The primacy of public worship

Yahweh wants his house, that is the temple, built there on its old site. What does that mean? Is the temple there an analogy for a church building now? I do not think so. It can have implications that way but I do not think that that is the primary reference there, or the proper way to apply it, or to think that through. Remember, the temple was the place where God's people met their God in worship. That was where the altar of sacrifice was. That was where atonement was made for sins. That was the place that God had given as his gift in order to maintain communion and fellowship with himself. Now I know there are a lot of people that say, oh, the temple, that was just a building and just an external form of worship. Well, there were prophets that mentioned and cut Israel and Judah down about their false confidence in the temple. The people had made it kind of a magic sort of thing, and the prophets always cut that down.  But they never did what some contemporary Christians do, they kind of despise it as just an external form of a kind of worship. No, no, no, that worship was God's gift to his people, his gift for maintaining communion with him. And that temple then and the fact that Yahweh wanted that temple rebuilt, ought to suggest to us the primacy of public worship—that public worship ought to have among the people of God. That is the connection with our circumstances. That is what he was pressing for.

Now you might say, well, yes, but is it not kind of materialistic—to connect all this stuff about bad harvests and food and clothing and so on, connected with the priority of building the temple? We are in the New Testament now and is it not much more spiritual than that? No, the New Testament is about as earthy as the Old Testament. You see, you could just add one text to Haggai 1:1–15, or let's say, include as a footnote to it: but seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you as well (Matthew 6:33). Now, what are all these things? Well, if you look at Matthew 6:25 and following, you will see stuff like daily necessities of food and clothing and that sort of thing—God's provision. And you see, the New Testament is just as materialistic, if that is what you think it is, as the Old Testament is - seek first his Kingdom. There is a priority! Seek God's will in your life first, and his righteousness, and these things will be added in their place. The point is the same. Now then, by way of application, what do we do with this? The living God says to Israel, or to Judah here, I want you to place the priority on public worship, on my Worship among you, that it ought to have. So I think the application for us ought to be to ask ourselves, Does public worship have the primacy among us that it ought to have?

When we unite with the church, we vow that we will support the church in its worship and work to the best of our ability. Now, if we are in bad health, or if we have to move, that is a different story.  But if we are able and this is where we are, and yet we only seek God's face in public worship when it is convenient, then we are breaking a promise made in the presence of God and his people. That is called covenant-breaking. What about the baptismal vows we take? We take baptismal vows to say that we will pray with and for our children, that we will teach them the doctrines of our faith. But what about the temple then you might say, that is in our house? Does adoration and praise to God ever come there? Is there instruction in the Word of God in our homes? Do we pray with and for our children? Do we pray for them when we are with them? What kind of primacy does the worship of God have in our lives? That is the question. And that is what the Lord is trying to say to Israel: I am concerned because of my house which is in ruins while each of you busies himself with his own his own house (Haggai 1:9). There is not the primacy that there ought to be of my worship and my adoration among you. Set your heart upon my priority, he is saying.

You see, it is very easy for us to get trapped into a certain way of thinking. I think in our situation it is very easy to get trapped in our wrong priorities. It is easy for us to get to the point where we think, I have to make a living. And in our culture, making a living can seem to be the supreme goal of life. But Haggai disputes that - life  is not about making a living; it is adoring our God that is the priority of our lives, whether in public worship or personal worship. It does not really matter really why I live or not, but do I worship, and do I worship as I live? How I make a living, though important, is wholly secondary to whether I hunger and thirst for the courts of the Lord. You see, that is why we do not need to worry about dollars and cents and stewardship sermons from this text; if we have our priorities straight, dollars and cents take care of themselves.¹

Dale Ralph Davis