Haggai: Rebuilding the Church; Rebuilding Lives

When I got the call that I had been voted in as pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Hartwell, Georgia, I was very excited. But after the excitement wore down, the reality set in, and I began to wrap my mind around my preaching plan. I started reading through books of the Bible to figure out how I would start my ministry at Calvary Baptist Church, after all, starting well is very important. I finally read the book of Haggai, and I fell in love. I decided to preach a 4 week series on the book of Haggai. I asked the church on my first Wednesday night of going through Haggai if anyone had ever heard a sermon, let alone a series, preached from that book. I was not surprised that no one raised their hand. In fact, I can't remember ever hearing a sermon preached from Haggai! The setting of the book of Haggai is that the nation of Judah has come back to Jerusalem from bondage. God gives them a message, "It's time to start rebuilding my temple." In my series, I preached on how we no longer have a physical temple. The temple was where the presence of God was as well as the place to worship God; in the New Testament time our bodies and the church take on those roles respectively. So, the application we can get from the book of Haggai is in the way of rebuilding our lives and rebuilding the church for the glory of Jesus Christ. The series was very well received by the church.
When I write a sermon, I normally write it out word by word, in order to wrap my mind around it correctly. Now that I have the finished series completely written out, I would like to be a blessing in sharing it with anyone that would want it. The finished product is 32 pages long. I am selling it for 99 cents on amazon as an ebook. You can find the book here. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope it is a blessing.
Don't forget to check out our new church website. I am very excited about finally having it up on the web!

Frozen- "Somebody's Gotta Tell Him!"

I typically don’t overly spiritualize things when I watch a movie. After all, when I’m watching a movie like “the Muppets” I really don’t feel like hearing preaching a sermon to me. Picture that, I can almost hear Kermit’s voice, “It’s time for church, with our very special guest star, Pastor Curtis King! Yaaaaaayyyyyy!” Anyway, that doesn’t work for me. When I watch a movie, I expect to be entertained and turn my brain off. This was no exception when I watched Frozen. Frozen was a fun movie. I absolutely loved it from beginning to ending. It had characters that you could fall in love with, songs that were catchy (I still can’t “Love Is An Open Door” out of my head), the plot was intense; basically, it was a great movie. Bravo, Disney. But there was one moment in that movie when I thought to myself, “Wow! That’ll preach!” You may have caught it, you may not have. Let me tell you what it is:

Remember Olaf? He was the goofy snowman who likes warm hugs. Don’t you just love how he blissfully and ignorantly loves the idea of summer? In fact, he sang a whole song about summer (another song that I can’t seem to shake). After the song is ended, Olaf joins Ana and Christof (sp?) on their quest to get summer back. Ana and Olaf begin to walk away when Olaf yells, “Let’s go find summer!” The camera goes to Christof, who’s jaw has dropped and he utters these words, “Somebody’s gotta tell him.”

When I saw this part of the movie, I couldn’t help see the parallel between them and a saved persons relationship with the unsaved world. Here is how. Picture Olaf as an unsaved person. Olaf is merrily and ignorantly living his life, not knowing of the danger that is to lie ahead, just like any unsaved person. The unsaved person lives their life, they go about their day, they go to work, they raise their children, they eat, the sleep, they live, but they do all of that without knowing that danger lies ahead. Hell fire lies ahead. Their eternity is at stake. It is interesting to me that when Olaf is singing his cute song about summer, Christof says to Ana,” I’m going to tell him,” to which Ana slaps him and replies, “Don’t you dare!” Unfortunately, I know too many Christians who are like Ana. They allow the unsaved to go about their merry way to their eternal doom. These Christians have the message of the Gospel, but they don’t tell the unsaved about it. But as Christof points out, “Somebody’s go to tell them!”

Christian, please listen to me today. We live in a world that is lost and on its way to Hell. Somebody has to tell them about a Saviour that loves them and who died on a cross for their sins. That somebody is you. I once heard a man say, “How can you hate somebody so much that you are not willing to tell them of a Saviour that died so that they can stay out of Hell?” Here is our problem today, many of us go to work, we live in a neighborhood, we have family reunions, and we are constantly around people who do not know Jesus Christ. We claim that we love them and we claim that we are their friends, but apparently we don’t love them enough to warn them about the danger that lies ahead.

Here is my challenge to everyone that reads this: Don’t be an Ana Christian, be a Christof Christian. Sound the alarm! Send out the warning! Let the unsaved know that there is fire ahead but there is a way to avoid it.

Let us all strive to be better witnesses for Jesus Christ.

I am pleased to announce that I have an e-book on Amazon now; it is called Sermons From the Book of Haggai! I preached a series of sermons from the book of Haggai at Calvary Baptist Church in Hartwell, GA. My members received it very well. The book contains 4 sermons, written out word for word, entitled: Consider Your Ways, God’s Commitment, Holiness and Repentance, and Encouragement. The book is only 99 cents and you can find it at http://www.amazon.com/Sermons-Book-Haggai-Curtis-King-ebook/dp/B00JKVC3C8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397244318&sr=8-1&keywords=sermons+haggai  . Happy reading!