Scott Brown's sermon, titled 'Work, For I Am With You,' examines the biblical texts of Ezra 5:1-2 and Haggai 1:1-8, highlighting the call to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem after 16 years of neglect due to opposition and distraction. The sermon emphasizes the importance of prioritizing God's work and aligning one's life with the Great Commission, drawing parallels between the Old Testament rebuilding of the temple and the New Testament mandate to make disciples. Through the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, God stirred the Jews to refocus their efforts on the temple, promising His presence and blessing as they obeyed. Brown challenges the congregation to evaluate their priorities at the start of a new year, urging them to consider how personal and corporate resources are allocated towards the building of God's Kingdom. The sermon addresses both external and internal opposition to God's work, stressing the need for repentance, obedience, and active involvement in the church's mission. The message concludes with a call to action, encouraging believers to rise up and invest wholeheartedly in the Kingdom of God, assured of God's presence and support.

The sermon text is from Ezra chapter 5 verses 1 and 2, and then we'll go into the book of Haggai, and we'll be reading from chapter 1 verses 1 to 8. So starting with Ezra chapter 5. Starting with Ezra, chapter 5. Then the prophet Haggai and Zechariah, the son of Eddo, prophets prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel who was over them. So Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua, the son of Jezadak, rose up and began to build the house of God which is in Jerusalem.

And the prophets of God were with them, helping them." And turning to Haggai chapter 1. In the second year of King Darius, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehoshadak, the high priest, saying, Thus speaks the Lord of hosts, saying, This people says, The time has not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built. Then the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet, saying, Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins? Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. You have sown much and bring in little.

You eat but do not have enough. You drink but you are not filled with drink. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages, earns wages to put into a bag with holes. Thus says the Lord of hosts consider your ways.

Go up to the mountains and bring wood and build the temple that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified says the Lord. Let us pray. Oh Father, even as we hear these words of prophecy, the admonishment may be to us. May we hear these words, consider your ways. Help us Lord, as we hear your word preached, as we hear these words of the prophecy explained to us, expounded to us.

Oh Lord, may we truly consider our ways. Oh Lord, you have caused this section of scripture to begin on this day, the first day of this year. O Lord, help us to consider our ways as fathers, mothers, as sons and daughters, as husbands and wives, as elders, as deacons, as members of this church. Oh Lord, there is so much, as Brother Mike prayed before, to lament over, that we haven't done your work, we haven't walked in your ways, but help us Lord this year. As we look ahead, as we press forward, Father help us to truly hear from you.

May it change us, may it renew us, may it give us new hope for this new year. Oh God, I pray that you would be with Scott, give him strength to stand, give him the courage, give him the boldness, May his words come from you, and may our hearts be anointed to hear from you, Lord, that we would walk out changed. In your mighty and precious name we pray, amen. Well as we come to Ezra chapter five verses one and two, we come to a place where the church is gonna hear the voices of two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah. This week we'll be speaking primarily of Haggai and then in the following two weeks we'll be breaking Zechariah in half because we want to try to grasp the message that these prophets brought to the people of God as they were in the midst of really a time of diversion where they'd really lost a vision for the work that God had called them to do.

And it's a picture of how God in the Old Testament church awakened His people through the voices of prophets. They had become indolent for 16 years. They stopped building the temple for 16 years because of the opposition that they were experiencing. They were years of distraction. They were wilderness years.

Only God could shake them out, And God did by the use of his word. And here we are, we're sitting at the beginning of 2017. And you know, there's a lot ahead of us. You know, there are 500, 000, over 500, 000 minutes ahead of us. We've already spent about 600 of those minutes.

But there are many minutes and hours ahead of us in 2017. And I think this passage really is helpful to consider our ways as we launch out into a new year. And so the Word of the Lord comes to the people who've gathered back into Jerusalem, and the word of the Lord actually disrupts their lives. It changes their patterns. They'd fallen in to particular patterns that were very harmful, and it would change the whole course of their labors and the way that they spent their time.

And the prophets are calling them to reallocate their time and their money. And so it's a question that we're sort of by God's providence are going to consider. We didn't plan this to be a New Year's Day sermon, but this passage of scripture is so remarkably helpful for considering a new year. And we should be asking the questions that the prophets were really answering for the people. How are we going to spend the new year?

What needs to be changed? What needs to be strengthened? Is there anything that needs to be stopped or started or maybe restarted because the prophets were calling the people to actually restart what they had begun. And a passage like this should cause us to ask some tough questions, like how is the maintenance of my life getting in the way of the kingdom of God or how are my affections distracting me from a greater work to fulfill the Great Commission or how in my daily routine routines am I neglecting the building of the Kingdom of God? Because these prophets address all these issues and so the Lord has us here at the beginning of the year with about 500, 000 minutes left of the year to consider our ways and how we might direct the energies of our lives for the building of the temple of God, which I think really is the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

Now remember the context of all this 50, 000 captives came back from the Babylonian captivity. They came with tremendous hopes They built the altar first they reestablished blood sacrifice They they recognize in new covenant terms the centrality of the cross of Jesus Christ for the rebuilding of your life. And then they began to rebuild the temple. They laid the foundation, but then opposition came against them And they wanted to reestablish the patterns of worship that Moses established. They wanted to do the things that God had designed for them to do in worship.

But there were people who did not want them to do that. The Samaritans did not want to. They wanted a corrupt, syncretistic, worldly worship. And they did not want these people to reestablish The worship of God that was designed by God. They wanted to do their own thing And so there was enormous opposition and the opposition took many different forms letters were written slanderous things were said about them political pressure was brought to bear there was enormous pressure and the people got discouraged and they stopped building they just said hey it's too much hassle And well there are other reasons as well as we'll learn from the prophets Haggai and also Zechariah but but what we what we learned in the previous chapter is how the devil works through discouragement and opposition And sometimes when you're opposed you just lose heart and you say forget it.

It's just too much trouble to do things God's way and so they did they they abandoned the building for 16 years they stopped the building because the fear of man, because of the fear of the criticism and all this all the stuff that had happened to them. And in the previous chapter, if you remember in Ezra chapter 4, it's really a two it's a 117 year picture of opposition. So Ezra is writing over a hundred years beyond this moment that is being referred to here and he's looking back and in chapter four he gave this panorama view of a hundred seventeen years of opposition. Now he returns right back to the scene that took place as a result of that opposition. The opposition took place, and then now probably 16 years later, some commentators say it's five years, some say it's 10.

I think the dates as you line them up, the chronology, it's 16 years, I'm pretty sure. So Now they've stalled and their personal goals have been hindering the rebuilding of the temple. And they're now turned back and they're just focused on building their own lives. They're building their own homes. They're investing all of their energies on their own lives, and the temple of God has still not been rebuilt.

And Haggai preaches four sermons, which is what we're going to focus on this morning, and these sermons shake the returnees back into rebuilding the temple of God and within 21 days of the preaching of his first sermon They're back at rebuilding the temple and they finish it in four years So it really is it's an encouraging picture of a revival it's It's how people got back on track in their lives and they refocused their energies off of themselves to invest in the temple of God. And so it's a great passage of scripture to help us try to refocus our lives on the building of the temple of God. And the people had become very bullish on their houses, and in 21st century terms, their houses and their cars and their entertainments, and their idolatrous images of themselves trying to present themselves on Facebook to try to make the world think they're just so wonderful. They're just investing their lives on themselves, and not the temple of God. And Haggai's message and Zechariah's messages are your priorities are all wrong.

You need to rearrange your priorities. You'll notice a distinct difference between the two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah. Haggai is a super straight talker. Zechariah is full of figures and imagery and just remarkable pictures that we'll see as we get to that. So as we're in Ezra chapter 5 verses 1 & 2 we read then the prophet Haggai and Zechariah the son of Iddo prophets prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel who is over them.

So Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Yeshua the son of Josadach rose up and began to build the house of God which is in Jerusalem and the prophets of God were with them helping them. So that's the scene. 16 years later God raises up these prophets the prophets get involved they help the people and and they rebuild it and they get it done in four years. So that's the picture. Now it's really the summary of a revival that swept these people's lives and it's such a wonderful picture.

And you know you see so many things here. You see the patience of God. You know He's worked with these people for 16 years, but He hasn't given up on them. He sends them prophets. This is the love of God.

God is so kind to His people. And I liken this to what the Lord Jesus Christ said to his disciples, Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you. You know, that's really a New Testament parallel of this text. There's another New Testament parallel of this text. It's the Great Commission.

The Great Commission is actually structured like the Book of Haggai. It begins with the Word of the Lord, the authority of God coming. The Great Commission begins with, all authority has been given to me in heaven and earth. And then he says, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age." That's the whole outline of Haggai.

It's the authority of God, the word of God comes and what does it cause the people to do? To rebuild the temple, to go and rebuild the things of God. That's what the Great Commission is all about. We spend our lives, you know, baptizing and teaching one another to obey the commandments of Jesus Christ. And the Great Commission ends with, lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

That's the whole message of Haggai. Rise up and build, obey me, I'll take care of you. And I'm with you, I'm with you in the building. You know, if you notice the title of the sermon, work for I am with you, that's a phrase that's taken out of Haggai. So you see the New Testament parallels are really very clear.

So God sends these two prophets and they rise up. And they're really, Haggai is asking, you know, how is the maintenance of your life getting in the way of the building of the kingdom of God. And in God's providence, that's the question for Hope Baptist Church today. Is our whole heart invested in the building of the kingdom of God? Because the building of the kingdom of God is the equivalent of building the temple of God in the Old Testament.

Are my affections distracting me? We should all be asking, what affections, what activities, what ways I spend my time, what ways I spend my money, what ways are distracting me from the fulfillment of the Great Commission and There's no risk in at all because he's with you when you make the jump. He's with you This is the love of God in many ways This is like the story of the product of prodigal son and a father's arms are like open arms saying come come on back home that's it's that's the picture of God's love that's in in the prophet Haggai now I want to spend a couple of minutes defining what it means to rebuild the temple because remember the temple in the old covenant is a figure, it's a picture. It's a picture of something greater. It's a picture of the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

It's a picture of the worship of Jesus Christ. So I want to give, When I talk about rebuilding the temple, I want you to understand what I'm talking about. Haggai was talking about a figure, a picture, a type, a type of something greater. It's a type of the people of God building his kingdom. And so, What does it mean to build the temple?

I'm going to give you several things. First of all, our body in the New Covenant is the temple of the Holy Spirit. So what do we feed and nourish our souls is building the temple of God. Secondly, the church is the body of Christ. It is the temple of God in the New Testament.

The New Testament makes very clear that the Church of Jesus Christ, the gathered people of God, is the temple of God. It's the place where he dwells. The temple of God is the place where God dwells. God always, he draws near in his temple. That's why the tabernacle was given, That's why the temple was given in Solomon's time And that's why this temple is being called to be rebuilt because it's a it's a picture of God drawing near to his people it's the nearness of God and so the church is the body of Christ and the church gathers to celebrate the nearness of God.

And then thirdly, the place where the church gathers is actually important. There's a physical place of worship in a community that you... It's a place that says that Jesus Christ is Lord. God's people meet in buildings, and they cry out for God's presence in those buildings, which is what we are doing here today. And then fourth, they teach one another to obey.

This is a great part of the Great Commission. This is the building up the body of Christ. But it begins with personal evangelism and missions. It includes family discipleship. It includes ministry to the poor and the lost.

It includes all the prayers that we pray for the lost. It has to do with the going out through all the world and gathering disciples from all the nations. That's part of building the temple. And so the building of the temple in the new covenant era, it encompasses so many things from the feeding of our souls to our ministry to one another, to our gathered worship, to our evangelism. It has to do with how we deploy it had has to do with everything and And God has designed his people to be gathered together to build his kingdom Now I want to talk about I'm gonna give you 14 elements of the fulfilling of the Great Commission.

The reason I want to do this at the beginning is because I'm going to talk about rebuilding the temple, rebuilding the temple, rebuilding the temple over and over again. And I want you to understand what I mean by that in our terms. Because we don't live in the Old Testament era. We live in the days of the New Covenant. And so, okay, I'm going to give you a list.

There are 14 elements of the Great Commission. And these are the elements that our church must be focused on. This is what we give our whole lives for. Number one, spreading the gospel by evangelizing and baptizing and teaching people to obey. Number two, feeding your soul, the temple of the Holy Spirit, through the nourishing food of the word of God and prayer.

Number three, building up, bringing up children in the training and the admonition of the Lord. Number four, the preaching that takes place in a local church and that preaching is designed to equip the saints for the work of the ministry so that the preaching doesn't stop with that. It actually is an equipping tool where people begin to minister to one another. The preaching is just the beginning. It's a mobilizing force in the church, but it activates people to minister to one another.

Read Ephesians chapter 4 verses 11 and 12. It's kind of a summary of 2 Timothy 2, 2, where the older teaching the younger and where this work of the ministry together should just should be the normal normal part of our life then there's I'm gonna just gonna call it targeted evangelism where the church goes out to minister to particular people you see this all over the Bible and you particularly see it in the book of Acts. But in our church, you know, we have people, we live in communities, we have people every week who are going out to the abortion clinic to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have people who go out to local events. We had people out last night down in Raleigh preaching, evangelizing, you know, on New Year's Eve.

There are, you know, there are assisted living homes. There are all kinds of opportunities that people are pursuing. God has just activated people's hearts to go do that. It isn't, you know, the elders aren't telling people to go do this. It's just it's but it's it's the work of the ministry that that's being done through targeted evangelism.

We need more and more of that. Number six, praying for and providing for church planting. You know we're a church that desires to plant churches and we want to plant more churches. We're grateful that Sovereign Redeemer is preaching the word of God right down the street. They've multiplied the ministry really exponentially.

The evangelistic efforts that they've done in Youngsville, it's astonishing what they do every week. But we want to plant more churches. That's part of the building of the temple. Number seven, providing funds for the encouragement and revitalization of other churches. There are many ways that we do this.

One of the ways that this church does this is through the NCFIC where there are 500 churches in a network that are really being impacted by the preaching and the teaching that's done there and really the facilitation of that through this church. And you know over the years you know our church together with the NCFIC and others have furnished conferences to equip leaders and to equip families really to fulfill the Great Commission. Number eight, biblical fellowship with God at the center. That's another way that you build the temple. We're the gathered fellowship, and God is the center.

Our conversation should be of God. You know, when we break to have lunch today, you know, we should be talking about Haggai. By the way, it just came to my attention that all my life long I pronounced the word Haggai incorrectly. A certain brother in this church came to me and he said, Why do you say Haggai? And I said, I don't know.

That's the only way I've ever said it my whole life. He said, well, I looked at the spelling and the spelling doesn't actually bear witness to the pronunciation Haggai. But almost everybody in the world pronounces it that way. So I don't know. I'm gonna try to say Haggai from now on.

But anyway, so biblical fellowship with God in the center. We should be talking about Haggai and what we've learned from it as a result of our time. Then number nine, they're studying the Word of God. This is part of building the temple of God. We fill up our minds with the knowledge of God, with the knowledge of His will, and our mouths begin to speak about the things that are good and true.

We build the temple of God when we do that. Then there's the practicing of hospitality, when hospitality is truly God-centered, not just hanging around. Number 11, by multiplying elders and sending them out. You know, we want to multiply elders. One of the reasons that the NCFIC has an internship is to try to make a deposit on Young men that might bear fruit in 10 or 20 or 30 years Maybe it will maybe it won't but we want to make a deposit and eldership like deposit, you know in people's in people's lives We've had various pastoral assistance We want more and more of that happening.

We want men to come in and then send them on. We don't want to keep them. We want to send out our best. We want to keep some of our best, but we don't want to keep everybody. Number 12, helping members in evangelism.

We have an enormous number, a really high percentage of people in this church who have the gift of evangelism and they're always going out and they're always asking us to go out. It's such a blessing. You know, follow those men. Learn from them. Stand beside them and go and do the same.

But we want to help members in evangelism. That's part of building the temple of God. Number 13, growing missionary outreach. Missionary outreach is defined by outreach that crosses cultural and ethnic lines, and mostly beyond our national borders. Go and make disciples of all nations.

Our church should have a great priority of that. Hey, we want to significantly expand our missionary outreach in the next few years. We're praying for more funds so that we can spend it in that direction. And we want to know the people that we're supporting. We want to go to their houses.

We want them to come here. So we travel. We've traveled to Africa. We've traveled to South America and various places. We want to know the people that we're supporting so that we can really pray for them.

You know one of our missionaries wife is very very ill right now. Our church just sent the significant funds to help help her for her tumor and her brain. And we want to know the people that we're ministering with, you know, out in the world. Number 14, establishing biblical church life. That's one way that you build the temple of God.

You try to be faithful with what God has commanded the church to do and you just keep doing it. You keep doing preaching, you keep doing singing, you keep doing the giving of tithes and offerings, you keep celebrating the Lord's Supper. You keep praying. That's what we do. We keep event.

We just, we're just going to keep doing that. You know, it's very important as you build the temple of God that you understand a really fundamental truth about the church and that a church that is focused on the Great Commission should not be a church that welcomes lukewarm Christianity. A church should not coddle nominal quote Christians who think they can make the church sort of their little convenience thing. That's not, most churches tolerate non-christianity and they have an approach and a schedule and a way of doing ministry that tolerates non-christianity and you can you can make a really really big church by doing that I'm not saying every big church is doing that but it's easy to do it to tolerate non-christianity in a church and they go they do as they please they come and go and they please themselves for their journey of life and they get an air-conditioned passage to hell because they weren't really confronted with the true gospel and what it actually means to obey the Lord Jesus Christ. So those are just some of the elements of building the temple.

So when I say build the temple, that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. Okay, so then now that we've defined these terms. Let's go into Haggai chapter 1. So Haggai delivers a really sharp rebuke for the people who've returned from captivity. They started out in zeal and And now they've fallen and it's been 16 years and they're having a great time rebuilding their homes and Haggai's saying your priorities are all wrong.

And so that's why this is such a good message for the new year. What are your priorities looking like? And are we preoccupied with our own life, our own houses, and the house of God is in ruins because that's the situation that took place here. Now a couple interesting things about Haggai. He preaches four messages in four months, and he's done.

That's it. We don't know anything about Haggai. But That was his usefulness. You know, that happens sometimes. Your usefulness in this life often, you know, might exist in a short window of time.

But this was a tremendous and wonderful usefulness that he had in four months in four messages that he preached. And of course, Zechariah is another one that preaches. And also Malachi is one of these restoration prophets Haggai Zechariah and Malachi the restoration prophets. They're right at the end of the Bible They're the they're the last prophets to speak in the Bible and so and so these these sermons, you know were preached in this four-month period and the results are wonderful. The Lord blessed them.

You know, 21 days after Haggai preaches, the work resumes and the temple gets built in four years. So it really is a very encouraging message in many ways. Okay so the first message, as you see in your outline they are they're itemized here. The first message is you're obsessed with your own houses, consider your ways. The second message is stop devaluing the temple and be strong.

The third message is your associations don't make you holy. And the fourth message is I promise to bless you. And then I'm going to come with a few applications after that. So let's deal with this first message here that was preached. In the second year of King Darius, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, The word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel.

Now the word of the Lord came. That's the key factor in this first section, in these first two verses. The word of the Lord came, and it came in the second year of Darius in the sixth month on the first day of the month. Now when you read Haggai, you can track these sermons and how they were preached and and how they unfolded but Notice the the message was not just to the people it was to the spiritual leaders It was to Zerubbabel and to Joshua the leaders needed this message as well. It wasn't just the people.

And so in this sense, the people and the leaders had kind of fallen into the same trap, I'm pretty sure. I don't see any evidence other than that. So they're addressed simultaneously. Verse 3, Then the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet saying, Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses and this temple to lie in ruins? Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways." Now the phrase thus saith the Lord occurs 26 times in 38 verses, okay?

Thus saith the Lord. That's always the beginning of any real revival. When you hear the word of the Lord, your ears are open and you hear and then your life changes. So the word of the Lord is the critical factor here. You know this wasn't some emotional jag that changed them.

It was the Word of God. It was God that did it. And then another word that you'll read is the word consider. Consider your ways. It's a very common word.

It's in verse 5, it's in verse 7, it's in chapter 2, verse 15, and it's twice in verse 18 in chapter 2. Consider your ways. So those two things, Thus saith the Lord, and consider your ways." That's really what I think why God has called us together here this morning, is to consider our ways. All of us should be doing that here at the beginning of the new year. Hey, we've only spent like six or 700 minutes of the new year.

We have 525, 000 left. What are we gonna do with them? You know, and how will we approach the spending of our resources and our time in the coming year here. And so it's a call to repentance. Consider your ways.

Then in verse 6 Haggai makes it very clear that there have there have been results of their ignoring the temple. It didn't go well with them. You have sown much but bring in little. In other words, you're working and you're working and you're working and it's just not bearing fruit. And then you eat but you don't have enough.

They're not satisfied. They don't have enough to satisfy themselves. You drink and you're not filled with drink you clothe yourselves But no one is warm and he who earns wages earns wages to put into a bag with holes a bag with holes you put your it's you know You put your money in your money bag and then you open it up and it's gone. It's just disappeared. God was miraculously disappearing their money.

He made it go away. God does that, by the way. He can make it disappear and He can make it multiply. Remember when the children of Israel were in the wilderness and God made it so that their shoes didn't wear out and their clothes didn't wear out either. In other words, God miraculously stretched their resources.

But here, He disappeared their resources because they only wanted to line their own pockets and make their own houses beautiful and so he says consider your ways they did a lot of work and they got a little back and they just they just didn't they didn't have it there is an economic impact upon those that neglect the worship of God and and God does judge his people by disappearing their resources I'm not saying that every time someone has their resources disappear that God is necessarily judging them for that, but in this case that's what was happening. So it does happen and it probably has happened to all of us at some point in our life. It might be happening to you right now. That the reason you're having such hardship is because you don't allocate resources for the building of the temple. You spend everything you bring in on yourself.

But if you did, if you, if you actually did give to the work of the temple, then the windows of heaven would open. And so, you know, this prophet is making this very clear that your money can disappear when you neglect the temple of God and so then there's this command to work in verse 7 thus says the Lord consider your ways go up to the mountains and bring wood and build the temple that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified says Lord I hope you're looking at verse seven it's it's it's structured in such a powerful way he's just what's he saying go work go up start working it has to do with work It's not just something that happens in your heart, it happens with your life. You actually work. Your feet move, you move in a direction. In this case, they were they were going to go up to the mountains and bring the wood down and build the temple.

I think that's very much like going out among all the nations and preaching the gospel. Go out and Bring the wood back. Preach the gospel. Build the kingdom of God. And he says that it brings him pleasure, that I may take pleasure in it.

There are certain things we do that God takes pleasure in. There are certain things we do that God doesn't take that much pleasure in. But he does take pleasure in it when we go to the mountain to get and we work for the kingdom of God. And you know we're always pleasing someone, isn't that true? There are four people that we are pleasing.

We're either pleasing ourselves, we might be pleasing the devil, we might be pleasing another person, or we might be pleasing God. Now as it turns out, the Bible makes it clear that When you're pleasing God, He turns it on you and you actually please yourself. It's like what the apostle Paul said, you know, he who loves his wife loves himself. He who loves God receives love from God and help from God. But The Lord is pleased when his people work for his temple, to build up his temple.

And we should all be asking, is there anything distracting me from the building of the temple? For the fulfilling of the Great Commission in our days. And so then he says that judgment came upon them. Look at verse 9, you looked for much, it came to little. When you brought it home, I blew it away.

Why? Says the Lord of hosts, because my house that is in ruins while every one of you runs to his own house I blew it away. Have you ever felt like that? That your resource just get blown away. The wind blows everywhere.

Doesn't matter where you put your money, it's going to get blown away. God does that. He actually makes it hard for those who don't build the kingdom of God. And then what did God do? Further in verse 10, He says he brought all kinds of difficult situations.

He brought about drought. The heavens withhold the dew and the earth withholds its fruit. For I have called for a drought on the land and the mountains, on the grain and the new wine and the oil Whatever the ground brings forth on men and livestock and on all the labor of your hands So God God was blowing away their blessing now think about this for 16 years God brought hardship into their lives so that they would turn toward Him, so that they would return their energies on the building of the temple. But he brought hardship on them to drive them to himself. That's one of the great and blessed uses of hardship, is it causes us to turn our face toward the Lord and it causes us to ask where we've strayed.

And you know we fill our lives with chaff. We're very busy. We're satisfying our own souls and God blows our resources away and then we cry out to him and we turn to Him. And that's what was happening here. Sixteen years of distraction and He brings hardship upon them.

You might think about that. You know, maybe some of you have been married for 16 years and you say, you know, have any of the troubles that we've experienced been actually related to the fact that we've just been so obsessed with ourselves and we have been building the kingdom of God? You know it's possible. And again, I'm not saying that every trouble you've experienced is because of that, but it was that way here. And it probably has been for many of us at different times in our lives, and it may be true right now.

You know what it's like, you say, is it Lord, what are you trying to tell me? Did this happen to me because you're correcting me? Often it is. Sometimes it's like Job. Job was being corrected in order to display that Job loved God just because he loved God, not because he was rich.

So sometimes you have afflictions just for the glory of God. And a lot of times when you have an affliction, the most important thing you can say is, Lord, how have you designed that I glorify you in this situation? Because you may not know exactly why, but you do know that either way, that thing has been designed for the glory of God and how do you glorify God in your affliction well here you had a 16 year period where they were preoccupied they were unmoved they were removed, they were goofing off, they lost their bearings, they were off track, they were drifting along, you know, filling their, just making their own houses nice. And God kept making it hard for them. He made it hard for them though so that they would turn to him.

But then in verse 12 they rise up and obey. They actually they heard the word of the Lord. Then Zerubbabel verse 12, the son of Shealtiel and Joshua, the son of Jehoshedek, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and the words of Haggai the prophet and the Lord their God had sent them and the people feared the presence of the Lord so it was a revival in verse 13 and Haggai speaks words of assurance and he encourages the people, and Haggai the Lord's messenger spoke to the Lord's message to the people saying, I am with you, says the Lord. I'm with you. Remember the Great Commission?

Behold, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. Go out and make disciples of all the nations. I'm with you. My authority, my word, all authorities have been given to me in heaven and earth. Go make disciples, I'm with you.

I'm gonna take care of you. I'm going to take care of you. You don't have to worry about your houses so much. Worry about my kingdom. Build my temple.

Focus on the temple of God. How have you been distracted from the building of the temple of God? And so then in verse 14, the Lord actually stirs up Zerubbabel and Joshua, the leaders, the civil leader and the spiritual leader. So the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua. So there you have it.

Twenty-one days later, and they're back at building, and they finish it in four years. And they return to really the joy of their lives and that is the building of the kingdom of God and it was it was a work of God by his word. It's really the only thing that can move any of us. The authority of the Word of God. And so you know we ought to ask how is the maintenance of my life getting in the way of the kingdom of God?

Are my affections distracting me? Is my designer life distracting me from the from the temple of God and the building of it? Are my daily routines keeping me from building the temple of God? So then we a month later in chapter now we advance one month we're now we're in chapter 2. This is the second message the first message was, you're obsessed with your own houses.

Consider your ways. The second message that he gives is, stop devaluing the temple, but be strong. So in verses 1 through 9 we see it in the seventh month on the 21st day of the month the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet saying speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel the governor of Judah and to Joshua the son of Jehoshadak the high priest and to the remnant of the people. So the message goes to the leaders and the people and then he says who is left among you who saw this temple in its former glory and how do you see it now in comparison with it is this not in your eyes as nothing yet now be strong and then in verse at the end of verse 4 and work for I am with you and and in the final verse 5 so my spirit remains among you do not fear so he now he's addressing the people who were older and they saw the glory of the former temple remember they saw they laid the foundation and the old people who saw the glory of the former temple they wept because of the comparison.

Well these who were older they looked at what was happening they said this is nothing. This is nothing. We're nothing. We can't make a dent in this. And what we're doing right now is really rinky-dink.

And It's just a rinky-dink temple. That's what the old guys were saying. And the prophet is there to correct that mentality. It's the mentality that says, we're so little, we're so nothing, we have so little resources, look at us, forget it. We just might as well stay on autopilot.

We just might as well keep building our houses. No, absolutely not. You know, you think about, you know, your little family, you think of this little teeny church. I mean, there are almost 10 billion people in the world. How are we going to reach them?

Well, God, you don't want to make the mistake to say we're nothing. You don't want to make the mistake of saying, this is just so rinky-dink. Here's why. When you're building the temple of God, you ain't rinky-dink. You're building something of eternal value.

And so it's worthy of your whole investment. And God has divided His church up into congregations all over the world. And by the way, they're all really small. Even the biggest ones are small. And can't make a dent in the whole world.

And even if you have thousands of people, what kind of dent can you make? Go drop yourself into Calcutta and walk around and say, how can these 4, 000 people make a dent here? You can't. Well, that's deception. God has called us to make a dent and when you run around saying we're just nothing but a rinky dink nobody you've you've really misunderstood the power of the Spirit of God working in the kingdom of God and how important it is to rebuild it.

And you know Zechariah is going to come in and say don't despise the day of small things. Don't do that. Don't make that mistake. And you know what? All of us should take that to heart.

Don't look at your brother and despise the smallest of your brother. Because when the Spirit of God fills someone's heart, the Kingdom of God expands. And it's real. So he's really saying don't despise the day of small things, stop devaluing the temple. But he says be strong, be strong, power up.

You know don't act like you're nothing, get up and work, Go up to those mountains and bring that wood back and build this temple. And in New Covenant terms, you know, we would say, hey, disciple your family, spread the gospel, You know, build the kingdom of God, evangelize, multiply elders, you know, train the people, be strong and exert the strength that God gives you. You know, Paul said, let everyone serve with the strength that God supplies. He also talked to the church in Thessalonica and he praises them for their work of faith and their labor of love. In other words, their work came from their faith.

They were strong in the Lord. That's where it came from. And they labored. They labored because of love. It was a labor of love.

It was a labor that came out of their love. It was a work that came out of faith. And that's, I think that's sort of the New Testament analysis of this phrase, be strong. And so he's encouraging the people who started to be strong. And he inspires them, you know, with the vision of the future.

And then the third message that he brings is in chapter 2 verses 10 through 19. And the third message is, your associations don't make you holy. And I think what he's saying is, you know, you did establish the altar and you did revive blood sacrifice and you did associate yourself with the laying of the foundation of the temple. You're associated with this but don't think that your associations make you holy. And he gives illustrations for it.

On the 24th day of the ninth month in the second year of Darius The word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet saying thus says the Lord of hosts now ask the priests Concerning the law saying if one carries holy meat in the fold of his garment now follow this If one carries holy meat in the fold of his garment, and with the edge he touches bread or stew or wine or oil or any food, will it become holy? And the priests answered, no. That was the correct answer. And what he's saying is, you know, you're carrying around your sacrifices, you're identified with these sacrifices. By the way, associating yourself with that doesn't make you holy.

It's deeper than that. Because they probably were just kind of going through the motions now and they really had a heart to neglect the temple of God and the building of it they were just associated with it. And then Haggai said if one who is unclean because of a dead body touches any of these will it be unclean and the priests answered and said it shall be unclean and that was the right answer and Haggai answered so is this people and so is this nation before me says the Lord and so is every work of their hands, and what they offer there is unclean. In other words, their hearts weren't in it. It wasn't real.

They were just going through the motions. They got revived, and then they lost their heart in the work. And he's saying, you know, you don't become holy by starting something. And there are two points here. First of all, righteousness is not contagious, and you're not, you are not cleansed by being associated with cleanness.

You're not you're not made clean because you're associated with a church. Just because you rebuilt the altar and you come and you, you know, you're involved in the worship of God doesn't necessarily mean that you're clean. And then the second thing is that wickedness is contagious. Righteousness is not contagious, but wickedness is contagious. And, and so, you know, he's, he's, he's speaking really, I believe, of matters of the heart that they'd lost their hearts and so he goes He goes to the heart of the matter.

And then he says in verses 15 through 19 that he actually brought hard times upon them so they would turn to him. And I think this is just a further explanation of what we read in the previous section. And now carefully consider from this day forward, verse 15, and from before stone was laid upon stone in the temple, since those days when one came to a heap of 20 ephahs there were but ten. When one came to the wine vat to draw 50 baths from the press, there were about 20. In other words, you thought you were going to get 20, but you got 10.

You thought you were going to get 50, but you got 20. And then he says, I struck you with blight and mildew and hail in all the labors of your hands and yet you did not turn to me says the Lord you know when every every trial falleth from above it should cause us to turn to him. And so he says consider now from this day forward. He repeats that phrase verse 18 and then he says but from this day in verse 19 I will bless you. I will bless you.

So this third message is your associations don't make you holy, but if you turn to me, I will bless you. And I'll withhold the blight. And then the fourth message is a promise of blessing, verses 20 to 23. It's really a promise that God will help you, that he will never leave you or forsake you. Behold I am with you always even to the end of the age.

That's the message there. In other words obey God will do the rest now the people the people Basically said I won't I won't build this house But here in this section God says, I will. I will. He will, he'll pour out his spirit. He'll pour out his power.

He'll help you. And he uses the term I will six times in these verses. And you know is he talking about the temporal victory of finishing the temple? Or is he talking about something greater? I think he's talking about something greater.

The building, The finishing of the temple in four years is a picture of something greater. It's a picture of how God is going to complete the work. And he's going to bring the whole harvest into his house. And so verse 20, and again the word of the Lord came to Haggai on the 24th day of the month saying, speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I will shake heaven and earth. I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms.

I will destroy the strength of the Gentile kingdoms. I will overthrow the chariots and those who ride in them. The horses and their riders shall come down and every everyone by the sword of his brother." Verse 23, in that day says the Lord of hosts, I will make you as a rubble my servant and the son of Shealtiel says the Lord and I will make you like a signet ring for I have chosen you says the Lord of hosts. What he's saying here is that he he's going to give them authority and he and he's going to give them victory And he's going to shake heaven and earth. And he's going to draw people to the desire of all nations, who is Jesus Christ himself.

So I think he's speaking prophetically here about the coming of Jesus Christ, how Jesus Christ breaks the power of sin and he establishes his kingdom on earth and it grows like a mustard seed and it will prevail and it will finish. Even though it's so small, even in its small expression there in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah and Zerubbabel, even though it's small, it's going to grow, and it will not be stopped. And so he ends with a note of encouragement. So I want to give some applications here. I actually have several of them.

The first one really has to do with our nation. What does this have to do with us nationally? This year was the year of our presidential election. And today, we have a new administration. And what does America need more than anything else?

It needs the temples of God to be rebuilt. It still needs the same thing it always needed, the fulfillment of the Great Commission. Our nation needs a people who spread the gospel. That's the only hope. The hope is not in legislation and it's not in politics.

It never has been and it actually never ever will be. The only way that people change is through the power of the gospel. And that's what our nation needs more than anything else. And so we ought to dedicate our whole energy to the building of the temple of God. You know there's so many things that can destroy the temple of God.

False doctrine, heartless worship, slothful service hurts it, a little bit of Christianity, and a whole lot of the world. This is how you harm the building of the temple of God. And, you know, our biggest problems in America aren't the economy and taxes and healthcare and policies. It's changed people. You know all the racial trouble in our nation right now, it really has its source in one thing.

The gospel has been rejected. That's it. And you know all the collaborations and initiatives and laws won't fix it. But when people's hearts change, it's fixed. And it's fixed person to person.

And you don't have racial hatred any longer when you come to Jesus Christ you don't because you know who you are and you know That we're all one blood and So you realize how insane it is. Well, that's what true Christians do and so nationally, I think we just need to realize the problem is ourselves, and we need to build the temple of God. The second thing is, what about us? Hope Baptist on a corporate level. Are there ways that any of us are giving low priority to the building of the temple of God right here in this local church?

God has established local churches so that they would be strong and rise up and build that that local expression of the temple of God. And you know, have you been prioritizing other things in a to a superior position than the worship of God in your money, in your time, in your prayers? Have you fully dedicated yourself to the discipleship agenda of the church? And we really want you to do that. We want you, when we're preaching, we want you there.

When we're discipling and singing, we want you there. We really do. We, as elders, We believe that's one way that you build the temple of God and when you go do something else you're distracting from it That's the that's the way that's the way we've always thought that's the way all elders think pretty much Number three on a personal level I your personal worship you know, how busy is your life? Well, the problem is how easy is it for us to get so busy with our life That we don't stop to pray. We don't fill the temple with the glory of God because your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit the temple should be filled with the glory of God and You know you can you can have such a busy life empty, just like the people at Haggai was referring to.

You know, you drink but you're not satisfied. That's what happens to you when you don't build the temple of God. You know, I want my life and I want the lives of the people in my family to be more full of the glory of God. I actually issued an edict. We're going to read 30 minutes a day in our family.

We're going to read a book 30 minutes a day. Okay. So there I am, you know, the reading police walking through the house, you know, asking people if they've read their 30 minutes a day. Well, you know what? I'm going to be a little bit looser than that you know but the truth is I want us to take time to feed our souls and I'm here's what I know if you don't take time you're not gonna find time you have to take it and you just have to stop the world and feed your heart with things that are good.

And things will be different when you do that. So that's on a personal level. Another level is just the matter of zeal. You know, has your zeal grown cold? And you know, these are these are matters of the heart really and there are two kinds of opposition to the work of God in your heart.

There's external opposition and there's internal opposition and I'll just briefly talk about them. The one kind of opposition is external opposition where the surrounding culture is so against Christian culture you're afraid to look different and you'd rather just fit in Then be faithful to God you'd rather be radically acceptable than radically obedient and Those pressures are always on us Those things press upon our hearts, You know, John Newton said it like this, he said, the fear of man under the name of prudence, like a chilling frost nips everything in the bud. You know, when you're afraid of what people are going to think about your obedience, It's like a chilling frost and it just nips, it nips such good things in the bud. And the Bible really does call for the people of God to live differently and they will be persecuted for it. By the way remember the persecution that happened to the people in the days of Zerubbabel they happened for people who called themselves Christians.

It was from the Samaritans. They worshiped God too but they wanted a mixture They wanted a little bit broader mixture. They were Christians too, and that's why they said, hey, we'll help you build. And Zerubbos said, you can't build. No, you're not helping us build.

They were different. That's external opposition. But then there's the other kind of opposition is internal opposition, where you just want to maintain your own priorities and you don't want God to mess with your life. You don't want God to mess with your schedule. Like you've been living this life for 16 years, and how are you going to break that pattern?

You can't even conceive of it. But that's that internal opposition. You want to maintain your own life and live it the way you want to live it. And so those are the two kinds of pressures on the heart. But what's at stake?

It's real Christianity or fake Christianity. That's what's at stake. And you know Jesus spoke of it very clearly in Matthew 16. He said, if anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of man will come in the glory of his father with his angels, and he will reward each according to his works." And this is what Haggai is really calling for. He's saying, lose your life for my sake and find it. Go to the mountains and bring down the wood you know stop obsessing about your own life stop building your own life and build the keep build the temple of God build it with all your heart pour pour your whole life into it and God and God gave them a revival and they did it.

It's such a wonderful story and so here we are we're standing at the beginning of a half a million minutes of life in 2017. And the question before us from this passage is, will you give your whole heart and soul to building the temple of God? Or will you mess around with things that don't really matter at all? And so so how's that for a New Year's sermon? You know from the book of Haggai You know When the glory of the Lord fills the temple, it's the sweetest thing.

You know what that's like. And we should do everything that we can to multiply the filling of the temple with the glory of God. It's the sweetest thing. It's the most encouraging thing. It's the most healing and life-giving thing you'll ever do is to experience the glory of God in His temple.

And so let's pray that way and let's talk that way and Let's work that way and let's go up and let's get wood and build this temple. Do you pray with me? Lord we thank you for how your prophets speak so clearly. We thank you for this straight talking prophet. We thank you for your arms open wide that says, I will help you.

I'll take care of you. You say, I am with you. Lord, I thank you for your loving kindness. Even when we lose the mission, you bring us back to it, Lord. You're so kind.

And I pray, oh Lord, that you