Sunday 13 September 2026: Haggai 2:1-9

We are working through the book of Haggai; a really small book in the Old Testament, but a really important book, because it is packed full of strong spiritual teaching.

In our reading today, Haggai deals with a really important question, which is how to cope with discouragements, especially in mission.

It is something we all face. All of us get discouraged from time to time, and when we are discouraged in life, it can be really hard to stay focused on God. When we try new things in our mission, the truth is that some of them will work, and some of them won’t.

One very recent disappointment for us comes from our Children’s Fun Day that we planned for the school holidays. Despite some really creative ideas and very real enthusiasm from folk in our Church, we had to cancel the event due to a lack of interest. When we take risks in our mission, there will be times when we face disappointment together; times when we will be discouraged because something that we hoped would work, just didn’t catch on for one reason or another.

So how do we cope with these disappointments and discouragements when they come? Well, Haggai is dealing with that issue in the nine verses of our reading today, and let us see what he has to say.

In verses 1 to 3, we learn why the people of Israel are feeling discouraged. Quite simply, it was because they thought their efforts in rebuilding the temple were insignificant.

The dates in Haggai are really important – and this date in verse 1 is really important too. It was the 21^st day of the seventh month in 520 BC – which apparently is the equivalent of 17 October 520 BC in their calendar. This was the exact date when, 430 years earlier, King Solomon had dedicated the first temple to God. We have all heard about Solomon’s temple: its beauty, its glory, a true masterpiece of architecture that was the envy of the ancient world.

And the people of Israel would have been thinking about that first temple and looking around them as they stood there with their hammers and chisels – and they would have felt very discouraged. They would have thought that their efforts were insignificant.

Perhaps sometimes we might feel like that? We will undertake a new initiative at church, like the Children’s Fun Day, and it may seem, after a period of time, as if we are not making progress or much of a difference. We might think about the heritage of our church at Ingaway which has been here for 64 years now, and before that the Gospel Hall which was in what we now know as Wickhay. We might think about the once thriving congregations, the saintly leaders and all their successful activities, and believe we cannot possibly match-up to what has gone before.

If we – or any church today for that matter – compare ourselves with times-past, then it is quite likely to bring discouragement.

And that can be true in other areas of our lives too: in our parenting, in our marriages, in our friendships, in our work lives, we can often be found comparing ourselves to others and feeling discouraged as a result.

So, what is the remedy to feeling discouraged? Haggai addresses this in verses 4 and 5.

God says through Haggai: “But now don’t be discouraged, for I am with you. When you came out of Egypt, I promised that I would always be with you. I am still with you, so do not be afraid.”

When we feel discouraged in our lives or our mission, we need to be reminded of God’s promise to us – “I am with you”. When we are feeling discouraged in life, we need to remember that God is with us. He has promised to be with us and will never leave us, regardless of how we might feel.

God is on our side. He is with us.

And to be convinced about that, God reminds us to look back through history. The history of the people of Israel proves God’s constant love. The history of the church proves God’s constant presence.

But, just as importantly, when we look back through our own lives, we can gain a sense of God with us always – even when times have been tough, we can sense the hand of God in our lives.

Jesus’ final words to His disciples before He ascended to heaven are recorded in Matthew 28 as being this: “I am with you always, even to the end of the age”. That is the ultimate promise of God: His presence with us, through thick and thin, in good times and in bad.

So, if we are feeling discouraged in a particular area of our lives, we can remember God’s promise to be with us and to take comfort in that promise, just as the people of Israel were called to take comfort in that promise as they rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem.

We are not insignificant. Our hard work and our waiting is not insignificant. The effort we put into making our mission effective will not be insignificant.

God is with us.

And, as we remember God’s presence with us, what is the result we can expect? Haggai outlines that for us in verses 6 to 9.

If we remember God, He will use us beyond the limits to which we believe our capabilities extend. This is what verses 6 to 9 say: “Before long I will shake heaven and earth, land and sea. I will overthrow all the nations, and their treasures will be brought here, and the Temple will be filled with wealth. All the silver and gold of the world is mine. The new Temple will be more splendid than the old one, and there I will give my people prosperity and peace. The Lord Almighty has spoken.”

If we stay focused on God and trust in His presence with us, He will shake things up in our lives. He will shake things up in this church.

God’s promise is that, if we stay focused on Him, the glory of the future temple will outstrip the glory of the old Temple. In other words, the future will be more glorious than the past.

And the future will be more glorious than the past for one simple reason: because the future will be filled with the presence of Jesus’ Spirit. Just as Jesus walked into the Temple on the first Palm Sunday, so He will be present in our lives and in the life of this Church into the future. Your life, my life, this church, is the dwelling place of the Spirit of Jesus. So how could it not be a glorious future waiting for us?

And what is so good is the final word of his promise: “I will give my people prosperity and peace”. A promise of wholeness and healing and forgiveness, as Jesus said in John 10:10, “Life in all its fullness”.

So, in conclusion then, God knows that we all face discouragements in life, and that can be especially obvious to us as we wait on God. God knows that we will face discouragements in the future as we take forward our mission.

But God says through Haggai, if we are feeling discouraged, we should reflect back on the past and remember God’s presence with us. If we are feeling discouraged, reflect on the presence of God with us in the present by His Holy Spirit. If we are feeling discouraged, trust in the fact that God has a beautiful future for us filled with His own prosperity and peace.

God is with us always by the presence of His Holy Spirit. In our discouragements in life, that is the promise and the reality we need to hold onto. 

Sunday 6 September 2026: Haggai 1:1-15

A Call to Build the House of the Lord

Today’s passage asks us to consider our ways: delayed obedience is disobedience, and material wealth without God leaves us spiritually empty. Haggai shows that the issue was not simply unfinished building work, but misplaced worship. The people had found time for their own comfort while postponing God’s call, and their comfortable lives still left them restless and unsatisfied.

Haggai was written after the people of Judah had returned from exile in Babylon, the story in which God redeemed His people from Egypt and gave them the promised land, and were saved to worship and glorify Him by living as His holy people. The temple was built in Jerusalem as a sign of God’s presence. Sadly, God’s people turned away from Him and they started worshiping idols. God brought judgement on them and they were conquered by Babylon, the temple was destroyed and they were exiled from the land.

Through all this, however, God remained faithful to His covenant with them. In time, the Babylonian empire fell and the Persian empire took its place. God raised up Cyrus, king of Persia, who permitted the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the city and its temple. However, when faced with opposition the Jews stopped work and this is the time when the prophecy came to Haggai. The rebuilding of the template had still not started and it lay in ruins. The Jews were distracted by other things and other priorities. They started to become more involved and worried about their own lives than they did with things about God. God sent the prophets Haggai and Zechariah to encourage the Jews to build His house.

What difficulties and distractions draw us away from God and His work? It is easy to become comfortable, or to get so caught up in the ‘here and now’, that we forget to involve God in our plans. We may be so busy organising our lives that we forget to ask what He wants for our lives. Our lives can become so full of “stuff” that we try to squeeze God into the gaps. Do you ever think I am too busy for God, too busy to pray, too busy to go to church, etc?

An American author Wanda E Brunstetter wrote: ‘If you are too busy to pray, you are busier than God wants you to be’.

This is our sign to pause, take stock, reflect and rebuild God into our lives. God wants to be part of our lives, the whole part, not just the edges. God wants us to have time to spend with Him, not always being so busy that we have to squeeze God into a tiny bit of what is left, too exhausted to spend time with Him.

God confronts our delay

God spoke through the prophet Haggai in order to encourage His people to rebuild His house. God did this by rebuking them about what they had been doing, living life for themselves rather than for God.

The people had been taking way too long to start rebuilding the temple and God wanted them to get on with the job. It had been prophesised by Jeremiah that Judah’s exile would last 70 years from the fall until the temple was rebuilt. We know from the opening chapter that sixty-six years had already gone by, meaning that there were only four years left and yet the people had not started.

God is persevering with His people because the temple matters. It matters because it represented the place where God could dwell with His people. In rebuilding the temple, it would show God the devotion of His people and their continued faith in Him. It was the place where His people could draw near to Him.

Unfortunately, God’s people had lost sight of the significance of the temple and were simply dragging their heels and doing their own thing rather than the thing God wanted them to do. God refers to them as ‘these people’ in verse 2 rather than ‘my people’. God is basically stating that if they were truly ‘His’ people then they would want to get on with the job and finish rebuilding the temple rather than spending time on other things.

Do we ever see that today? Children often find many other things to do rather than their homework. Adults will often start a task to then get sidetracked on something else because they want to put off the thing they are supposed to be doing. What excuses do we make for putting off what God wants us to do? It’s not the right time? I don’t have the skills? I’m too busy doing other things? I need to wait until I have more time? Etc, etc. We keep waiting for the right time to put God first, but the truth is, that time is now, today, this moment.

We learn in Haggai chapter 1 that God does not give up on His people. He loves them despite all their faults and indifference to Him. He confronts them directly and speaks to their heart, so they won’t ignore Him.

When God speaks to us, we can have two responses. We can harden our heart, ignore God, go the other way, block Him out, or we can accept what He is telling us.

Verse 7 says, ‘Give careful through to your ways’. This was as relevant to the Jews back then as it is to us today. It calls us to think about how we are living, what we are doing, how we are spending our time, our attitude to God, how much time we devote to God. It encourages us to reflect. Busyness is not always wrong, but it can reveal what we value most. If we are too busy for prayer, worship, service, or love for others, then is our time being used wisely? The issue is not simply a lack of time, but a lack of desire to give God the place He deserves. We give our energy to what we value, so what does our use of time say about the value we place on our relationship with God?

God exposes our emptiness

Haggai calls us to consider our ways. In our passage, Haggai wrote that the people had ‘planted much, and harvested little, never have enough to eat and drink, cannot get warm despite putting on clothes and had wealth slip through holes in their bags’. The point here is that these physical things will never be enough as we will always need more, and we are left being spiritually empty. Material possessions do not satisfy our heart, but when we put God at the centre and trust him, this fills us and provides us with what we need.

God comforts us with His presence

When people obey God in Haggai 1:12, their obedience shows that delayed obedience must come to an end. They do not merely feel sorry for what they have done wrong, they take action. It can sometimes be hard to admit we are wrong to start with, but even more so to start being obedient when previously we had been disobedient.

We are told in verse 12 that the people feared the Lord, but I am not sure this is the reason why they turned from delay to obedience.

Haggai brings his message with one of comfort. Yes, the people feared the LORD, but Haggai tells them God’s word in verse 13: “I am with you.” God’s presence is not an excuse to delay; it is the strength that enables obedience. God comforts His people not by ignoring their disobedience, but by bringing them back to Himself.

The people had tried to find security in their own homes, plans, and possessions, but those things could not satisfy them. What their panelled houses could not give them, God now gives: His presence. When God is with His people, they have the courage to obey, the grace to begin again, and the only comfort that can fill the emptiness left by life without Him.

Even our repentance, faith, and obedience are gifts from the gracious God. Look at Haggai 1:14. It is the LORD who stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, Joshua, and all the people. Having considered their ways, they no longer postponed obedience. God stirred them, and they came and worked on the house of the LORD.

Haggai 1:15 tells us they began on the twenty-fourth day of the month, only twenty-three days after God first spoke through Haggai. Their delay came to an end because God’s Word had awakened them. They did not merely agree with the message; they obeyed it. This is what true repentance looks like: not just feeling sorry, but turning back to God and acting on His Word. Delayed obedience is disobedience, but God’s grace can move reluctant hearts to become obedient to Him. 

Sunday 12 July 2026: Hebrews 13:1-19

Concluding Exhortations

Throughout the book of Hebrews, the author has been seeking to persuade readers of the superiority of Jesus over Judaism, with one reasoned argument after another. But now at the close, they turn to a series of short, ethical encouragements, and the whole of chapter 13 is an uplifting read. For the purpose of my message today, however, I am going to focus on the first five verses of our reading. And I will start with a couple of rhetorical questions.

Have you ever wondered what it means to be a ‘practicing Christian’? And, what would we have to be, and what would we have to do for others to describe us as ‘practicing Christians’? 

We all know what a Christian is – someone who follows Jesus and believes that He is our saviour and is the Son of God. Or, someone who believes what is written in the Apostles’ Creed. Our doctrine at Ingaway is very similar to that Creed. We all have an idea of what a Christian is, but what about a ‘practicing Christian’? Maybe, that is a little harder to answer? 

But it is important, because all of us should want to be described by those who know us as practicing Christians. We should want to be people who not only believe in the teachings of Jesus, but who strive to live by them, and to put them into practice. 

In my preparation for the service this week, I came across a thought-provoking question that gets at this idea. If being a Christian suddenly became illegal in our country – and given the way things are going, that dreadful thought might even come true one day – would there be enough evidence to arrest and convict us? If the answer is ‘yes’, then we are most likely a practicing Christian. But, still, we might want to explore this further to be sure. 

Before I get to the answer provided in our reading today, I want to offer a more traditional answer, one that is founded in Baptism. We haven’t actually had a baptism in our church for a long time, so it is likely that most of us have already made that commitment. In doing so, we probably made some important promises, depending upon where, when and how it happened.

Making that commitment usually requires us to: make a statement that we believe and trust in Jesus; acknowledge that our sins have been forgiven; and, promise to do our best to follow the teachings of Jesus. I think that this is a pretty good answer to what it means to be a practicing Christian. A practicing Christian is a follower of Jesus who strives to live out their promises at Baptism. 

But in our reading today, we have other ways to think about what it means to practice our Christian faith. It is not a complete list, but it is a good list. And it is a list worth focusing on as we conclude our journey through this great book of Hebrews. There are five themes that I would like to draw out from the passage.

The first theme of a practicing Christian identified in this passage is arguably the most important: ‘keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters’. A practicing Christian is someone who loves. We practice our faith by loving God with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength; and by loving our neighbour as ourselves.

Practicing Christians are, above all else, people who love one another, and who love others. It is the great commandment that Moses taught to God’s people. It is what Jesus called the “first and greatest commandment”. Peter teaches us that it “covers a multitude of sins,” and Paul shares with us that it is “the more excellent way.”

As Christians, the first and last thing we are taught to do is to love. To be a practicing Christian is to be a person who loves God and all that God made. And Christian communities, if nothing else, should be communities where it is obvious that people love one another. 

The second theme is to show hospitality to the stranger. 

But there is a possible pitfall for loving communities. And this pitfall is what the author of Hebrews addresses in the very next verse. Because when we form a loving community in a church, that very love that we have for one another can sometimes make it more difficult for new people to join our family. 

Maybe we ourselves have had the experience of joining, or visiting, a church for the first time, and being ignored. The hymns, the sermon, the Communion, might all have been good, but maybe no one greeted us, or even shared a polite smile?

And so, the author of Hebrews goes on to say in the very next verse, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to the stranger.” A loving community should always be welcoming and loving to the stranger, not just to each other. There should always be a seat open for that person. No matter who they are, they should be welcome here. And it is the job of all of us to make sure they feel that way.

The third theme is extending our love outward, because we should consider those who do not, or cannot, come into our Church community.

Hospitality can be passive, when you think about it. It waits for someone to come to us. But the Church is called to do more than that. We are also called to love those who cannot be here. And so, the next verse of this passage in Hebrews teaches us to “remember those who are in prison.” They, too, must experience our love.

When our reading says this, I apply a wide interpretation because it could mean anyone who cannot come to us. In particular, it could mean our persecuted Christian brothers and sisters at home and abroad, for whom we pray regularly. It is a reminder that we should take our love beyond these walls. 

This is also one of the reasons why, as a very small family of believers, our planned children’s fun day is so important. It is why our work as volunteers in many different capacities is so important. It is why our friendly smile and cheerful greeting to the person who has just pushed in front of us in the queue is so important!

These are all ministries devoted to extending our love beyond these walls. They are ways to show hospitality and love, not only to the stranger who visits us, but to those who don’t. 

The fourth theme is marriage and family where we should let our love continue. 

Now, if we are honest, there are probably few of us who can claim to be the same person at home as we are when we are out. After all, when we are at home, most of us will put our feet up, let our hair down, and relax.

But, marriage and family, when we think about it, is where community begins. And if we neglect our marriages and families, even if it is to show hospitality to strangers or to visit those going through tough times, then we are not really practicing our Christian faith.

Yet another lesson for me this week was that I read a story about an American Olympic athlete who was describing his family life when he was growing up. His father was a respected doctor in their small town, often making house calls, and not charging people who were finding it hard to make ends meet. A good, kind, and generous man to his town-folk. But when he got home at night, he was very different. He was abusive to his wife and to his children, in a way that the people of his community could not have imagined. He loved his neighbour, but not his own family. 

When the writer of Hebrews teaches that mutual love should continue, it is not just in our churches and in our communities. It is also in our homes, in our marriages, and with our families. 

The Fifth the theme is generous contentment where verse 5 tells us to “Keep our lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have, for he himself has said, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you.’”

This verse is a bit of a change in direction from the others, it would seem, and teaches us to keep our lives from the love of money, and to be content with what we have.

But sometimes love means opening up our wallets or our purses. Love means being generous with what we have, helping those who are in need. And in order to be generous with what we have, this verse reminds us that two other things are necessary. 

First, we are taught that we must not love money. Paul reminds us of this, too, when he says that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. It is not money itself that is the root of evil, but the love of money. We must love God, and love each other, and not love money.

And the other thing that is necessary to be truly generous is to be content with what we have. Because if we are not content, we will never have enough. There will always be something else that we feel we must have to be happy. And this need to accumulate prevents us from being truly generous. So, we are taught to keep our lives from the love of money, and to be content with what we have.

After sharing these five themes of a practicing Christian, the author of Hebrews reminds us of why we can do all of this: because Jesus has said, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”

Jesus promises to be with us, every step of the way: when we share our love with one another; when we show hospitality to strangers; when we visit those who are in prison, or who are otherwise unable to join us; when we love and honour our own families; and when we keep our lives free from the love of money, sharing generously with those who have less. 

We can do all of this because of the One who is always with us, Jesus our Lord and Saviour. May His love and presence in our lives help us to be Christians who practice their faith in ways that are evident to all – to the glory of our heavenly Father. 

Sunday 5 July 2026: Hebrews 10:19-39

A Call to Persevere in Faith

Our reading today contains one of the most sobering warnings that we Christians can ever receive. Although the passage encourages us to persevere, there is a section from verse 26 that warns us about deliberate and persistent sin of rejecting Jesus once we have the knowledge that He is our saviour.

For those of us who have travelled through an airport, we will be familiar with the question: “did you pack your bags yourself?” If the answer to that question is “no” then it is possible that we won't know what our bags contain. That answer might also arouse the suspicion of security staff who may then want to examine our luggage to ensure it contains nothing untoward. But if the answer is “yes” then we will be in difficulty if our bags are found to contain any contraband, because it will be easier to prove our guilty knowledge.

In the same way, our knowledge of the truth in respect of Jesus may convict us if we continue to deliberately and persistently live our lives for ourselves, rather than for Him.

We will come on to that sobering section shortly, but let us first consider the opening verses of our reading.

In verses 19 to 22, we are reminded about some of the earlier lessons we have learned together whilst exploring the book of Hebrews. 

We have learned that, in the Old Covenant, only the high priest could enter the most holy place in the temple once a year on the day of atonement. On this day, he would offer the sacrifice for the nation's sins. But now, under the New Covenant, it is Jesus’ death that removes the need for an annual sacrifice, because all believers may come into God’s presence through prayer at any time to seek forgiveness for their wrongdoing.

In verses 23 to 25, we are encouraged to persevere in our faith. We are invited to hold unswervingly to the hope that we have in Jesus. The writer urges us to spur one another on towards love and good deeds and not to give up meeting together. I am sure all of us here today can point to many occasions when being with like-minded folk in our Church family has encouraged us in our faith.

But are there also times when we get up on a Sunday morning and do not particularly feel like going to church? Perhaps an excuse comes our way, we take it, and we miss an opportunity to be together with our fellow believers. Then another week, the same thing happens again, and a habit begins to form. 

The writer knows this temptation and asks us not to give up meeting together, but instead to do so all the more as we see the Day approaching. 

To neglect Christian meetings is to give up the encouragement and help of other Christians. We gather together to share our faith and to strengthen one another in the Lord. As we come closer to the Day when Jesus will return, increasingly our faith will be tested. So, as those challenges arise for us, we should make an even greater effort to be faithful in our attendance in order to benefit from our unity in Jesus.

And so we come to those sobering verses about deliberate and persistent sin. We will all have heard of the phrase to ‘bury our head in the sand’. It is actually a famous myth that ostriches bury their heads in the sand to hide from danger. To ‘bury our head in the sand’ is an idiom that means deliberately ignoring a problem or refusing to face unpleasant facts, hoping they will just disappear. It describes avoiding a challenging situation instead of confronting it head on.

When we deliberately reject Jesus’ offer of salvation, we reject God’s most precious gift. We ignore the leading of the Holy Spirit, the one who communicates to us God's saving love. In the first week of our series on Hebrews, we learned of the warning that was given to Jewish Christians who were tempted to reject Jesus and return to Judaism. Although they knew of the saving love of Jesus, Judaism offered an easy way out from the persecution of being a new Christian. And so the first words of encouragement in this book were for those early Christians to stand firm and persevere in their faith.

We ourselves now receive encouragement in the same way, but also a stern warning because, having clearly understood the atoning work of Jesus and the Gospel’s teaching about it, we must not bury our heads in the sand hoping that our knowledge will be enough. When we know the Gospel, we are called to believe it and to be changed. If we know of God’s calling but ignore it, then we risk the gravest of consequences from sin against the Holy Spirit spoken of by Jesus in Matthew chapter 12 and Mark chapter 3.

This sin against the Holy Spirit – or ‘blasphemy against the Spirit’ – is described in the Bible as the ‘unforgivable sin’. It refers to the deliberate, persistent rejection of God’s grace and the Holy Spirit's conviction, effectively attributing God's saving power to evil.

Can Christians commit this blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? Perhaps the answer is both "Yes" and "No." Christians who have declared that their only hope is the promise of Christ, who, when they find themselves sinning and failing, own up, and return to Him, and trust Him again; that kind of Christian can never commit the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

But Christians who sin and do nothing about it, who resent the Lordship of Jesus, who resist His authority, and do as they please regardless of what the Word of God says; that kind of Christian is in grave danger of this very thing. That is why this letter was written.

Our Bible passage today points us to conscientious self-examination, and to ask ourselves serious questions about what we believe and how we live out that belief. We need to be confident that Jesus is our only hope and that, when we find ourselves falling into sin, we repent sincerely and return to Him, and trust Him again.

This stern warning is not intended to place worry or panic in our hearts, but instead to ensure that no one is lost through complacency or worldly distraction. So, let me conclude with positive encouragement from our Bible passage today.

Believers are urged to persevere in their Christian faith and conduct when facing the trials and tribulations of life. We don’t usually think of suffering as being good for us, but it can build our character and our patience. During times of stress and anxiety, we may even feel God’s presence more clearly and find help from Christians we never thought would care.

Knowing that Jesus is with us in our suffering and that He will return one day to put an end to all our pain – and that day may be sooner than we think – can help us to grow in our faith and in our relationship with Him.

I look around our church family now with thankfulness that, over the time that I have known you, I have seen examples of perseverance in you all. This, in itself, is an encouragement, but there is so much more that we can offer to one another simply by being steadfast in our faith, by praying and praising together and by sharing our love for God’s Word.

So, let us never be diverted or distracted. Let us always support one another with faithful love when times are tough, and let us all share the joy of knowing Jesus and be thankful.