century through the corridors of eternity. Won't you hear the prophet speak? Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory. How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing?

7:39 Yet now take courage. Work, for I am with you according to the promise that I made to you when you came up out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you. Do not fear. Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. I will shake all of the nations so that the treasure of all nations shall come and I will fill this house with splendor. The silver is mine and the gold is mine and the latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former and in this place I will give prosperity. The final three minor prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi are unique from the other prophets we studied earlier this month because these three prophets preach to a struggling community that is returning from exile. They are coming back home.

8:33 You know that the children of Israel were defeated by the Assyrians and the temple was destroyed back in 587 BCE. They were driven out of their homeland into foreign territory and held as abused second-class citizens, slaves, if you will. But later on, when the Persians took reign over the Assyrians, a small group of Jews were allowed to return to the ruins of their homeland. And Haggai is speaking to that group. He's speaking to a community returning home 67 years after everything they loved had been destroyed, including their precious temple. 67 years after the loss of loved ones. 67 years after the destruction of property. 67 years after the devastation of dreams. 67 years later, Haggai tells a heartbroken people that in spite of everything you've been through, you still have a reason to rebuild.

9:35 67 years is a pain few of us can relate to. But I want to borrow Haggai's words to preach to some folk who about six to seven months ago began to see dreams crumble, plans fall apart, loved ones pass away. Six to seven months ago, you had a job, a health care plan, and a travel schedule that you can't even imagine anymore. For six to seven months, you've been separated from your family, or you've had to spend way too much time with your family. COVID-19 has sent our lives into a tailspin, and now we wrestle with the psychological and spiritual impact of having to sit amongst the ruins of our plans, our hopes, and our dreams. I'll admit I'm rusty and I haven't preached in a while, but I came to talk to somebody sitting on their couch somewhere and to let you know that you have a reason to rebuild.

10:30 Can I show you why very quickly? The first point is simple. You've got to rebuild to reimagine. Haggai says, who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing? When Haggai says it looks in your sight as nothing, he is speaking of the foundation of the temple. What makes this book so clear to understand is the precise dating we get throughout the prophecy. Three times the prophet gives us specific dates attached to his words, and scholars will tell you that at the beginning of this second chapter, this second chapter is dated four weeks after the foundation of the temple has been laid. So rebuilding has already begun, but they pressed pause after finishing the foundation. And all of us know what it's like to lay a foundation and give up on it. You made the vision board, but you never executed the plan. You bought the equipment, but now it's collecting dust in storage. You designed the brochure, but you never set the meetings. We've all had some unfinished foundations. And Haggai says, I know the unfinished foundation looks in your sight as nothing, but you've got to continue to rebuild because too often we get impatient with the pace of our progress. We're stall because we dissatisfied with our small beginnings. But every dream has a prerequisite and every goal has a starting point. And child of God, you cannot afford to give up just because you can't see the reflection of a finished product as you stare at a cold gray foundation. Haggai's community sees the foundation and they say this is going to take too much to complete. It doesn't look anything like the old temple. The old temple was full of majestic beauty and splendor. Solomon had built it in decadence, and it was filled with the ark and the altar,

12:40 Aaron's rod, and all of these other beautiful artifacts. And they lament the past glory of the old temple as they stare at the small beginnings of this foundation. And Haggai says, I need you to reimagine. Because thus says the Lord of hosts, my spirit abides among you and I, the Lord, will fill this house with splendor. The beauty of this place has nothing to do with old artifacts, but it has everything to do with the spirit of the living God that still moves among you despite what you've lost. It's not Solomon's glory of the past that filled the temple. It's the glory of the living God that filled the temple yesterday, today, and forevermore. While we all have to grieve what we lost, clinging to what we lost will hamper our ability to imagine a new world. I know it's tough because some of us lost an opportunity and that we always wanted, and now that job, that opportunity doesn't even make sense in a post-COVID world. For many of us, relationships have been severed because of too much time together or too much time apart, but it's imperative for me to reimagine because unless I get a glimpse of my future, I won't be able to let go of my past.

14:01 I have to believe that it was not the things in my life that gave my life significance, but it was the spirit of God breathing on my life that made my life so beautiful. And after everything I've lost, after all that was destroyed, I haven't lost the presence of the almighty God. God's glory is able to do something in your future greater than anything you are grieving from your past. You're not rebuilding to replicate. You're rebuilding to reimagine a better possibility. And that better possibility will emerge out of the ingredients that have been present in your life all along. Hear me, somebody, an over-attachment to the past will cause you to miss the future glory that's on the way. In the midst of tragedy, you have to be intentional about reminding yourself that God always has a new thing on the way. You've got to get up and look in the mirror and give yourself a daily reminder that, behold, I am doing a new thing, that God's compassions are new every morning, and that if any of us be in Christ, we are a new creature, and one day we shall behold a new heaven and a new earth, because our God specializes in making all things new. We are the people of God, and we are always walking on the edge of new discoveries, standing on the precipice of new possibilities.

15:35 And if we would just open our hearts to it, God is presenting opportunity after opportunity after opportunity. And those of us who have known God in the past need to see what it means to know God in the present. My spirit still abides among you. We've got to rebuild to reimagine and we have to rebuild to refocus. When you get home, I want you to read the entirety of Haggai's prophecy. And I really mean that, y'all, because it's only two chapters, 38 verses. If there was ever a week for you to do your church homework, this is that week. And what you will find is that Haggai is essentially making an indictment of the people. He says in chapter 1, verse 4, that is this a time for you yourselves to live in your paneled houses while this house, meaning the temple, lies in ruins? Haggai points to a simple deficiency that many of us can relate to.

16:37 It's not that we don't have the capacity to rebuild. It's that we put our focus on rebuilding the wrong things. When the people of Israel return home, they start building these fancy houses for themselves, and they leave the temple lying in ruins. And this is strange because they live in a world where people believe that God could only properly be worshipped in a temple. So how can you put God and worship on the back burner while you focus on the comforts of your own luxurious lifestyle? I'm about to leave this empty sanctuary and pull up in somebody's driveway because if we're honest, all of us have been through seasons of our life where we've made God secondary. Ministry became an afterthought. Serving those in need became an optional extracurricular. Worship went from being a weekly practice to a once a month thing. You know, maybe I'll squeeze it in before brunch. And somebody needs to hear this word today. Don't walk out of a season of tragedy with jacked-up priorities. Maybe this pandemic had to slow you down so that you could finally realize that your kids mattered more than your job. Maybe this pandemic had to clear out your schedule so that your prayer life could finally get the attention that your social calendar always had. Bro, maybe every sports season had to get canceled so you could finally have that difficult conversation with your significant other that you've been avoiding.

18:08 If anything good comes out of this pandemic, it ought to at least be a clarified sense of your purpose and your priorities. Don't exit a season of suffering without focusing on what really matters. Some of the foolishness that consumed our time last year should have no place in our schedule next year. I know you've got a lot to work on and a lot you want to fix, but don't forget to refocus. We've got a reason to rebuild the stuff that really matters. And if you handle what's most important first, I'm a witness that everything else will fall in line. Oh, I'm so glad that when I learned to put God first, everything else started to get better. When I made God a priority, my stress level went down and blessings started popping up out of nowhere. When I spent more time on my knees in prayer, I got peace of mind, renewed self-esteem, and my enemies started to feel irrelevant.

19:04 When worship became a habit, my worries faded away and my family started experiencing financial breakthrough. When I put God first, I stopped crying over her and stressing over him because my eyes were open to new miracles and new mercies. Thank God that he taught me to focus on what really matters.

19:26 Thus says the Lord of hosts, work on the stuff that really matters and I will be with you according to the promise I made you. Ah, but it keeps getting better. The prophet goes on to say, once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. Hear me, the good news is simple. When you start working, God starts shaking. I know you see a raggedy foundation, and I know you've got lots of competing priorities, but if you just start working on the little things that you can handle, God says, I'll take care of the big things that only I can handle. God says, when you show up with your effort, I'll show up with my extravagance. Oh, he's going to do everything that he takes. He's gonna shake heaven and earth just to make this thing come to pass. Oh, God, while you are working, God is still shaking. He's gonna make resources show up.

20:21 He's gonna pull strength up out of your weakness. He's gonna connect you with partners who have the skillsets that you don't have. He's going to introduce you to investors that you shouldn't even have access to. If you stay committed to the work, he'll move the mountain out of the way that stands between you and your goal. Work and trust God to do the shaking. But notice it now. God says in a little while. You missed it. God says in a little while. Most of us don't want to hear in a little while. We like to read the Bible in here immediately. And our challenge is to learn how to start working even when we see no signs of the shaking. It may not come immediately. It might come in a little while because often God's supernatural assistance shows up in proportion to our natural effort.

21:17 Keep working and in a little while watch God show up. God is saying to somebody, get to work and then I'll help out. Start building and in a little while, I'll make a way out of no way. Trust me with the first step. And later on, I'll be your bridge over troubled water in a little while. Oh God, y'all forgive me. I'm taking long today, but it's been six months and I miss preaching. We have to rebuild to reimagine. We have to rebuild to refocus and then catch the last one. We have to rebuild to salvage our resilience. We don't often hear from Haggai, but on the rare occasions when we do bring him up, it's typically in the context of prosperity teaching. Many of us watched prosperity gospel preachers on television growing up, but for those of you who aren't familiar, the prosperity gospel is simply the idea that financial blessing and good health and physical well-being are always the will of God for an individual, and that through faith and positive speech and donations to religious causes, one can confirm and increase their own material wealth and benefit.

22:29 I grew up as a child of the 90s in the height of black prosperity gospel preaching, and then later on I began my preaching career in Atlanta, Georgia, which could be considered the capital of the black prosperity gospel. There was a pronounced culture of name it and claim it. The church motto at that time was, when praises go up, the blessings come down. We were inundated with messages that taught us, if you focus on God's house, if you sow in the temple, if you bring your tithes to the church and gifts to your pastor, then you would in turn reap your own material blessings. Good health, a new job, large house, new fancy car. And so Haggai's notions of filling this house with splendor, silver and gold belonging to the Lord, and prosperity being given in the temple. These were often quoted by prosperity preachers. And in the years to come, many scholars made their critiques of the prosperity gospel and many of those who sat in those churches became disillusioned because they did all the stuff.

23:33 They spoke in positive faith and they sold in the temple, but they never received their own material blessings. So many became disillusioned and many rightfully critiqued the harmful practices of this theology. And while those critiques are valid, I've come to recognize over the years that prosperity is not a concept that should be entirely thrown away. There are, in fact, declarations of prosperity all throughout the Bible. Haggai and others give us legitimate reasons to believe in prosperity. The issue with the genre of preaching is that we were talking about prosperity without putting it into conversation with our adversity. and you cannot have one without the other. Life is not monolithic. Life is seasonal. Your prosperity and your adversity speak to each other. Your pain and your promise dance in rotation with one another.

24:28 Your seasons of lack and your seasons of abundance are in constant conversation. Your life is a tapestry woven together of all of the good, the bad, and the ugly. And no matter how hard we try, we cannot eliminate variety from our lives. Can we go just a little bit deeper? I would argue that we avoid Haggai because it brings us to the sorrowful realization that some problems repeat themselves. We want God to bring us out of a situation and never let us experience that type of pain again. But then here comes Haggai, urging the people to rebuild a destroyed temple in 520 BCE. They listen, they rebuild, and the temple has a fancy opening day about five years later. And yet in the long view, we know that that new temple would be destroyed just like the last one in 70 CE. And so when we hear the promise that in this place I will give prosperity, it messes with our psyche because it's one thing for us to experience one moment of devastation, but it's another thing for us to go through it all over again. How do I find the strength to rebuild when I know that what I rebuild might get torn down? How do I make sense of a loving God taking us through something twice? God, it's one thing for me to go through a storm one time because perhaps I learned the lesson, perhaps it built some character, maybe the adversity made me stronger. But to look in God's word and to see the promise of prosperity after a storm, only to know that later on the descendants of those people would have to go through the same storm all over again, if I can be honest, God, that troubles me. God, it was one thing when I lost the last job, but now my new company is downsizing and I've got to go through this all over again. God, I was able to pull myself together when I got cheated on the first time,

26:38 but now I've got to experience this same heartbreak all over again. God, it was hard enough to bury one parent, but to turn around a few months later and have to experience that same pain? God, I can't go through this again. The agony of again rattles the core of our hope and our optimism. When they tell us that the numbers may spike and that this fall may be worse than the spring, the agony of again starts to suffocate our faith. How do I rebuild knowing that what I rebuild might get torn down again? I rebuild because I'm not just rebuilding a temple. I'm rebuilding my resilience. I'm strengthening my spirit. There may be some more losses in in my future, but I refuse to allow defeat to be my permanent disposition. Even if prosperity is only temporary, I will seize the silver and the gold while I still have a chance. This structure may not be permanent, but in the act of rebuilding, I get my resilience back. What we produce with our hands will always be temporary, but our resilience of our spirit is everlasting. So the world may knock down what I build, but my spirit stands tall because I know that I still have what it takes to keep getting back up. Hear me, somebody. I wish I could promise you a new car, new house, new job, new boo. You might get those things. I don't know. But what I can guarantee is that life will force you to develop some resilience. Your spirit will come out stronger on the other side of this rebuilding project. I don't know if you'll get the stuff you always wanted, but you will lift up your bow down head. You will overcome this depression. You will sing and smile again. Your heart will be able to love once more. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy is coming in the morning. Rebuild, my sister. Put your hand back on the plow, my brother. God will strengthen your heart. I wonder

28:45 if there's anybody in this virtual service who can lift your hands and shout with me that I am ready to rebuild. I know my enemies pronounce their victory, but I refuse to let them have the last word. My situation may be broken, but my spirit is stronger than ever. And by God's spirit, I will rise out of the ashes of defeat. Things may not turn around tomorrow, but I've determined that I will trust in the Lord until the day that I die. I will rebuild. I can get back up again. I can conquer what tried to take me out. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

29:28 And because he strengthens me, I've got a reason to rebuild. Let's pray. God, we bless your name today. For indeed, oh God, you are God of hill and valley. You are God of prosperity and adversity. God, thank you that in every season of your life, you speak a word of encouragement to remind us that we have what it takes to keep moving forward. Thank you, oh God, for not closing the book yet, but reminding us that this is the dawn of a new chapter. So now, oh God, I pray for each and every one of your sons and your daughters, praying that she would strengthen hearts, praying that she would bandage wounds, praying, oh God, that she would send a healing and a confidence and a faith and an assurance to allow them to know that out of the ashes of defeat, they can rise again.

30:22 So God, we rise to walk into this new week. We rise to walk into a deeper relationship with you. And we rise in the power of the resurrection, recognizing that with you, through you, and by you, all things are possible. So we love you, we give you thanks, and we bless your name. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you.