Let me remind you of the setting for this text. We noted last time, a couple of weeks ago, Haggai chapter 1 verse 1 dates the prophetic ministry as beginning at August 29th of 520 BC. I don't know that the year 520 BC is going to be terribly helpful for you, but August 29th is something you can have some reference to. We don't know for certain what Haggai did before the Lord called him to this prophetic ministry, but we know on August 29th this year, he walked into a meeting with Judah's governor, Zerubbabel, and the high priest, Joshua, and told them, God said it's time to get back to work. the temple because the people of Judah had been taken captive Jerusalem overthrown the temple destroyed but after 70 years the new Persian King Cyrus had allowed the people to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple to Yahweh and they went back and They got to work right away. They set the foundation of the new temple. They held a dedication ceremony and then They let it sit idle for 17 years. If you remember Haggai's opening message in chapter one was, you say it's not time right now to build the Lord's house, but you've got time to put the wainscoting up in your dining rooms back home. And so now it is time to go up the mountain, get the wood, build the temple. Now as our text opens in chapter two, the new date is October 17th. So not quite two months after Haggai's first meeting with the governor and the high priest, the Lord sends Haggai to speak to them and to all the people. So let's start with Haggai two verses one through nine. In the seventh month, On the 21st of the month, the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet, saying, speak now to Zerubbabel, the son of Shiltiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Josedek, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, saying, 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, Zerubbabel, says the Lord, and be strong, Joshua, the son of Josedek, the high priest, and be strong, all you people of the land, says the Lord, and work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts. According to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of the Egypt, so my spirit remains among you, do not fear. For thus says the Lord of hosts, once more, it is a little while, I will shake heaven and earth and the sea and dry land and I will shake all nations and they shall come to the desire of all nations and I will fill this temple with glory says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine and the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts. The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place, I will give peace, says the Lord of hosts. In chapter one, We got a good idea of the people's failure to follow through on rebuilding the temple, and it's here in Haggai 2 that we start to understand, well, why is it that they lacked motivation? It wasn't just a product of laziness. They were disheartened. As Haggai addressed the people, He might just be going through the streets preaching, or there may have been a formal assembly called by Zerubbabel and Joshua, but in the crowd of folks that Haggai is preaching to, there is a mixed bag of personalities. The youngest folks, and even those who are sort of middle-aged, would have been born in captivity, and they never would have known the former temple that stood there on Mount Zion except by stories from their parents and grandparents who told them just how glorious Solomon's old temple was. But there would have been in the audience a handful of aged folks, you know, the oldest generation, the ones who were old enough to pronounce aged with two syllables, they were aged, And they had distant childhood memories of the grandeur of Solomon's beautiful temple. But young or old, and whether they knew it or not, whether they thought it was time or not, what they desperately needed was to restore worship of God in spirit and in truth. Because the life of God's people is incomplete without formal worship. And so Haggai comes along asking, really, you don't think it's time to rebuild that temple? If the Lord sent the prophet Haggai to us today, I wonder how many ways he would ask us that same kind of question. Is it right for you to dedicate so much of your attention on your personal desires and so little of your attention on serving the Lord? Or do you think that it is right that you have all this interest in serving your job and serving your family and your own comfort, but there is not a priority in the place for obedience to God. Or maybe he would tell us exactly what he told them, that the time and the effort that you're dedicating to yourself is dramatically out of balance with the time and effort that you should be putting in to worshiping the Lord. We need to reset our priorities to acknowledge that the life of God's people is incomplete without formal worship. A comfortable life is a meaningless life if it doesn't cry out in praise and worship of God. And so in our text, The work has begun, and Haggai 1, he issued the call to restore worship, and Haggai 2, you know, just almost two months has passed. The temple can't be built in a month, right? They've not got the project done at this point. But the ground markers are all planted, the foundation has been laid, work has been restarted, and the people have started at this point to see some fruit of their labor. And perhaps to their surprise and dismay, it's not living up to expectations. Haggai, that plain-spoken, blunt prophet, is sent here with another message. And so, I wanna walk through this together, and we'll see God's message through Haggai. And these verses consist of three questions from God, three commands by God, and three commitments of God. The three questions from God, verse one sets the date, verse two gives the audience, it's Zerubbabel the governor, Joshua the high priest, and the congregation, the residue or the remnant of the people. Verse three begins the message, and God asks three questions. Don't you love it when someone starts a point by asking questions? See what I did there? Verse three, 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? So the first question is aimed at identifying those few people who actually knew what they were talking about when they wanted to compare this new temple that's being built with the old one that used to stand there. Comparisons between that grand old temple and this new foundation essentially was rampant because this new worship, it's just not gonna live up to that old place. Of course, there's very few of them who'd actually had seen the old place. Most of those building this temple had been born in captivity. The book of Ezra actually sets this scene and the mindset in a little more detail. If you would, find Ezra chapter three. Of course, leave a bookmark in Haggai or a finger, whatever. Ezra chapter three, when they laid the foundation for this new temple, they had a dedication ceremony, a parade, but by the end of the parade, there were many who were shouting out loud with joy and some who were weeping out loud with disappointment. So here's the scene described, several years, this is when they would have first laid the foundation, so many years before Haggai. Ezra chapter 3 verse 10, this is when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord. The priests stood in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals to praise the Lord according to the ordinance of David, king of Israel. And they sang responsibly, praising and giving thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever towards Israel. Then all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. Many of the priests and Levites and heads of the fathers' houses, old men who had seen the first temple, wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this temple was laid before their eyes. Yet many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people, for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the sound was heard far off. So the foundation was laid, the celebration, dedication celebration was held. Some of the people were shouting out loud with joy and some of the people were weeping and crying. Ezra describes it as there was so much crying and shouting that no one could distinguish one from the other. Because this new temple you could tell from the foundation of it, that it was just not going to be as splendid. It's not gonna be as wonderful as that old temple that Solomon built. Looking at this modest foundation, the old men thought, well, this isn't the temple of my memories. A lot of the young people no doubt thought, well, this doesn't seem to measure up to the stories of the good old days that my parents and grandparents told me. And so what happens in a situation like that? When some folks are excited and some folks are apathetic, soon the enthusiasm from those who are excited about restoring worship gets dampened by the disappointment from those who felt like their expectations weren't being met. We should learn a difficult lesson here. Apathy tends to be more infectious than enthusiasm. We know this because while some of them were shouting for joy on this day, ultimately, the naysayers won out. Within a few years, nobody was working on this temple project anymore. What all they did was sit around complaining that this just isn't as good as the good old days, then they were not actively involved in making their days any better. There's probably no group that's more prone to reveling in the good old days than Baptist churches are. But if we're being honest for a moment, the good old days weren't all that good. Unless the good old days you loved are all the way back before Genesis chapter three, then the good old days that you remember were spent in a world that was cursed by sin. Bible-believing people look forward to the good days. More on that in a moment. But remember this, Bible-believing people look forward to the good days. Let's ask these other two questions from Haggai 2 verse 3. How do you see it now? When you saw the old temple, what is it that you think when you look at what this new one's laid out like and what it's going to be like? The third question is actually a rhetorical question which answers the second. Is it in your eyes in comparison to it as nothing? In other words, you make this comparison and this new temple just seems like nothing to you, right? Now I doubt that any of us in worship this morning are looking at our assembly and going, well, this is nothing. but there is a tendency that we have that we can concentrate on the aspects that we find disappointing that are not meeting our expectations, and as a result, we minimize the whole. just a couple weeks after God sent this message through the prophet Haggai. He sent another message to the same people through a different prophet. He sends Zechariah along a couple of weeks after this. And again, in the form of a question, Zechariah addresses the people, but it was a challenging question. In Zechariah chapter four, verse 10, he asks a question for those who were sort of weeping in disappointment. He asks, Who has despised the day of small things? So it's almost like Zachariah is asking for a show of hands. Like this isn't big enough for you, this isn't good enough for you, and Haggai is saying the same thing. Do you think of this as like it's nothing? Are you gonna despise this day just because it is not as grand as you hoped it would be? Will you doubt what it is that God can do with a small thing? So these questions from God are meant to search hearts and they're quickly followed by three commands by God. Look at verses four and five with me and see these three commands. Yet now be strong, Zerubbabel, says the Lord, and be strong, Joshua, the son of Josedek, the high priest, and be strong, all you people of the land, says the Lord, and work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts, according to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, so my spirit remains among you. Do not fear. The tenor of the message dramatically changes in verse four. Maybe you can remember some time in your past when mom or dad got serious about a command and the word now comes out. Well, that's what's happening in verse 4. There's now and there's really no doubt that the Lord knows their disappointments. that their expectations are not being met, their effort to restore worship feels hollow. And this is a moment of crisis in how people, how the people of God react in that critical moment when our expectations of how we think things ought to be don't match up to what we see and how things really are. God addresses them at that moment and says, now, and here's three commands. The first command, repeated several times, is be strong. Three times the command is made, and each one is to some different person or group, right? Look at verse four. Be strong, Zerubbabel. That's the governor. Be strong, Joshua. That's the high priest. And be strong, all you people of the land. Every person whom the Lord has placed there in that land of promise, all of them are commanded to be strong. Words for be strong here could easily be translated as take courage. The words of Haggai here are actually an echo or maybe even a reference to the book of Joshua. When Joshua first took over for Moses and was leading the people into the promised land, and the work ahead of Joshua seemed too difficult. Imagine taking over for Moses. When the work seemed too difficult, too daunting, God repeatedly told him, be strong and of a good courage, for I am with you. And now Haggai takes up those words to a new generation of struggling saints in their return to the promised land and says, look, be strong, take courage. In that sense, the timeless message of scripture should speak to us as well. Be strong, be courageous. How is it that we can be strong? How is it that we can obey God courageously? Well, it says there in verse four, the reason to be strong, God says, is because I am with you. How could we estimate any day as being something that's just too small, it's just not big enough, when it possesses the omnipresent God in that day with us? When reality doesn't seem to be meeting our expectation, what we really need to do is to stop defining our reality by the limits of what our eyes can see. Make the presence of God our focus. Be strong, be courageous, because he's with us. The second command is only one word. It's again found in verse four. It's work. After telling them all to be strong, it says, and work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts. Work. Well, listen. The worship of God is not a spectator sport. Worship is work. God demands your effort. Now I know there's a sense in which we come for worship and it feels like it's this act of being filled, right? We leave here with hearts full and we should, But I have, you know, on Facebook, I have Facebook friends who talk about every time they go to church, it's like, oh, coming in to get refueled, coming in to get refilled. Listen, worship is not just an act of coming to God to be refueled. Worship is an act of giving, not an act of receiving. So if you leave worship saying, well, I don't feel like I got anything out of that today, So what? Did you bring anything with you today? It's an act of giving. Worship is this act from us to God, not the other way around. Knowing this truth that worship is an act of giving, not an act of getting, It also sort of betrays our attitude when we neglect the opportunities we have to worship. If you think that worship is just about getting refilled or refueled, the reality is you won't always want or need that. There's none of you that as you're driving, you stop at every gas station that you walk by, drive by, Similarly, if that's our attitude, we will skip many of the opportunities to worship because we'll think about church services and go, well, I don't need that, or I don't feel like I need that. I'm okay right now. You'll do less of that if you admit that worship isn't about what you get. It is about what God deserves. Saying, you know, I need to do fill-in-the-blank more than I need to worship is really saying I deserve fill-in-the-blank more than God deserves to be worshipped. Saying I don't need to be at both worship services on Sunday and I don't need to be there on Wednesday night. I get everything I need from the one service at 10.30 on Sunday morning, 11.30. is to dramatically misunderstand that the purpose of worship is not simply about what you need to get from God. It is what God deserves to get from you. Worship is work, and it is work according to Haggai that requires teamwork. Haggai's experience is pretty clear in telling us that the apathy toward that work in some people proved to be detrimental to all. It wasn't just that if someone was apathetic toward that work, it was harmful to them, it was harmful to others as well. The work to which the citizens of Judah were being called was to physically build the temple. And of course, you are not expected to build the temple, but you and I are commanded to do a work of building. About 20 times in Paul's letters in the New Testament, he uses the term edify, literally meaning to build up. Right? That work of edifying your fellow believers, of building up along with the church might be to help with a fellowship meal. It might be to attend and participate in outreach services like Esther House and Rescue Mission or volunteering at the food bank. It might be working in the kitchen at VBS or teaching a class. But that work of the church always is to attend service and to build one of, one another up through that mutual service. You understand in our church, like most churches, there tends to be a small handful of people who are committed to doing the work. And for those of you who find yourself always doing that work, but mostly doing it alone, I want to encourage you that God sees it, God blesses that work, God does not consider it a small thing, and neither should you. On the other hand, for those who don't find themselves participating in those projects of the church or frequently absent from worship, not participating in doing this work, you need to know that your lack of participation is not just going to impact yourself, it is a discouragement to the others who are putting the work in. Remember the lesson from earlier in this text, apathy tends to be more influential than enthusiasm. No believer is called to just watch. Every believer is called to work. Now I understand there are times the work seems hard, but look at the end of verse four. God answers the natural objection to the work being too hard when he says, work for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts, right? You can do the work to which you're called because while you are expected to work, you are not expected to work alone. The Lord of hosts, literally the God of armies, promises to be with us in the work. The third command's found in verse five. According to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt so my spirit remains among you, do not fear. The third command is a prohibition. It's not telling you what to do as much as telling them what they can't do. Don't fear, y'all, don't be afraid. If you are afraid you're not strong, if you're afraid that the work is too hard, don't be afraid. God's with you. He's the Lord of hosts. He's the God of armies. He promises his presence in verse five. He says, my spirit is still with you. The three questions God asked make it clear that the people were disappointed as they sought to restore worship, their expectations weren't being met, so God gives three commands that will immediately answer their disappointment. The questions were aimed at getting their heads right with God, the commands were aimed at getting their hands right with God. You won't be disappointed when you be strong, work, and don't be afraid. I'll say it this way, there is very little room for dissatisfaction when you live courageously, productively, and fearlessly in the presence and power of God. The next verses tell us what kind of life that we'll find. It's not that suddenly all our current expectations will be met. Instead, we'll find that our real expectations should have very little to do with the disappointing things we see around us in the present or the good old days of the past. Our greatest expectations are in the promise and plan of God for our future. There's three commitments of God starting at verse six. For thus says the Lord of hosts, once more, it is a little while, I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and dry land, and I will shake all nations, and they shall come to the desire of all nations, and I will fill this temple with glory, says the Lord of hosts. Here's why our disappointed expectations about the present and all of our fond memories of the good old days of the past are really of very little consequence. God has committed himself to a future that is going to exceed all of our greatest expectations. It's a little while, he says. That little while is, frankly, for these people, perhaps not in their lifetime, but it's not long in the scheme of history, God's plan of redemption's gonna come to fruition. And while it is not comprehensive of all his plans, he does give three commitments here. The first one, God says, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land and I'll shake the nations. The day is coming when the Lord God, who is the creator of heaven and earth, will execute his plan for this world. In that day, the atmosphere, and this planet, and the water, and the dry land, the like, and every nation on earth, he says, is going to be Shaken, there is no portion of creation that's gonna be left unaffected by when the world trembles before its creator. Many of the prophets wrote about this and Amos and Isaiah, Joel, Ezekiel, all of them picture sort of the convulsions of creation that's gonna happen under the power of God. In fact, this little verse tucked away in Haggai did not escape the notice of New Testament writers. Look, if you would, at Hebrews chapter 12 for just a moment. I want you to see how the writer of Hebrews uses this passage. In Hebrews chapter 12, starting at verse 26, he says this. Speaking of God, whose voice then shook the earth, but now he has promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven. So he's quoting Haggai there. Now this, he says, yet once more indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken as of things that are made that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. Let me just picture this. The writer of Hebrews, still expects Haggai's prophecy to be fulfilled. He pictures this shaking like putting all of the world into a strainer, into a sieve, and shaking it until only what cannot be shaken through remains. Or in other words, it's shaken until everything falls apart and falls away, and only the unshakable, immovable kingdom of Christ will remain. And so he says in verses 28 and 29, therefore, since we're receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear for our God is a consuming fire. Since this world is gonna be put in the divine sifter and all the wickedness is gonna be shaken out, the writer of Hebrews says the same message from Haggai applies to New Testament Christians. Serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, which is what Haggai is telling his audience in the text. God is committed to shake this world and give us an unshakable future, That's his first commitment. The second commitment is the coming of Christ himself. Back in Haggai chapter two, verse seven, God says, I will shake the nations and they shall come to the desire of all nations. Jesus Christ is that first commitment. desire of all nations who Haggai is promising. When the Lord Jesus comes, all the nations will be shaken so that what's remaining will have no choice but to come to Him. These folks Y'all, these folks who are standing in front of Haggai, if they only knew, right? If they could only understand, they've laid the foundation for this little temple and they are unsatisfied with it, but they don't see what it is that God can and will do. That temple that they're building is going to be the one that the Messiah enters, right? Somewhere on that foundation, Mary and Joseph are going to carry the infant Lord Jesus. Somewhere on that foundation, there is a 12-year-old Jesus going to sit and amaze the scribes and the teachers. It's on the foundation of that temple that Jesus is gonna stand and say, I'm the light of the world, and whoever comes to me will not live in darkness, but have the light of life. All of that's gonna happen at this place. They're awaiting that first coming of Messiah King Jesus, the desire of all nations, and we're awaiting the second coming of the same Jesus. Right? The Lord's Church, we understand that is where worship is to be offered until Christ returns. A part of God's plan for shaking this world is to bless all nations through Jesus. And God has people in every kindred and tribe and language and nation. In that sense, the desire of all nations is Jesus himself, because in every remote corner of this world, there are those like us who desire his coming. And so the first commitment of God is I will, or the first commitment of God, is to say that he's going to shake all nations and the heaven and the earth and the dry land and the sea. The second commitment is the coming of the Lord Jesus. The final commitment is, I will fill this temple with glory, says the Lord of hosts. This is the end goal of all worship. The end goal of all worship is that God would be glorified. No doubt some of those in Haggai's day thought the end goal of worship was to be impressive. So how could we really worship in some tiny little temple when the old temple was huge? It was massive. It was covered with silver and gold. It was so much more impressive. But look at verses eight and nine. You see what it says? The silver belongs to the Lord. The gold belongs to the Lord. All right, he preserved all of that if that was his intention, but just like the silver belongs to him and the gold belongs to him, the glory of this new little temple is going to exceed, he says, the glory of the old temple, right? Because the goal of worship is glorifying God. God says that new little temple that they've got, it's gonna do a better job than all of Solomon's temple ever did. Because just like the silver belongs to the Lord and gold belongs to the Lord, the glory belongs to the Lord. Because the Lord of glory himself, Jesus, God incarnate, is going to fill that place. So what does it matter if there were folks there who were disappointed because the prospect of that new temple just wasn't meeting their expectations? Their expectations were off. What is the heart of true worship? Isn't it to glorify God? What's better? Is it a massive temple with hollow halls or some modest building where God says, I will fill that place with my glory? When you look at our assembly today, folks, do you dare be disappointed with it? Have you forgotten the purpose is not to be impressive, right? It's not to do things that seem amazing and impressive in our eyes, it is to glorify God. So don't despise the day of small things. Can you look past what's in front of your eyes and know that the Lord of hosts can and is glorified through hearts dedicated to worshiping him in spirit and truth? The glory of God through Son Jesus Christ is the end goal of all worship in all places at all times. And we know now that God receives glory in the church through Christ Jesus. And so we should have time for this. We should be willing to put in the work for this. We live and assemble and worship and work for the glory of God. And as we do that, we need to follow God's commands to be strong, do the work, don't fear. We need to trust in his presence, the Lord of hosts, the God of armies, the shaker of heaven and earth, the desire of all nations is with us. And trust that the good days are ahead. that He can and will use it for His own glory.