Well, good morning. If you would, open up to the book of Haggai. Prophecy of Haggai. As you're going there, We'll read chapter 1, verses 1-8. This is the word of the living God. In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel, the son of Shiltiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Thus says the Lord of hosts, these people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord. Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet. Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies in ruins? Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. You have sown much and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough. You drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. He who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes. Thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house that I may take pleasure in it. and that I may be glorified, says the Lord. So, Father, we thank You for Your revealed Word. We thank You for the very words of God in this text. And Lord, we ask that You would speak to us and deal with our complacency, deal with anything in us that would be unpleasing to You. And we ask that You would sanctify us in truth. Lord, Your Word is truth. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. We intended to begin a sermon series on marriage this morning, and we'll try this for a minute. This was going out last week. If it pops too much, I'll grab the microphone. Many of you know John Mark. Obviously, we said this this morning. He injured his back, and so we're going to take a little bit of a different direction and put that marriage series on hold. Again, please be praying for the Oleskys and their family. I know that Brother John Mark wants to be back here in the pulpit as soon as possible. This morning and likely the next couple of Sundays, we're going to conduct a study in the book of Haggai. So Haggai is one of the 12 minor It's a short prophecy. It's only two chapters long. It's a total of 38 verses. If you read it this week, you probably realize, hey, I can read this in five to eight minutes or so. It's very short. And I don't intend to walk us through each verse kind of expositionally like we've done through the Gospel of John, but rather I want to take a few weeks to really draw out the major themes that we see in this prophecy. Very rich themes. Because while Haggai is short, there is much in this prophecy that is for us today as the new covenant people of God. And we need to see these things. There's much revealed concerning the nature of God that doesn't change throughout the ages and also the way that He deals with His people. And this morning I want to focus on chapter 1 and consider the words that Yahweh, the triune God Himself, speaks to the people of Israel through the mouth of the prophet Haggai nearly 2,500 years ago, while keeping in mind a few very important passages from the New Testament that assure us that even though God spoke these words through a prophet to the old covenant people of God over 2,000 years ago, these words of the Lord are living and active and timeless. And so two texts that I have in mind are Romans 15.4, which says, for whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction. He's talking to the church that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope. And then 2 Timothy 3.16-17, famous passage, all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. And I am confident that we will see this morning from the book of Haggai that there is much profitability and much by way of instruction and encouragement and hope as we seek to live faithfully in these last days wherein Jesus Christ is building His church and advancing His kingdom on the earth. That's certainly a primary motivation for preaching out of the book of Haggai. But another motivation is simply that we need to be competent in the whole counsel of God. Right? We need to be competent in all of the Scriptures. And I imagine, if you're like me, you might feel that the biggest lack in your biblical literacy probably comes in the area of the prophets. And probably the historical time period the Babylonian captivity to the coming of John the Baptist, right? There's just a lot of confusion there. I mean, most of us understand the storyline of Genesis pretty well. And we know the Exodus narrative through Joshua and the judges, and we know Saul, and we know David, and we know Solomon. And it might start to get a little rocky when we talk about the divided kingdom and all the kings, but we're pretty familiar with the kings and the downward trajectory of Israel and Judah and how that culminates in the Babylonian captivity. And we're familiar with Daniel, right? And his three friends and Nebuchadnezzar. But when we start talking about all these Persian kings, When we start talking about the events narrated in Ezra and Nehemiah coming out of captivity and back into the land, I think a lot of Christians start to get a little shaky there. And so, before we really dive into this prophecy and consider what the Lord has spoken, I want to do some groundwork and just sort of set up this biblical historical context for where we find this prophecy. So, starting in 605 BC, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, began to invade the land of Judah. And there was a series of rebellions where the king of Judah would rebel against Babylon. And so that would bring on the Babylonians invading and having these smaller invasions. There's three of them. And then finally, in 586 B.C., the Babylonians, under Nebuchadnezzar, break down the walls of Jerusalem and they ransacked the city and they burn down the temple, and they carry off everybody who was remaining back to Babylon in captivity. By this point, the great city that was once under Solomon, the glorious dwelling place of the house of God where people were coming to see it, and they were glorying in it, and they were marveling at it, it had become utterly decimated by the hands of the Babylonians. And this was, of course, not merely due to the fact that Babylon was a great nation or that it had a great army, but we know that this was due to the fact that Israel was unfaithful to its covenant God. And it rebelled against Him. It sinned against Him consistently. They continuously broke their covenant with Him and turned aside to other gods. They rejected the warnings of His prophets. And despite all the warnings and despite all of the Lord's patience and mercy, they hardened their hearts toward Him and they neglected His law. And God brought His judgment upon them and gave them over to their surrounding enemies. And He spewed them out of His land via captivity. But God did not and totally abandon His people. As is clear throughout all the Old Testament, God always keeps His promises. And we know from the book of Jeremiah and from the book of Daniel, and even from Moses thousands of years before, and from Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the temple, we know that if God's people in captivity would humble themselves and pray to the Lord, that He would grant them repentance to take them back out of their captivity and put them back into the land. And we know that there's going to be a second Exodus. And we see prophesied that there's going to be a second coming out of captivity where God is going to bring the people out of their captivity and back into the land that He promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And this happened in 539 B.C. when the Persian king Cyrus who conquered Babylon decreed that the Jews who were captive in Babylon could return to the land and rebuild the temple. We see this clearly in Ezra 1, verses 1-4. It says this, In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of Yahweh by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it into writing. And here it is. Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia, Yahweh, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judea. He says, whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him and let him go up to Jerusalem. which is in Judah. And listen, this is what he says to do, and rebuild the house of Yahweh, the God of Israel. Now the reason that that is absolutely remarkable is that a few hundred years earlier, Isaiah, the prophet, speaks about Cyrus before he is born. And he tells about Cyrus that he will be the one that the Lord will use to rebuild the temple and to bring the people back into the land. It says this in Isaiah 44.28, Yahweh says of Cyrus, he is my shepherd and he shall fulfill all my purpose. Saying of Jerusalem, she shall be built. Wait a minute, Jerusalem's already built. He's talking about coming back out of captivity. "...And of the temple, your foundation shall be laid." That's hundreds of years before the temple was destroyed. Hundreds of years before Cyrus was even born. And then he says in chapter 45, "...Thus says the Lord to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before Him, and to loose the belts of kings, to open doors before Him, and that gates may not be closed. I will go before you and level the exalted places. I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron. I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hordes in the secret places, that you may know that it is I, Yahweh, the God of Israel, who call you by your name." Why? He tells us. For the sake of My servant Jacob and Israel My chosen, I call you by your name." He says, I name you though you do not know Me. And recorded in the book of Ezra, we see Cyrus the Great doing absolutely this in 539 B.C. And he does it because the Lord told him to. I think it's very likely that somehow Cyrus got a hold of Isaiah's prophecy from hundreds of years before, and he read it, and he was astonished. He obeyed it. So take heart, brothers and sisters. God is absolutely sovereign over human history. He is sovereign over the kings of history. He is sovereign over the nations of history. And He is working all of this according to His sovereign plan. It's just astonishing. There's really no other way to describe it. I mean, that's why critical and liberal scholars will come to a place like this in Isaiah, and they'll say, see this right here? This proves that the latter part of Isaiah had to have been written by someone else. There's just no way that 250 years before Cyrus was born that Isaiah could pinpoint prophecy like that. It had to have been written way later and then added in. What do you say to that? Well, my response is, You should be astonished. That's the God we serve. That's the God we serve. That's how He gets glory for Himself, and there is an explanation, and it's not very difficult. The Bible is true. Amen? It's true. And the God of all human history who cannot lie, who always speaks truthfully, has spoken in the Bible. And so yes, it follows that everything written in the Bible comes to pass in human history. Or it will come to pass in human history. That's it. It's not a secret code that has to be cracked. God has revealed Himself and He has spoken. and He knows everything there is to know about everything. It's not difficult to comprehend, is it? No, but you do have to have eyes to see. You do have to have eyes to see because sin blinds us to the truth, and we know this, man's great problem is moral, not intellectual. Never forget that. Never forget that. When people come with all their intellectual problems about the Bible and about the Christian faith, I think we want to be gracious there. We want to compassionately respond to those arguments and help people along through their struggles. But what is nearly always the case is that when people refuse to embrace the Scriptures for some historical or intellectual reason. What's undergirding all of that is a moral dilemma. It's a moral dilemma. And as long as the Scriptures stand in the way of what people really want, and as long as the Scriptures condemn what people think should be accepted, they'll find all kinds of problems with the Scriptures. That's what this whole deconstruction issue is all about, ultimately. If the Bible forbids me from doing what I want to do, and it tells people that want to do what they want to do that they can't do it, there has to be a problem with the Bible. The problem can't be with me being wrong. It's got to be a problem with the Bible. It's got to be a problem with history. It's got to be a problem with how they viewed things back in those days. Let me move us into this prophecy. Let's look at verse 1. It says, in the second year of Darius the king, or Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel, the son of Shiltiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest. So this prophecy comes, we have the exact date, August 29, 520 B.C. And so these Jews are back in Jerusalem as a result of Cyrus' decree that we just read from 18 years earlier. And Yahweh speaks through Haggai to Zerubbabel the governor and to Joshua the high priest. And these names are significant because it demonstrates that God has preserved through judgment the messianic line of David and the Aaronic Levitical priestly line. So Zerubbabel is of the line of David, and Joshua is the high priest. And so although God has judged Judah for its sin, and although it has driven them out of the land and given them over to the enemy, He has remained true to His promises. He's remained true to His promise to Eve that one of her offspring would come from her and bruise the head of the serpent. He's remained true to his promise to Abraham that one of his seed would be the one through which all the families of the earth would be blessed. And he's been faithful to his promise to David that one of his offspring would sit on the kingdom of Judah forever. God has been faithful to preserve these lines through judgment. To say it very plainly, God preserved through His judgment the line that would bring forth Jesus the Messiah. And He has preserved through the line of Aaron, the Levitical high priest that can rightly carry out the worship of God in the temple. Because God is holy, right? And He doesn't just allow His people to worship Him however they dream up in their own hearts. There's got to be a Levitical priest from Aaron's line in order for them to worship rightly. And God preserves these two men through His judgment. And brothers and sisters, we see God running and executing the same play over and over again in the Bible. He preserves His remnant through His judgment. When we analyze the state of affairs in our nation and in the West, all the biblical data screams that we are under God's hand of judgment. And He is swiftly removing His restraining hand and His hand of common grace in delivering people in mass number over to what they really want. And we don't know the future. It may please God to grant a sweeping revival over this land. and bring millions of people to faith in Jesus Christ. That may please Him. Lord, do it. That's what we want. That's what we pray for. He may do it that way. He may choose to work incrementally. And as the church is purified, and as Christians engage in different spheres of society, and they have children, and they make schools, and they have businesses, and they engage in politics, and all these things, God may incrementally change our land, or it may please Him to turn this nation over to utter destruction. Those are His prerogatives, but here's what we do know. Matthew 16, 18, Jesus says, I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. That's true. We don't have to worry about that. We don't have to be confused about that. The church militant will become the church triumphant. If you are found in Christ, you have already passed from death to life. And though you may go into the flood, though you may go into the fiery furnace, though you may go into the lion's den, no one and nothing can pluck you from the hand of God. Because your sins have been dealt with in the cross of Jesus Christ. And for those who are in Christ, There is, therefore, now no condemnation. Amen. I'm reminded of our Lord's comforting words to the apostles in Luke 12, 32. He says, Fear not, little flock, for it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. So I want to spend, I want to land here for the remainder of our time. The first thing I want you to consider is that although Cyrus has decreed that the Jews were to go back and rebuild the temple in 539, Now it's the second year of King Darius. And this particular Darius is not the same king as Cyrus. It's a subsequent king. And so again, this prophecy is in 520 BC, and so you don't have to have a degree in mathematics to see that there's a problem here. It's been 18 years, and what have they not done? They've not rebuilt the temple. They have not rebuilt the temple. They were neglecting the very thing, the most important thing that they were to be doing back in the land. And it seems from the text that they're not even trying to rebuild the temple. I want to hone in here for the next few minutes and speak to us about the necessity of keeping God first in our lives. That's the most generic sermon proposition I've ever given. Probably ever will give. But I really believe that that's the thrust of this text. The necessity of prioritizing His will, prioritizing His commands, prioritizing His glory, and living in light of His glory and His pleasure and carrying out everything that we do for those reasons. Because if we do not keep God first, and prioritize His glory in every facet of our lives, we will, much like these Jews in chapter 1, live largely unfruitful lives. We will live unfruitful lives and we will find ourselves constantly under the discipline and the chastening of the Lord. And we will be frustrated and we will be striving and toiling without the blessing of God on our endeavors. It's a very real possibility. And this is not merely a one-time commitment that we make at conversion. I highly doubt that these Jews who came back into the land in 538 B.C. imagined a situation where nearly two decades later, they would be poor and small and being rebuked by the prophet. We never intended to happen that way, do we? But we all know that as we face differing trials and challenges and we have remaining the remaining fight with our sin and our flesh, and we live in this corrupt world, that things do not turn out the way we expected. We have to have an ongoing resolve, a daily resolve, a daily conviction that says, I will keep God first. I will prioritize His glory. And one of the major hindrances to this is excuse making. Let's look at verse 2. Thus says the Lord of hosts, these people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord. Now there are a few reasons we can speculate why they weren't building the temple. We know from the book of Ezra that the people were being discouraged by the surrounding nations and the surrounding governors and things like that. It's possible from a theological standpoint. Maybe they had reasoned from Jeremiah's 70-year prophecy. Enough time hasn't passed yet, so we must not be supposed to build the temple right now. They've not been 70 years yet. Maybe they're quarreling on a theological basis. It could have been that they're spending all their time and all their effort harvesting the harvest and receiving their crops and receiving their produce, so they justified neglecting the house of the Lord for their selves and their own successful harvesting season. And while all of these possibilities have some legitimacy, at the end of the day, they are all excuses. Why did the Spirit of God stir the Spirit of Cyrus to send the Jews back into the land? It was not just so that these Jews could have comfort and ease and happiness and die in Jerusalem rather than dying in Babylon. Why did He send them back in? To rebuild the temple. To rebuild the city. So that they could worship Him in the land that He gave them. And ultimately, He brought them out of captivity and back into the land for His own pleasure and glory, as it says in verse 8. Thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house that I may take pleasure in it, and that I may be glorified, says the Lord. And I submit to you this morning, brothers and sisters, that although we receive extraordinary blessing in our salvation, And the Bible speaks all over the place about the reward that we get for coming to Christ by faith. The ultimate goal of our salvation is for the pleasure and glory of God. That's why He saved us, ultimately. We just get to reap the great benefits of that salvation. We see this clearly in the first chapter of Ephesians. It says, He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace. He goes on to say, in Him we have obtained an inheritance so that we who are the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory. When we heard the truth of the Gospel, we're sealed with the promised Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it. Why? To the praise of His glory. He prays in Colossians 1 that the church would be fully pleasing to Him. He says in 2 Corinthians 5, 9, so whether we are home or away, we make it our aim to please Him. The New Testament is very clear on this. We are saved and delivered to please Christ. To please God. To live for His glory. Christ died for us, not so that we could just have comfort in this life and pursue whatever we want to pursue. He saved us so that we might no longer live for ourselves, but for Him who was raised. And that's how, brothers and sisters, you live the truly blessed life, as defined by the Scriptures. And here's the thing that most people don't like to hear. I don't like to hear it. Living a life that is pleasing and glorifying to God requires effort. It requires effort. I'm not talking about earning your salvation by works. We're saved by faith alone and Christ alone. There's nothing we can bring to Him. And I'm not talking about striving in the flesh and wearing yourself out to be religious, to clean your conscience up a little bit. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Spirit-empowered commandment keeping. It says in verse 8, go up to the hills. and bring the wood and build the house. Carry out the commands. That's what he's saying. But in carrying out the commands, what did they have to do? They had to get wood and bring it up the temple mount. And they had to build the house. And I'm sure it was hot. And it was hard. And they cut their hands. And there were enemies all around threatening them. and their wives had to stay home for long hours while the husbands went to work, and the wives had to deal with the small children for hours while the husbands worked on the temple. It was hard. It was a grind. But what was the result? God was pleased and glorified. Brothers and sisters, what if we could think this way more often? What if we could think this way about putting our sin to death? or fostering godly relationships, or knowing the Scriptures, or cultivating a prayer life, or running a business, or reading a book, or earning a degree, or caring for our bodies, or whatever it is. It's going to be hard. There's going to be excuses. There's going to be difficulty I'm going to have to push through. But in the end, it's going to be worth it. Because God will be pleased. And God will be glorified. But the real issue here, the major thrust of this prophecy in chapter 1, is not simply that they're not building the temple, but it's that people have prioritized their own homes over rebuilding the temple of the Lord. And they've prioritized their own success over and above their desire to please and glorify God. And I think it's safe to say that this is what most often gets in our way of pleasing and glorifying God. Verse 3, Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet. Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins? I mean, think about him saying that to you. Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. You have sown much and have harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough. You drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is worn. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes." The Lord reminds them by alluding to the language of covenantal unfaithfulness. And he uses that phrase two times, consider your ways. They needed to consider why they and their ancestors had been driven into captivity in the first place. I think they had forgotten why they had been in captivity to begin with. They needed to consider the covenantal unfaithfulness that brought the hand of God's judgment on them. They needed to consider Leviticus 16 and Deuteronomy 28 that lays out what God will do to His people if they are unfaithful to Him. And they needed to consider the fact that He was already beginning to withdraw His hand of blessing off of their endeavors. And they were beginning to experience His judgment in seed form. Verse 9, He says, You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, listen, I, I blew it away. Why? Declares the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins. While each of you busies himself with his own house, therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew and the earth has withheld its produce. And I, it's God talking, and I, have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast and on all their labors." They were laboring and toiling and striving largely in vain because God had withdrawn His hand of blessing. They were not prioritizing commandment keeping. They weren't prioritizing the glory or the pleasure of God. So nothing they were doing was blessed by God. He is jealous for His people. He says that. I'm a jealous God. I will have the worship of My people. And so He will do things to get His worship from His people. And if that means withdrawing His hand of blessing, that's what He does as a loving and gracious and good Father. And it's not like they were being lazy in their toil. Verse 6 says, you have sown much and harvested little. Working to please themselves. Working to prioritize their own pleasure and their own glory. When we do this, brothers and sisters, it's like working all day. That's what it says in verse 7. He who earns wages does so to put them into a bag of holes. Working apart from the blessing of God. is like working all day in the hot sun and sweating and toiling and striving to put your wage into a bag that has a hole in it. And when you walk home, it all falls out. That's the image that we get here. That's what it's like when we prioritize our own glory and our own success and our own thing over and above God and His glory. This reminds me of Proverbs 3, 9-10. Honor the Lord from your wealth and from the first of all your produce. Honor the Lord from your wealth and from the first of all your produce so that your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will overflow with new wine. I mean, this is hard to describe. It's almost like you have to experience it. But when we live our lives and see our money and our resources and our treasure and our abilities for the purpose of extending God's kingdom, and we hold them loosely, and we're quick to give and serve and bless, it's like there's a blessing on our material goods and on our lives. But when we seek to just store up for our own treasure and hold it all for me, and say, well, as soon as I get this much, then I'll start to think about giving some. It's like it's just falling out of your hand. And there's frustration, and there's striving, and there's toiling, yet there's very little in the end. And this principle stretches far beyond money. And I want to just drop down right here because this is so applicable to our lives. You know, it is very possible that there are Christians in this room, born-again Christians, that are going to heaven, that yet have areas in their lives where God is not the priority. And it's very likely that there are parts of our lives that are not surrendered fully to God. And we are experiencing the frustration over that. And you say, well, how do I know if I'm doing that? It's very simple. Are you prioritizing obeying the clearly revealed commands of the Lord in Scripture? He says, consider your ways. And that's not some morbid introspection where we unhealthily, overly analyze our emotions and our desires and every thought we have and run ourselves crazy. That's not what the Lord is saying here. I think He's saying something like this. Consider how you're toiling and striving and working, but how there's very little fruit coming in. And consider how you're prioritizing yourself and your own home over me. And consider how when you do things apart from doing them to please me and glorify me, there are consequences. And there's judgment. Consider your fathers and your mothers that I drove out of this land. Consider how this leads you to feeling the effects of the curse rather than the effects of blessing. In church, I don't want to give too many examples here because I trust the Spirit will make these applications to your hearts. But in light of the upcoming marriage series, I mean, I don't know that there's another setting where this is more demonstrable than in our marriages. Perhaps you're here and you're saying, you know, we've strived so hard in our marriage. We've strived so hard. We've given so much effort, but I feel like we've made so little progress. I would ask us all to consider our ways. Have we totally embraced everything that God has revealed to us in His Word with respect to marriage? To having a godly marriage? Have we totally embraced that our marriages are not ultimately about ourselves? They're not ultimately about our happiness. But that they're ultimately about faithfully showing the picture of Jesus loving His church. Have we embraced that it is better to give than to receive? To serve rather than to be served? To forgive when we're wronged? To outdo one another in showing honor? Have we embraced our roles or are we fighting those? I think it's worth considering our church. Is the preaching of the Word consistently bearing fruit? Consistently sanctifying believers? consistently being used to bring lost people to Christ? Is the Lord blessing our worship services? Is He coming and manifesting His power as we read Scripture and changing us and shaping us into the image of Christ? Are our ministries blessed? Or are we striving and toiling in vain because we're ultimately concerned about our own preferences? wishes rather than the pleasure and glory of God. He says in verse 11, and I have called for a drought on the land and on the hills. It's a terrifying reality to consider that it is possible for people to play church for years and years and years and give thousands of dollars and spend thousands of hours doing all sorts of religious things but in the end, it bear little to no fruit because God has called a spiritual drought on the labors. And personally, it concerns me very greatly that it is possible for pastors to preach hundreds of sermons and read books and attend hundreds of meetings and organize all sorts of various things and ministries, and it bear little to no lasting fruit because he's ultimately doing it for himself and not for the glory and pleasure of God. That's a reality that those who hold this office need to consider quite often. But here's what we have to see, because if we stopped here, we would be in utter despair, wouldn't we? Here's what we have to see. No matter how relevant this is in our lives, no matter how much conviction the Spirit might bring to us over this, this passage gives us the solution. Look at v. 12. Then Zerubbabel the son of Shiltiel and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, 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 as the Lord their God had sent him. The people heed the word of the Lord. and says that they feared the Lord. And they humbled themselves before the Lord and they resolved to obey Him. And then what the Lord says in response is just utterly amazing. Verse 13, Then Haggai, the messenger of the Lord, spoke to the people the Lord's message, I am with you, declares the Lord. It's just a startling display of God's mercy and kindness. He doesn't say, well, you know, it's been 18 years. I'll think about it. Let's see, I'll get to work first. Build the foundation, maybe. No. He receives their humble repentance immediately. He responds to it and He restores them to His presence and says, I will be with you. I am with you. And not only does He promise to be with them, and not only does He promise to be with us, He empowers us by His Spirit to carry out His will. Verse 14, And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Sheltiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and worked on the house of the Lord of hosts their God. God doesn't require us to repent by humbling ourselves and then says, alright, go try it a little bit harder this time. See if you can get it that time. I'll forgive you, but now just go get it together. He doesn't do that. He receives our repentance and our humbling by giving us the Spirit-empowered grace to go and carry out the commands. Consider the progression. On August the 29th, God speaks to the people. The people humble themselves and repent. The Lord responds to their repentance with the promise that He will be with them and stirs them up for the work. And 23 days later, on September 21st, they begin to work on the house of the Lord. It's just an amazing picture of how biblical repentance works. We are confronted with the Word of God through reading, through preaching, and our sin is exposed. before the Almighty and Holy God. And what we do is we come under conviction, which is the grace of God. And we humble ourselves before the Lord. And we cry out to Him because we fear the Lord. We fear the consequences. We want to be pleasing to Him. We want to be glorifying to Him. And He accepts our repentance. And He forgives us. And He restores us fully to Himself. and we resolve to put our sin away and obey His commands, and He empowers us by His grace to do that. Because when we, in real time, put away our sin and obey Him, we are doing it by the powerful working of His Spirit within us. And then we begin to bear fruit in keeping with that repentance. That's the joy and that's the normal routines of the Christian life. And so brother, sister, if you have grieved the Spirit of God, if you have realized that there is some area of your life that is not submitted to the glory of God and that some area in your life is for your own pleasure, your own glory, this is the process. Humble yourself before the mighty hand of God. Repent. He will forgive you. He will restore you. That's His promise to you. And He will give you the power to get up and to go and to obey Him. And you'll bear fruit that will last for eternal life. As we conclude and prepare to come to the table, I just want us lastly to consider how this passage is an accurate reflection of us. Isn't it? God has delivered these Jews out of captivity and lavished them with grace in bringing them back into their land, and yet they make excuses. They put panels on their own homes rather than building the house of the Lord. They're focused on self. They're focused on their harvest, and they neglect obeying God's commands. They fail to keep God's commands first, and they fail to keep God first. And in the same way, we as the church, who God has delivered from the captivity to sin, and from the world, and from the flesh, we have been delivered with such a mighty deliverance, and yet we fail so often to keep God first, and to prioritize His glory and purposes. Yet, there was one who always kept God first. There was one who could rightly say with no deceit in his lips, I always do that which is pleasing to Him. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you are in Him this morning, your sins and your failures have been exchanged for His perfect righteousness. And you stand justified now and you will one day stand before this holy God righteous in His eyes and sinless and spotless and blameless because of the fact that He never took His eyes off of keeping God first. Amen? This should motivate us to come to the table full of joy. And so, if you're here this morning and you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and you've been baptized and you could rightly take the supper at another church, you're not under the discipline of another church, we would invite you to come and take the supper with us. I want us to come not thinking about our own sins, not thinking about our own failures, not thinking about how filthy and guilty we are, but thinking about the Lord Jesus. His obedience, His righteousness, and the fact that He overcame it all for us. Amen. Take a few moments there. When you're ready, come on down and receive the elements and return to your seat, and we'll take this supper together. Let's pray. Father in Heaven, we just give You so much praise and thanks that You have made a way for us to be saved, for us to be restored, and Lord, we pray that we could live all of our lives fully surrendered to You. We pray that we would keep God first in all that we do. Lord, show us areas in our lives that are not pleasing to You. And we pray for Your powerful working of Your Spirit to keep Your commands and to obey You, Lord. We thank You for Jesus Christ. Help us to come to the table with joy. and take the supper together. I pray it in Jesus' name, Amen.