When you were young, who were your heroes?  Who did you want to become like? Who did you pretend to be? Whose posters adorned your bedroom walls? 

As a child I can remember playing Cowboys and Indians and pretending to be the Lone Ranger. For some reason none of my friends wanted to be Tonto. Then it was Scott Tracy of Thunderbirds, then it was David McCullum as the Man from Uncle, then 007, James Bond. What about pop stars? Who did you idolise? While my mother probably wanted me to grow up to be like Cliff Richard, on a good day I presented to be Paul McCartney of the Beatles. On a bad day it was Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones. But, strumming a tennis racket and growing my hair long didn’t make me a rock star. 

In the 1970’s I graduated to the Beach Boys and even made myself a full sized surfboard at school but it didn’t float! In the 1980’s when Steve Ovette was competing against Sebastian Coe for an Olympic place, I bought myself a tracksuit and went through a jogging phase. My attempt to improve my fitness didn’t last more than a fortnight. 
In the 1990’s when Tiger Wood was winning every golf tournament, I went and bought myself a new cap and putter to improve my game but it hasn’t worked, yet… I suspect I am not alone.

Aspiring to be like someone else is natural. Whether it’s a positive or negative role model seems to depend on whether you are a parent or a child. Did your parents ever encourage you to be like Jesus Christ?
 The amazing truth is that God created you for nothing less than to become like Jesus Christ.

Haggai and Jesus: The Chosen Servant of the Lord from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.

From the very beginning, God’s plan has been to make you like his Son, Jesus. This is your destiny and purpose. Rick Warren, in his book, The Purpose Driven Life, reminds us we were planned for God’s pleasure. We were formed for God’s family, and were created to become like Christ. This is our greatest privilege and our lasting motivation. That is why Sunday by Sunday we have been studying the Old Testament discovering that Jesus Christ is indeed in all the Scriptures. Jesus is central to every book of the Bible.

That is because God’s plan from the very beginning of creation has been that we come to know and love him through his Son, and that we become like him through His Spirit.

“For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” (Romans 8:29)

Today we come to the Book of Haggai something special about Jesus, but along the way we are also going to discover what a little motivation and prioritizing can do for an entire nation. Please turn with me to the Book of Haggai. By the way, the quickest way to find it, is to look in the index for the page number. You’ll get there quicker than the person sitting next to you just flicking through at random…
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When you think of God, what comes to mind?  For many he seems distant, remote, impersonal, unknowable. And that is tragic because until we know who God is, we can never know ourselves, or our purpose in life. In our series ‘Christ in all the Scriptures’ we have been discovering that the he is central to every book of the Bible. We’ve had a taster for the Bible study Jesus gave the disciples:

“And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” (Luke 24:27)

Zephaniah has been called “The Compendium of all prophecy”. Zephaniah points to what the Gospels proclaim: Jesus is our Lord and Saviour, he is our Judge, our Prophet, our High Priest and King. And because he fulfills these roles on our behalf, wonder of wonders, he can be our friend too. There are three great themes in Zephaniah. The Day of the Lord (Zephaniah 1); The People of the Lord (Zephaniah 2); The Name of the Lord (Zephaniah 3).

Zephaniah and the Day of the Lord Jesus from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.

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Jon Meacham, writing in Time [1] this week observes,

“It was supposed to be over in a matter of weeks. In the summer of 1914, the European war that began in the aftermath of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand drew great armies into the fields, launched ships of war upon the seas and engaged imperial ambitions and fears. There was, however, a sense of optimism among several of the combatants, an expectation that victory would be quick. “You will be home before the leaves have fallen from the trees,” Kaiser Wilhelm II told the German troops in the first week of August. Of course, it wasn’t over by the time the leaves fell, and what became known as the Great War really isn’t over even now. From the downing of the civilian Malaysian airliner by Moscow-supported insurgents over Ukraine to the Israeli-Palestinian combat in Gaza to Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Iran, the troubles of our time directly descend from the world of 1914–18, the [European Colonial] era that inflamed ethnic and nationalistic impulses and led to the ultimate creation of new nation-states, especially in the Middle East.To understand the madness of the moment, then, one needs to take a long view–one that begins in 1914…

Summing up August 1914, historian Barbara Tuchman wrote, “Men could not sustain a war of such magnitude and pain without hope–the hope that its very enormity would ensure that it could never happen again and the hope that when somehow it had been fought through to a resolution, the foundations of a better-ordered world would have been laid.” We know now that such hope was illusory. It did happen again, from 1939 to 1945, and now, a century on, we live in a world that remains vulnerable to chaos and mischance and misery. Such, though, is the nature of reality and of history, and we have no choice but to muddle through. There is, in the end, no other alternative, whether the leaves are on or off the trees.”

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This weekend our thoughts and prayers have been with the relatives of the passengers of the Malaysian Airline flight shot down over the Ukraine. A similar number of civilians have been killed by Israeli shelling in Gaza this week but they wont receive the same level of media coverage. We wont see their photos or learn their names. There wont be interviews with their grieving relatives because they are not Europeans.

Ten years ago Garth Hewitt and I were on a concert tour of churches in Israel and the Occupied Territories. While he stayed in Jerusalem on Sunday, I traveled to Gaza to preach at the Anglican church meeting in the home of a dentist. It was very tense even then, and on the Monday we decided a short break would be good. I offered to show Garth the beautiful scenery of the Golan Heights. It was February, and by mid afternoon the light was fading as I drove a borrowed church minibus up the winding road past Mount Hermon and into the snowy slopes of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. Above the snow line we encountered a group of young Israeli army conscripts on a training exercise. They were cold, wet and tired and wanted a lift. We nervously ignored them and carried on driving up into the darkness.

Micah and Jesus from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.

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There are two ways to learn a lesson – the hard way and the easy way. The hard way is when we have to learn the lesson ourselves. Better to learn from someone else without having to repeat it. That is why the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come.” (1 Corinthians 10:11)

That is the reason, on the road to Emmaus, Jesus gave the disciples the most amazing Bible study of all time: “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself… Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.” (Luke 24:25-27; 44-45)

That is why this summer we are concluding our sermon series – “Christ in all the Scriptures” in the Minor Prophets. Over the past year or so, we have been reading each book of the Old Testament to see “what is said in all the Scriptures” concerning the Lord Jesus.

Jonah and Jesus from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.

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