God's House

This morning, we're going to be talking about work, labor. We're going to talk about how we labor, for whom we labor, and why we labor. The truth is, we're all working. We're all laboring in some way for something. Children, you're laboring for that next piece of candy or the next playtime. Youth, you're laboring to be yourself, to figure out how you can express who you are. Students, you're laboring to get grades and hopefully to learn something along the way. Single, you're laboring to look nice in case someone's looking. Married, you're laboring to deny yourself to benefit of your spouse. Employed, you're laboring to complete the task, to get a job done, to provide for your family. If you're retired, maybe your energy is focused on relaxing, visiting family, or a bucket list. We're all laboring. This is an opportunity. The message this morning from Haggai is an opportunity to ask, am I laboring for something that will last or something that will be lost? Am I laboring for something that will last or for what will ultimately be lost? As Americans, we're busy. We are busy. We're constantly working. We're laboring for this ideal life that constantly feels unsatisfying, so we work harder and it becomes more and more unsatisfying. So as we think about this message this morning, A big picture question is how are you investing your time, energy, money, thoughts, affection, attention? What are you putting your life into? How are you investing? Christian, your labor. Is it as Paul commands us in Colossians 3, are you working as unto the Lord for his work? The simple message this morning is this, consider your labor for the Lord's glory. Consider your labor for the Lord's glory. We're in the Minor Prophets as we conclude the summer series. We're in Haggai, that's on page 791. If you're using a Pew Bible, feel free to look in the chapter index, the beginning of your Bible. It's found between Zephaniah and Zechariah, if that's helpful for many of you. Haggai was a prophet. The message is very simple. The people of God are supposed to labor for God's glory. The people of God are supposed to labor for God's glory. Because I assume most of us aren't familiar with the book, I want to do a little bit of a historical background because there's some very important events that make this message pressing. First, God created the nation Israel. He delivered them out of Egypt. He gave them their, he constituted them there at Mount Sinai. He made them a nation. That nation refused him. They rejected him. They continually said, we're not going to follow you, our king. We're gonna worship other gods. As we heard from Sam last week, over and over again, God continued to say, stop worshiping other gods. I love you. I'm jealous for you. Judah and Israel, they never, They got so sinful that God actually made the one nation two different nations. There's northern Israel, southern Judah. They both continued in their idolatry to the point that God allowed and even sent the Assyrians to conquer Israel in 722. The Assyrians, they were pretty wicked people. Whenever you conquered somebody, what you wanted to do was defeat their desire for revolt after you've conquered them. So what they would do is take fishing hooks, put them on a line, put it in their mouth, and take them into captivity. If you take them out of the land, they won't want to fight for their land. So they literally drug them out of the land. Judah, the southern kingdom, they were defeated by the Babylonians. in 606, in 597, and then again finally in 586. 586 is a key historical date for us as believers of God's big plan. Because in 586, the Babylonians came in and they destroyed the temples. They destroyed the temple. They decided they were going to take down this structure that represented God's glorious presence in his nation. They also drug out, dragged, they drug out the inhabitants and took them into foreign lands. Another important date, so 586, That's when the Babylonians took Judah out of their land. And remember, the land is very important. It's the promised land. God provided for them. He would bless them if they obeyed, but they rejected him. So he takes them out. Everybody turn to 2 Chronicles 36. So 586, 2 Chronicles, found on page 388. 2 Chronicles is the last book of the Hebrew Bible, of the Torah. This is how the story ends if you're a Jew. Now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that's a Gentile. Now in the first year of Cyrus, the king of Persia, that the word of the Lord 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 through all his kingdom and also put it in writing. Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord The God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever's among you of all his people, may the Lord his God be with him. Let him go up. Judah's set free. This is not the way it's supposed to be. A Gentile king has the last word. If you go back to Genesis three, God said a son born of Eve. Genesis 12, a son born of Abraham. Then we go on to Genesis 49, a son born of Judah. We go to 2 Samuel 7, a son born of David. The right king of glory born a Jew was supposed to be the victor. He was supposed to be his people's deliverer, to save them, to redeem them. You're a Jew and you read this ending, you're supposed to say, what? How could this be? No, we're still waiting on a king of glory, the right king who will crush sin, who will crush death, who will crush Satan. This isn't the way it's supposed to be. So if we look to our passage, these people, they've been brought out of slavery, a second deliverance. They've been brought into their promised land. They're now supposed to commit themselves to be God's people for his purpose, waiting for the real king of glory. As we look to our book, it's written 20 years after that great declaration from the Gentile king. Haggai is written in 520. So 20 years later, Darius is now the king. One of the great things of this book, it makes it very clear as to when these events happened. Judah has moved back home and they've gotten comfortable. The focus is that they've not prioritized what's most important. It's not comfort, it's God's worship. They've not rebuilt the temple. This is the main focus of Haggai. The temple's important because it represents God's presence. The temple is important because it's supposed to be in the center of the city, in the center of the nation, in the center of the life. All of life is supposed to be at God's worship, and the temple represented worship. But they're too busy to worry about that. Haggai is the second shortest book of the Old Testament. As you look at it, again, turn to page 791, there's four distinct prophecies. You can see them because they're marked by specific dates. Very helpful clues. In the second year, chapter one, verse one. In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month. Then again in chapter two, verse one. In the seventh month, on the 21st day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai. Chapter two, verse 10. On the 24th day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet. And then we see in chapter two, verse 20, same day, second time, the word of the Lord came a second time to Haggai on the 24th day of the month. As you hear them, you'll hear a very great similarity between the second and the fourth. There you'll hear the words shaking. God is going to shake the kingdoms and the nations. We heard from Hebrews, as Lynn read to us earlier from chapter 12, that he also repeats and quotes that particular section. As we look to this prophecy, we're gonna see the problem is the people are too focused on their selfish pursuits, not on God's glory. The people are expecting blessing without obedience. Hear that, you're gonna hear that over and over again, I pray. The people are expecting blessing without expecting their own obedience. A key word you'll continue to hear, consider your ways. That's the action. Consider your ways. Repeat it over and over again. Consider your ways. God is about His glory. This book is from God about His own glory. Yahweh, the covenant name of God, is mentioned 34 times in 38 verses. This is about God and His glory. A number of themes come together. There's a kingdom. There's a temple. There's shaking and judgment. there's a call to consider. I hope you have the handout provided. The four things we're going to see is that we're called to labor for God's glory, labor faithfully, labor obediently, labor expectantly. Our first point from chapter one, labor for the glory of God. I want you to listen for four things, how they're called out for their sin, Consider, there's consequence for their sin, they're called to repent, and there's the people's response. They actually obey. The obedience begins, the people's response begins in chapter one, verse 12. Hear the word of the Lord, chapter one of Haggai. 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 Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Jehoshadak, 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 have never have enough. You drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And 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. You looked for much, and behold, it came to little, and when you brought it home, 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 have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce, and I have called for a drought on the land, and the hills, and the grain, and the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors. Then Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtu, and Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, They obeyed the voice of the Lord their God. In the words of Haggai, the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him, and the people feared the Lord, then Haggai, the messenger of the Lord, spoke to the people with the Lord's message, I am with you, declares the Lord. And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the 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 host, their God, on the 24th day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king. The first thing we need to see here is he calls out their sin. One of the most difficult things they had to hear is in verse two. These people. Whenever God doesn't call us his people, it's a judgment. These people that I delivered, these people I brought into my land, these people I've spoken to, these people who should be honoring me and giving me thanks, They're not living as His nation, as His redeemed people. These people, you yourselves, the emphasis is strong, you yourselves, you're not building the temple. Look at the emphasis, verse four. Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies in ruins? You're building your house, not the Lord's. Verse nine, it couldn't be any clearer. You looked for much, and behold, it came to little, and when you brought it home, it blew away. Why? Because my house lies in ruins. Well, each of you busies himself with his own house. The people of God are more worried about their glory than God's. That's the clear sin called out. The consequence of their sin, look at verse six. You sow much and harvest little. You eat but you never have enough. You drink and you're never full. You clothe yourself but no one's warm. You earn wages and it goes in a bag with holes. They're looking for blessing without obedience. They're striving and working and laboring as if God's going to bless them when they're not glorifying God. The consequence of their sin is a fruitless life. Verse 10 through 11 says the same thing. I have withheld the blessing, God says. Let's look at the call to repent. Verse five, consider your ways. Verse seven, consider your ways. Church, this is a day of reflection. self-reflection, congregational reflection, prayerfully ask God, will you help us consider our ways? Now, this prophecy is unique because we see how the people respond. There's four things. They obey, they fear, they have reverence, they come, and they work. And these people then are given the greatest declaration from God. I'm with you. I'm with you. You have heard the word of the Lord, you've responded, whatever you commit yourself to, I am with you. That is the great promise. Before we get to that promise and what it means, we need to see that the primary sin of the people of God is that they're busying themselves with the pursuit of the blessed life without regard of the one who blesses life. They're striving for blessing. They're expecting blessing, but they're not pursuing obedience. I'm not sure there's a more appropriate message for American Christians. We're so busy pursuing good things, a good life, the blessed life. So little regard for God. We have to remember that great call of Christ for his disciples. Deny yourself and follow me. Now, a simplistic way of looking at this text and applying it would be, hey, let's start a building campaign. Let's get our hammers, let's get our nails, let's get some lumber, some stone. Let's start a building campaign and let's build a temple so everybody in Charlottesville drives by and sees the glory of God in a building. As you're going to hear the actual application, that actually sounds nice and easy. It's something we can do with our own hands and our own strength and everybody will look at it and say, oh, the glory. The New Testament doesn't call us to build buildings. The New Testament calls us to something much, much more important than building a building. We're supposed to be building a church. A church is not a building. A church is never referenced as a building in the New Testament. A church is the people. The church or the people that God has said, you are mine, you're redeemed, come out of the darkness into the light. And be committed to growing up together. We have to make sure we're coming to terms. This building, we're gonna call it a meeting house. It's holy only when we're here. God does believe in holy space. It's only holy when we're gathered because that's when God says I'm with you. Christ tells us his temple that we should be laboring for is a church, not a physical structure, but real people with real sin, real problems. Praise God for the power of the gospel. As we look to the application, we need to go to another New Testament text to make this very clear. You can turn with me to Ephesians chapter two. It's found on page 977 if you're using a pew Bible. I'll begin in verse 19. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens. your fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. The church is the holy temple. In Him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. The church is supposed to be where we're committed to building so that we see His glory. Let me, when we're talking about labor and how we're gonna work, let's just back up to Ephesians 2. Chapter one, chapter two, verse one. Look at verse one, you were dead. Verse four, but God, being rich in mercy because of the great love of which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive. Verse eight, for by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not your own doing, it is a gift of God. Not a result of work, so that no one may boast. Listen to verse 10. We are his workmanship. created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in. I want you to remember that verse. We're going to come back to it. We're thinking about labor. There's your labor verse. We have been recreated to do a new work he's already prepared, which means he's equipped us for it. Let's get to the temple. There's three basic truths we need to see about the temple. First, Christ's word is our foundation. This has to be our foundation. If we're gonna speak the truth in love, we have to agree upon what that truth is. We have to agree upon the foundation, because if the foundation has cracks, the building, it ultimately becomes condemnable. It's not safe. that the building can't be built up into something glorious with a shaky foundation. Do we actually believe all of this is true? There's hard things. Peter even says Paul says hard things in the actual word. Is this word authoritative? Three questions to help you understand what that really means. Does God's Word inform you? Does it tell you what truth is? So first question, if you really think God's Word is authoritative, does it inform you? Next step, does it transform you? Not only does it make you think new thoughts, does it actually change the way you think? Does it change you? So does it inform you, does it transform you? Third, does it constrain you? Does it just simply say no sometimes? Does it inform, transform, constrain? Only when it does those three things is it truly the authoritative word over the church, under the church to build a foundation. Consider your ways. Is this word truly our foundation that we're going to unite upon? Third, Christ is a cornerstone, as we heard. The apostles and prophets are the foundation, the teaching of those men that God led to write these words, in whom the whole structure being joined together grows up into a holy temple, the Lord Christ himself being the cornerstone. I was thinking this morning how a lot of my jokes only hit like 10% of you at a time. If that, that one hit most. I'm glad you can laugh at me. It's because we're so diverse. Look around. Look around. You're looking at me. Look around. Okay, really, look around. Look at the different ages, backgrounds. We're diverse. It's so easy to say, I'm going to unite around those people who have this same cultural, same background, same sense of humor. It's not the cornerstone. We're united because we've been purchased as sinners by the blood of Christ. We're united only because he says, you're mine. And we look around and we say, those others, we're purchased together. Why? We can only boast in Christ. Notice finally the church is the holy temple being built together. The church is a temple being built together. It's not static. A church that's not growing is not a church. You're growing constantly, being purified, being changed, growing up in the measure of Christ. Numerical growth is what we like to talk about. something observable, demonstrable. Having the right expectation is important here. Growing to be more like Christ is the labor Paul is committing us to. When we unite, we're supposed to be laboring for Christ. Consider our commitment to Christ's church. There's numerous good things we could all be invested in. There's numerous helpful things we could all be invested in. There's nothing Satan loves more than to have God's people committed to numerous good things. There's nothing the world wants more than to have you promoted so that you have more prestige, more wealth, so that you're busier, so that you cannot commit to building the one thing that is truly glorious, Christ's church. So many things are so good, are so acceptable, that we learn to say no, so that we can commit to the best thing. There's nothing wrong with building a house. There's nothing wrong with saying, my house needs a foundation, it needs walls, my children need somewhere to eat. There's nothing wrong with that. When you're saying, I'm going to make it as glorious as I can make it without recognizing the glory of God's house matters, then it becomes sin. We're so easily distracted. And I think one of the reasons it's easy to get distracted is trying to build a church is hard. Let's compare it to building a building. Bricks, they don't argue with you when you pick them up to place them where they belong. The mortar doesn't need to be corrected and confronted with being applied. The hammer doesn't all of a sudden take a swing at you while you're trying to use it to drive in the nails. The nails don't gather together to grumble and complain about how you did not choose them or how you plan to use them. Yes, the church does all those things. We as Christians are all called to labor for the building up together of God's temple. It's not going to be God's temple unless we're all laboring together. All these tools and materials, I just mentioned the bricks, the mortar, the hammer, the nails, they have a design, right? They have purpose. They don't fight back. They're actually designed to accomplish the task we're using them for. That's why chapter two, verse 10 is so important. Every Christian is equipped and gifted and designed for a kind of work that builds up the church. And it's all supposed to be gloriously different. He has prepared good works for everyone who is his workmanship. So I ask you, what's your work? How are you working? How are you fitting in the way God has designed you so that the whole body is being benefited? A verse that still startles me as to what it really means in chapter four, verse 16 of Ephesians. From whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which is equipped when each part is working properly. Notice the word work. makes the whole body grow so that it builds itself up in love. I think one of the difficult truths here is if you're not working, something's missing from the church. If you're not seeking to labor to say, how am I supposed to be committed to building up this body, the body is weak. And something I see from experience, those who like to complain most about the health of the church are those farthest away from it. Those who are laboring rarely complain. Consider, if you're neglecting the church, you're neglecting Christ and his call. When you labor for Christ to build his church, you're doing the most difficult and demanding work. It's difficult, but it's glorious. This is where Christ says his glory is going to be refilled. As we consider this, consider these questions because we're talking about people. So as you think about how you're committed to building up the body, who are people. Think about the church in this way. A few questions. First, how many people do you know how to pray for specifically? As you look around the members of the church, there's 182 of them. How many people do you know how to pray for specifically? Second, how many different kinds of people do you know how to serve specifically? Third, how many people's testimonies do you know? How many people, can you look around and see the membership? How many people's testimonies do you know? Fourth, how many people do you talk about, with how many people do you talk about your own sin? How many people do you feel you can go and say, this is my sin, will you help me? Finally, how many people entrust you with their lives? See, if we're not involved with people's lives, we're not involved with the building of the glorious temple of Christ. These aren't supposed to be casual relationships. They're confessional commitments. We all confess together, this is our authority. We all confess together, we're sinners in need of grace. We make a commitment. We're gonna grow together. We're gonna grow together. This is what the church is supposed to look like. This is our danger, Jefferson Park. We know what's right. We know how to make ourselves sound right. We know how to make ourselves look right. And that's keeping us from coming to do the one thing that will glorify Christ, talking about our sin. Here's a principle. The more faith you have in the gospel of Christ, the more you are willing to talk about your sin. So think about how much you talk about your sin. The more faith you have in the gospel of Christ that saves sinners, the more willing you are to talk about your sin. Consider how much you think about and know the gospel. Do you talk more about other's supposed sin, more than your own? We need to be a church that has a gospel culture that is slow to confront, quick to confess, quick to forgive. The second prophecy. So we've seen the labor to build, the call to labor to build. Now we're called to labor faithfully. I believe this particular prophecy, it comes after the call to build because the people, well, they're discouraged by what they see. Look at chapter two, verse one. Labor faithfully. In the seventh month of the 21st day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai, the prophet. Speak now to Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to all the remnant of the people of Israel, and say, who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? Hear this repetition. Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong, O Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord. Work, for I am with you. declares the Lord of Hosts, according to the covenant that I made with you, when you came out of Egypt, my spirit remains in your midst, fear not. For thus says the Lord of Hosts, yet once more in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land, and I will shake all nations so that the treasures of all the nations shall come in. And I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of Hosts. The silver is mine, the gold is mine, declares the Lord of Hosts. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of Hosts. And in this place, I will give peace, declares the Lord of Hosts. As you hear that repetition, it's important as to who's speaking. The Lord of Hosts. Yahweh is making bold promises. so that he can call for bold action. Now, the former temple is Solomon's. Apparently there's some folks who are still around from the good old days when they saw Solomon's temple, which was glorious. It was covered with the trappings of glory, fine linens and gold and silver. It was full of riches. And now they've committed to this temple. Looks more like a shed. Where's the glory that you're supposed to see? Where's the glory? So I think this is meant to be an encouraging prophecy, because they're saying, is it not as nothing in your eyes? He knows people are committed to this work. They've obeyed. They feared. They've come to work. Now they're disappointed. Is this it? The prophet says, yes and no. This is the temple you have now. God's glory is not hindered by the work of your hands, but be sure God will demonstrate His glory powerfully. They're called to do what they don't think they can do. They're called to labor in a way that makes them feel as if they're unimportant, but God says, don't you dare say what you're doing is unimportant or mundane or unglorious. He calls, I'm with you. That great declaration, work, in verse five. Work, for I am with you. Sounds like the call to Joshua. Joshua's supposed to take these grumbling Israelites into the promised land to defeat the giants. God says, be strong and courageous. I am with you. He tells the king, the priest, the people, be strong, be strong, be strong, work, for I'm with you. It's a call to trust God, who's working with you, for you, and in you. Look at verse five, my spirit remains in your midst. I took you out of Egypt, fear not. I am working with you and for you and in you. Faithfully serve. Faithfully work. Trust God. Friends, this is a good word for us. Because the labor the Lord has set before us is long, hard, difficult, and slow. But as from a sermon Ben preached recently from 1 Thessalonians 5, let me assure you of this. God is faithful. He will do it. God is faithful. He will surely do it. One of the things that keeps us from doing the work is that it looks so daunting. Where do we begin? One of the things that keeps us from the work is that we have the wrong expectations. We want to see something as big and tangible and measurable. No, we labor faithfully trusting God to glorify himself however he wants. We need to hear the call to not be discouraged. The work of God is regular and constant. All our duties, they're meant to have us plugging away by faith, faithful, constant service. Now, I wanna be clear, the church is the people. And we're gonna talk, I wanna list a number of things that happened just so we as a people can gather here this morning. Someone prepares this room every Sunday morning and only a handful of us know who that is. Someone cleans this room up after we all come together. Someone comes and opens the door, turns on the lights. Someone else prepares the Sunday school lesson beforehand. Someone's serving in the nursery. Someone practices for our singing. Someone prepares the bulletin. Numerous servants are doing a lot of work so that a number of us, I should say this, very few servants are doing a lot of work so that all of us can worship together. There's a lot of work that comes in to us coming together. There are numerous servants. Thank you. May your reward be in heaven. God is with you. Fear God. It is your good work that glorifies him. Labor with joy and serve him. I want to specifically say, our Sunday school teachers of children, I think you have one of the most important tasks in all the church. You're feeding young hearts and minds. You may not get to see all those light bulbs go off, but you're planting the seeds that God uses for his glory. Thank you for your service. We need our Sunday school teachers for our children to be committed to seeing this as hard work. I may not get to see the fruit, but God knows you're a faithful laborer. So think about church work. I wanted to think about how this is more like being a plow hand. A number of us have gardens. I actually love the work before the garden because the work that I kill everything and pull it up and plow, it always looks better than the garden itself. We're in the stage right now where we get to have the best part of a garden, the best part of farming. You get to go pick the fruit. We all want to go pick the fruit. Church works more like plowing the dirt. Church work is more like putting the plow in and realizing, I'm going to work hard. I may not see any fruit, but I'm going to turn over the soil. I'm going to do the hard work, and I'm going to say, God, you bless your church in your way, whatever fruit you want. See, that's laboring in faith. that's willing to do whatever it takes to do the hard, grueling work. Trust in God, he'll be faithful. So let me ask you, are you plowing away in prayer? Are you plowing away in prayer? That's where you see faith. Are you plowing away in the word? Are you seeking to say this is God's authoritative word? Let it inform me, transform me, and change me, and constrain me. Are you plowing away in discipleship? Who are you invested in and involved in? Who's confessing sin to you? Who are you confessing sin to? Are you plowing away in the gathering? I'd love to see a church that actually committed to this. Everyone having soft hearts and calloused hands. Soft hearts saying, whatever you want, God, I will do. Calloused hands because they're doing it. My fear is this, we have calloused hearts and well-manicured hands. We want everyone else to do the work while we remain hard-hearted. Church, consider your ways. Verse seven, I will shake all nations so that all the treasures of all the nations come in and fill the house. Silver is mine, the gold is mine, declares the Lord. We see this again later on. I need to know something here. One, the gold and the silver is God's. He doesn't need gold and silver the way we need it. He's not glorified with our riches, he's glorified with our hearts. God doesn't desire gold and silver. He desires worshipers. He desires love from hearts that He created and created anew in Christ. He desires us. The way we give Him our gold and silver is just a demonstration of that love we have for Him. You see, we look at gold and silver and we see purchasing power. God doesn't need gold and silver for purchasing power. It's very clear from the New Testament. It's very clear from the songs we've already sung. God's purchasing power, what is it? God's purchasing power, what is it? It's the blood of Jesus Christ. Everything he needs to purchase, he has the power to purchase. And apart from gold and silver, it's the blood of Christ that purchases us so that we will become those worshipers. Money matters, as we heard from Matthew 6 earlier. Do we see our money as his and seek to use it for his glory? We're about to have a major shift in America. We are in the middle of a major shift in America. Right now, a lot of people give to the church because they get tax benefits. If that's the only reason you give to the church, you're not glorifying God with your gold and your silver. You have to look and say, does the Bible say I'm supposed to be a cheerful giver to God's purposes? Because here's the reality. You're not going to get those tax benefits in the near future. So you need to make a decision. Am I going to still give cheerfully even though I don't get a tax benefit from the government? I think you have to make this decision. Am I going to be a cheerful giver if I get a penalty from the government? Is God's purposes and his glory still worthy if the government doesn't acknowledge it and if the government even chooses to persecute you? Friends, that's a real decision we are going to have to face. Verse nine, the latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former. Praise God for that. When people look back, it always seemed like it was better. The latter glory will be greater. This shack they're building right now, it's not the glory that everybody remembered. And it's not the glory God intends. The glory of the temple is the church now, at one level. We're supposed to all recognize that Christ has done a great work. He is the perfect priest with a perfect sacrifice, who made it in the perfect temple, the heavens above. so that according to Hebrews 9.14, he has purified our consciences so that we might worship. Something important about that word worship in Hebrews 9.14, it's the same word for serve and work. In the Septuagint, you go back, it's the same word that Adam had, work the garden. It's the same word the priest had in the temple, work the temple. Where is workmanship? We're called to great work. This church could be glorious if we all commit to that picture and vision. But we also know more than that, the glorious latter glory is when Christ returns and all sin is destroyed, every enemy is his footstool, we will be perfected and we will be his temple. Before we leave this section to labor faithfully, Our prayer life is where we see our faith. That is the labor that we must plow through. We must see that prayer is the demonstration of how much we truly trust God. Because we all want to fix things, right? We like to be on top of it. We like to touch it. We like to talk to it. We like to fix something ourselves. But whenever we say, you know what, God? This is beyond me. I'm going to pray. That shows faith. Are we praying? because that is faithful labor. Our third and our fourth prophecies are shorter in sermon length. Haggai 2.10. On the 24th day of the ninth month in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet. Thus says the Lord of hosts, ask the priest about the law. If someone carries holy meat in the fold of his garments and touches with his fold bread or stew or wine or oil or any kind of food, does it become holy? The priest answered and said, no. Then Hagar said, if someone who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean? The priest answered and said, it does become unclean. Let me just pause right here. The priests are interpreting the law, he's asking questions, and the basic point is this. If someone is unclean, come and touch something that's clean, do they become clean or does that become unclean? So if this is the clean pulpit and I'm unclean and I come and touch it, does it cleanse me or do I defile it? The answer is I defile it. The unclean defiles the clean. Then Haggai answered and said, So is it with this people. And with this nation before me declares the Lord and so with every work of their hands and what they offer there is unclean. Now then, hear this, consider from this day onward, before stone was placed upon stone of the temple of the Lord, how did you fare? When one came to a heap of 20 measures, where? There were but 10. When one came to the wine vat to draw 50 measures, there were but 20. I struck you and all the products of your toil with blight and with mildew and with hail, yet you did not turn to me, declares the Lord. Consider from this day onward, from the 24th day of the ninth month, since the day that the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid, consider, there's a seed yet in the barn, indeed the vine and the fig tree, the pomegranate and the olive tree have yielded nothing, but from this day on, I will bless you. The main point of this prophecy is this. Your sin is contagious and infectious. Sin is contagious and infectious. He's asking the priest, is it not true that if someone unclean comes and touches that which is clean, it defiles it? Yes. So it is with these people, he says. They come and they offer what is unclean. It's defiled worship. We have to stop thinking that if we come and we just connect ourselves with that, we're just pure, it'll purify us. No. Repent, believe, and grow. Friends, I fear the way we approach worship oftentimes is thinking, if I come in unclean, I'll come and be healed. You're not coming to serve, you're not coming to love, you're not coming to give. Yes, the church is a place where we're supposed to receive healing, but if you're constantly coming unclean and expecting the gathering to cleanse you, you're not really building up the church. It's kind of like this. If you're about to enter marriage and you've got a pornography problem, your marriage is not going to cleanse your pornography problem. Pornography is going to infect your marriage. It's going to ruin it. If you're constantly invested in pornography and you keep thinking, well, if I just get married, it'll fix that. No. No. Your marriage will be infected by your sin. Seeking that which is pure to cleanse your particular sin that you're not willing to repent of, that doesn't work. Repent so that you can enter that kind of worship. Finally, labor expectantly. Labor expectantly. The word of the Lord came a second time to Haggai on the 24th day of the month. Speak to Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah, saying, I'm about to shake the heavens and the earth and to overthrow the thrones of the kingdoms. I'm about to destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations and overthrow the chariots and the riders and the horses and their riders shall go down, every one by the sword of the brother. On that day, declares the Lord of hosts, I will take you, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtu, and make you like a signet ring, for I have chosen you to declare as the Lord of hosts. There's a bit of a already not yet here. God's King of glory will come and he will conquer, he will be in the temple, he will lead us into worship. This is a partial fulfillment of that. Christ is the fulfillment. The shaking. We even see the partial in Christ death. Earth shook. The world was turned upside down because death was defeated. Hebrews tells us that once more there will be a shaking, once more there will be a judgment, and every earthly kingdom will be judged, will be destroyed, and all things will be poured out for the glory of Christ. We too easily find comforts in earthly things. We too quickly for security in earthly kingdoms. Trust Christ. There's a particular sin that we have not addressed yet that goes throughout Haggai, and it's a patience problem. We have a time problem with God. And it manifests itself in two ways. One, we're impatient when it comes to God giving us the blessing we want. We're impatient when it comes to God giving us the blessing we want. We procrastinate to obey him the way he tells us to. Does that sound familiar? We tell God, give me chastity, but not yet. God, give me the blessings I want now. We approach him as if he's supposed to bless us quickly, While we repent so slowly, this is not the way it's supposed to be. We're rarely on God's right time. The call to repent and labor is now. God waits for us patiently. He is eager to pour out every good and perfect gift. We keep ourselves from the blessings of God with our slow repentance. as we consider what we're called to do. God says, I am with you, I am in you, I am for you. Therefore, love one another, forgive one another, serve one another, bear each other's burdens, pray for one another, admonish one another, build up one another, care for one another, be honest with one another, be devoted to one another, submit to one another, be of the same mind with one another, love one another. This is the labor that Christ has called us to. Those are commands from Christ. That's how we build up the church so that it's glorious. If you want to be more committed to that labor, there's one clear answer. You have to see more clearly what Christ has done for you. Your labor is a reflection of his work for you. If you want to grow more faithful, look to how faithful Christ is. He loved us while we were sinners. He died for us while rejecting Him. He stands now at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us so that we will not be judged, so that we will never face condemnation, so that we can have a heart that's purified, a conscience cleansed so that we can serve Him. Let us seek to have confidence in Christ so that we confidently work for his glory. Will you pray with me? Father, we praise you for this word. We thank you that you have not called us to build buildings. You've called us to invest in your love, to do what you desire, and that is to invest in people. Help us to know how to do that, Lord. Help us to know how to commit to building others up for your glory. Help us to see the beauty and love of Christ more and more so that we extend that same love and service to others. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.