Jesus, the Desire of Nations, Has Come!

Epiphany Sunday, 1/8/23 Haggai 2:6-7 Jesus, the Desire of Nations, Has Come! I. An event which shook the world II. God’s means to reveal his glory Well, you wanted to see it and now it’s here and gone and everything is getting back to normal. What am I talking about? Christmas. For weeks you planned your Christmas celebration. You shopped for presents. You decorated your house. Maybe you bought a new outfit. If you like to cook and bake, maybe you spent a good deal of time in the kitchen, baking Christmas goodies. But most of all, you dreamed about those moments you would spend with family and friends, sitting next to your Christmas tree, opening gifts. Good family. Good friends. Good presents. Good times. And then, just like that, it’s over. And now that you’re faced with packing up all your Christmas stuff and finding places to store it, you might be wondering what you got all excited about. You might be wondering if it was worth all the trouble. You might be thinking, “I would have enjoyed a much more simple Christmas celebration.” Isn’t that ironic? In this life, even the things we think will bring us the highest joy often fall far short of our expectations. They leave us flat, wanting more, looking for something better. If that’s the way you’re thinking now that Christmas was two weeks ago, then it’s a good thing you’re here this morning to celebrate Epiphany. The Festival of Epiphany is the celebration of Jesus as the Savior of the world—the Savior of all people. In fact, he’s the One that people of every nation have really been looking for, whether they realize it or not. He’s the One they all desire. Jesus, the Desire of Nations, has come. If your celebration of Christmas wasn’t quite what you wanted it to be, then these words of Haggai the prophet are just what you need to ponder so that you marvel spiritually over what your God has done for you. Part I. What does every person need most from God, whether they realize it or not? It’s not health or happiness. What we need most from God is for him to fix us, because we’re broken. The whole world is broken, broken because of sin. So now, once again, what does every person need from God? Well, if sin is the problem, then we need forgiveness. Complete and total forgiveness. We need forgiveness so that the holy God who hates sin will accept us. And every sinner who is thinking about his or her relationship with their god—whoever they think that is—realizes that something needs to be done in order for them to be acceptable to their god. For the vast majority of people, that means I will make myself acceptable to him by what I do. I’ll earn it on my own. I’ll try to do what he requires and hope he accepts me. But that doesn’t work. Those attempts to make yourself acceptable never give you the satisfaction that you have done enough. That’s why every sinner needs a Savior. And that’s what makes Jesus the Desire of Nations. “This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the LORD Almighty.” Sinners are searching, longing, thirsting for someone to make them right with God. Since that’s what every sinner really wants and certainly needs, the coming of the Savior, the Desire of Nations, was the event that shook the world. Had it not been for the wisemen coming to worship Jesus as their Savior, we might never have come to know the truth that Jesus is the Savior of all people. After all, God promised to send a Savior to the Jews, he sent him through the Jews, the Jews were God’s special people, Jesus did almost all of his work among the Jews. In fact, he stated that he was sent to the lost sheep of Israel. But the fact that Gentile wisemen followed the star of his birth and found him and worshipped him, and the fact that the Old Testament foretold that Gentiles would do this, assures us that he is the Savior of all people. His coming to this earth is the event that shook the world in that it provided a Savior for the entire world. When you talk about shaking the earth, you usually think of an earthquake. If you’re familiar with earthquakes, you know that after-shocks are common. The earth keeps shaking for a while. It was no different with the coming of the Desire of Nations. After shaking the earth with his coming, he also shook the earth with what he said about himself. “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned” (Mk. 16:15). There’s no middle ground when it comes to Jesus. Only those who trust in him as true God and true man for their salvation will be saved. His coming was the decisive event. It shook the world. And all others who don't believe in him will be condemned. His coming shakes out of his kingdom all those who reject him in unbelief. It’s just that simple. We may have our questions about the how and the why and the what if, but his words are clear and true. So, let’s simply let it up to him. In short, the world hasn’t been the same since Jesus, the Desire of Nations, came. It can’t be. His coming is the event that shook the world because he’s the only Savior the world will ever have. We recognize hype when we see and hear it. If someone tells me that this is the product that is going to revolutionize the world, I’m more than skeptical. I don’t believe it. If I hear that something is going to change my life from here on out, I shake my head in disbelief. This morning, God’s truth for us to know and believe is that Jesus is the Desire of Nations. His coming shook the world. It changed everything. And, from our position in our cozy church pew, we nod our heads in agreement. We know and believe it. Until we trot back out into the real world. Then we wonder, “Why doesn’t God shake the world a little right now? Why doesn’t he do what I desperately need him to do for me today? Why doesn’t he help me when I’m overwhelmed just by daily life?” We feel as if God hasn’t and doesn’t make any difference in our lives. But you can’t make that claim if you understand the truth of this text. We want our God to show his power in our lives. He shook the world by sending Jesus, the Desire of Nations. What more do you want him to do in order to convince you of his love for you, his power in your life? Do you want him to use his power to destroy things? Of course not. You want him to use it to make things right for you. You want things to be right again. That’s exactly why he sent Jesus as your Savior. That’s exactly what Jesus did when he came to this earth. He shook the earth and made things right again between sinners and the holy God. He suffered and died to make it happen. And then he shook the earth three days later when he rose again to assure you that he made all sinners right with the holy God. Epiphany calls for you to trust Jesus for what you most desire—acceptance from your God. He gives it to you. It’s yours by faith in him. Now that’s earthshaking! Part II. When the grand finale of the fireworks display is complete, we “ooh” and “ah” and clap our hands. When the athlete, entertainer, or musician wins the award, we stand and cheer and clap our hands. Those are glorious moments. But they’re nothing like the glory of our God as revealed in the sending of Jesus, the Desire of Nations. I mentioned that these words come to us from the Lord through the prophet Haggai. Haggai lived about 500 years before Jesus was born. His job was to encourage the Jewish people to rebuild the temple that had been destroyed by the Babylonians. Because of many difficulties, that project started and was halted several times. Haggai encouraged them to complete the task by reminding them that they were building a temple for the God who had promised to send them a Savior. You see, without a Savior, such a temple would be only a cold, lifeless structure filled with hollow praise. Why offer words of thanks and praise to a god who demands a holiness that we can’t possibly give him? What a cruel god! But our God deserves unending praise because he is the God who sent us Jesus, the Desire of Nations. That’s how he would fill his temple, meaning his people, with his glory. “‘I will shake all nations, and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the LORD Almighty.” Every other nation on this earth had the wrong impression that they could do and had to do something to make themselves right with God. But the true God bound himself to one nation on this earth and promised to be their God who would send them a Savior so that they could live in paradise with him forever. He would give the people of a nation freely what the people of other nations were working for and never could attain. Incredible! But Epiphany blasts that thought beyond incredible. Epiphany reminds us that Jesus is not the “Desire of a Nation,” but the “Desire of Nations.” He came to save all people. That’s unthinkable! No sinner anywhere would ever conceive of the idea that through one person—true God and true man—God would save the entire human race. But that’s what God did. And that’s the glory of God. The greatest truth about our God is not that he’s the almighty creator of all things. The greatest truth about our God is that he is the Savior of all people. The fact that Jesus, the Desire of Nations, has come is God’s means to reveal his glory. We “ooh” and “ah” at fireworks displays, and we stand and cheer at great events in our world, but how often do you “ooh” and “ah” at what your God has done for you? Let’s admit it, too often we don’t get all that excited about our God. In fact, there are times when we have a difficult time doing so. He’s seems rather mediocre, at least at the moment. We don’t see him doing what we think he should be doing about what’s happening in our lives and in our world. God’s glory is not in any outward display of his power; it’s in the sending of Jesus, the Desire of Nations. That’s an amazing event every time we recognize how sinful we are and what our sins deserve. My God should rightly condemn me eternally. But he doesn’t. Instead, he saves me. I have what I need the most, what I desire the most—a Savior. That’s God’s glory. See it every day of your life in Jesus, the Desire of Nations! Amen.