By Victor Ochieng
In a February 5, 2017, sermon by Tom Oates, he talks about the things God wants His people to do. The sermon was delivered at the Grace Church, Greenwich, Connecticut. The foundation of the sermon was Haggai 1. Oates, the founding pastor of the church, boasts of an expansive ministry service history spanning different locations, including Massachusetts, London, and Virginia.
Picking from the times of Haggai, he points out that the work of God’s people was to build a temple, where they would meet together and share God’s Word. In our times, Oates says God expects us to build the church by preaching the good news of Christ Jesus. The primary focus is no longer the building of huge temples, but that of preaching the Blood of Jesus. This basically talks about setting priorities; meaning you can build glorious places of worship, but the most crucial calling is preaching an undefiled gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
As a Christian, you need to examine your priorities and know the kind of relationship you have with God. Most people of our time don’t really take their time to do so. In the Bible book of Haggai, you realize that God’s people were busy building their own houses before building the house of God. By so doing, they were basically saying God wasn’t their priority; more like God wasn’t actually important in their lives.
During Bible times, God would do things to show His people that they needed Him. He’d engineer challenges that would awaken their consciousness and remind them of Jehovah. As they faced the troubles, God would remind them that they were struggling to dress well, but they weren’t feeling warm; they would eat but never have their fill (Haggai 1:5). In this case, God was reminding of their misplaced priorities.
If you look at the world today, you realize that people are struggling to amass wealth, build palatial homes and buy state-of-the-art cars yet they still don’t achieve happiness.
This is a very critical message for the church today. It’s becoming clear that God should always be our number one priority, knowing clearly that just a puff of His breath is enough to smash all we have. Not that we shouldn’t work to own things; no; it’s just that these things shouldn’t be our top priority. Jehovah God should always remain top of our priorities.
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