Good morning. If you'll turn in your copy of the Scriptures to the book of Haggai, it's third from the last of the books in the Old Testament. And if my memory is correct, you'll find that on page 941 in the church Bible there before you. I'm going to, I'll read the first five verses of Haggai chapter two, and then I'll pray. In the meantime, the prophet Haggai has brought two messages thus far. to the Jews who returned from exile in Babylon. The first message we went through in chapter 1, verses 1 through 11, was one of rebuke, if you remember. The people had come back from exile and they had meant to rebuild God's temple, but they had become distracted, sadly. They became preoccupied with beautifying and managing and making their own homes beautiful while God's house remained in a state of ruin. And so the message of Haggai then was to change your ways. The people obeyed, fortunately, as we observed in our previous study. Haggai's second message in verses 12 through 15 was one of encouragement. I am with you, declares the Lord. And so we left the Jews in that study rebuilding the temple. So this morning, we're going to take up Haggai's third message that we're finding at the opening of chapter two. Haggai chapter two, the first five verses. In the seventh month, on 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, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to all the remnant of the people, 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? Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong, O Joshua, 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. Let's go once again toward God, shall we? And even, Lord, as we've had a brief lesson on that word, ecclesia, and reminded of the promise, Lord Jesus, that you will yet build your church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it, even to eternity, dear Lord, we pray that you'd help us tie these matters together concerning your kingdom, concerning your church, concerning the temple of the Holy Spirit. Guide and direct our thinking. Spirit of God, we confess our utter dependence upon you, not only to understand, but to profit and apply the words that we have before us. We ask your help in Jesus' name, amen. First, I want you to notice the day on which this word has come. The 21st day of the seventh month. This is just one month after Haggai's already spoken that second message. So why, ask yourself, why would another oracle be needed so soon? It seems that as though the work of the rebuilding of the temple has begun that the people have lost their momentum. Things are not going very well. It started off well a month ago and the builders sadly are already becoming discouraged. So what is going on here? Are the people slipping back into their old materialistic ways? Are they being attacked by the many opponents that did not want to see the Temple of Jerusalem to be rebuilt after those past 16 years? Well, actually, it's none of those things. It seems that the people are getting discouraged. They seem to have lost the will to keep going. Discouragement is toxic and deadly. And as you can see, it's one of the devil's favorite weapons to use against God's people. And so we're going to see how God is going to deal with this problem of discouragement to which really none of us are immune. I wanna thank Warren Peale for his outline that we're following this morning. Take a look at your handout. We want to consider Roman numeral one, the reasons for discouragement. The reasons for discouragement. Why is it exactly that the people are getting discouraged so quickly? The work has only been going on for about four weeks. And it's not realistic to think that much progress would have been made so far. With a little imagination, we could think of several reasons why these people have become cast down already. First of which would be the Feast of Tabernacles itself, the Feast of Tabernacles, which would be A on your outline. The day in particular is at the end of a week-long Feast of Tabernacles. This is the festival which comes at the end of the grape harvest in the middle of October. And so all the harvest work is over and it's a time normally of celebration. but it hasn't been a good harvest. If you flip back to chapter one and look at verses 10 and 11, we find the Lord's words here. He says, I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, and on what the ground brings forth on man and beast and on all their labors. The people have not been in a celebratory mood this time around. Perhaps they're looking at piles of very poor quality grapes. And so we can see the problem itself is this time of year, but secondly as well, the site preparation, the site preparation that's been involved. Another discouragement is possibly because they've been working hard over the last month. But a lot of work, all the work they've been doing has been site preparation rather than actually doing the building. There's been a lot of cleaning out of the debris. They've been redressing the faces of the stone and testing to see if they're safe to be used again. Now, in their day, it would have been much harder than our day, since we have so much mechanical aids to us. For all the sweat and all the toil that's gone on in the site preparation, they really don't have very much to show for it. Near my neighborhood, south of Coatesville, there's a school building that was built about the time that I was born. Recently, the school board had decided to replace that with a brand new elementary school. It's taken months to clear away the debris after tearing down that old structure. Months have gone by in preparing the drainage basins and changing the contours of the land, and I've been wondering to myself, when is the construction actually going to begin? Well perhaps just as they are just coming to grips with the very scale of all the tasks that lie ahead of them. It's just too big. There aren't many of them and this job is just very large. So you can see all the work they've been doing has just been preparatory work. But consider with me thirdly, C, the scheduled holy days. In this time of year, there are several scheduled holy days. The seventh month would have been a time of slow progress, even in the best of times. The work would have been interrupted by several festivals, on which work was forbidden, not to mention the weekly Sabbaths as well. There was first the Feast of Trumpets. And then on the 10th day of the month, it was the Day of Atonement. And so then the Feast of Tabernacles ran from the 15th to the 22nd day of the month. And so you can see how hard it would have been to maintain the momentum of any project if you're constantly interrupted. It's not unlike me in my study when Odie wanders into the room and insists that I play with him. And if he needs to go for a walk out back to take care of some necessary business. And certainly I can't ignore that without having another interruption in an hour or two. And so there's been interruptions that have come from these scheduled holy days. But in addition to that, because of the Holy Days, fourthly, there have been visitors from out of town. Yes, visitors from out of town. And this normally would have been a very pleasant addition to the festival, but probably not in this time. Another reason for discouragement is that all the adult Jewish men are required to go up to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles. Perhaps there's been an influx of visitors from the countryside and so these visitors are seeing the work there of the temple for the first time. So it's not hard to imagine that they really haven't been very impressed with the small progress that's been made so far. It might sound something like this, is this all that you've done? We'd expect that you've made much more progress than at this point. Have you actually done any building at all so far? And so you can see this could be another word in their minds that would lead them to be discouraged. Consider as well, E, the disappointed expectations. Disappointed expectations. You can imagine what it's like in your life. You build yourself up with hopes of some big event taking place in your life. You expect it's going to be fantastic. And it could be a vacation, a special birthday, even a new job. You think it's going to be the answer to all your dreams. And then it just doesn't work out the way that you had thought. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Our fantasies are always better than reality, aren't they? And so that can lead to some severe disillusionment. Actually, it's a major cause of depression. Perhaps there's something like that here as well. The prophet Ezekiel, as you recall, preached in Babylon. about a new temple that would be built, a temple of unsurpassed beauty and glory. And he spends several chapters there describing the temple. but this temple is a far cry from anything that Ezekiel had envisioned them in Babylon. And so that brings us to the explicit reason for the people's discouragement. F, what is the stated reason for discouragement? The stated reason for discouragement? This temple isn't going to be anywhere near the splendid temple which King Solomon had erected. If you'll look with me at verse three, Who among you saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it as nothing in your eyes? Think with me. Solomon's temple required a workforce of more than 180,000 men, according to 1 Kings 5. And even so many workers, it took seven years to complete that edifice. Its construction involved more than 285 tons of gold, 625 tons of silver, and bronze beyond measure, according to 1 Kings 7 and 1 Chronicles 29. There have been some people, not many, but some who could remember the Temple of Solomon. and they have cherished childhood memories of coming up to that former temple. It was 67 years since anyone had seen that temple. And with these intervening years, it seemed to be even more glorious than it actually had been. Now some of us seniors, myself included, may recall perhaps a stadium, or a place, or a structure from your childhood. For me, it was the park at the end of our neighborhood. That park, to me, seemed to go on forever. There were so many places to explore. But returning there after college, I can remember that I almost felt claustrophobic by the smallness of the space. Even my neighborhood felt small. I almost regretted the visit and perhaps you have a similar experience. The passing of time plays tricks on our perceptions of places and structures. We look back at the past through rose-colored glasses and it's likely part of their perceptions here as well as they try to remember the glory of Solomon's temple. But also the date here is also very significant. the 21st day of the seventh month, as I said, the Feast of Tabernacles. But recall with me that it was the first Feast of Tabernacles when Solomon's temple had been dedicated, had been started. And this is the exact day of its dedication. And so anniversaries are always significant at the best of times, but especially when you're feeling so low. And so imagine with me as the people gather around to celebrate this feast. And as they gather, they look around at the building site. Only the foundations are there, perhaps seeing stacks of building materials, all of a very second rate compared to what they had used for their own homes. And it dawns upon them that this temple is going to be a far cry from the original. For them, it's impossible not to compare it with the good old days. And so especially on this date, in this place, thinking of the vast wealth Solomon poured into his temple, thinking as well of the vast, the amount of gold, even the floors were covered with gold in the temple. The finest craftsmen in the world were employed to fashion or the ornamental details. And so there among them, were the old people reminiscing of the grandeur of the old temple just shaking their heads at this poor excuse for a temple. What hope could there be of building anything close to Solomon's temple? Was there even any point even in working at all if this was all it was going to amount to? And so this is the point at which Haggai must come and address the people. They're terribly discouraged. What is God's message for these dejected and downcast people? And so Haggai doesn't deny the problem. In fact, he agrees with the people's assessment as you saw in verse three. Is it not as nothing in your eyes? Literally, is it not absolutely nothing in your eyes? There is no attempt on his part to somehow convince them other than what their eyes are saying. It's almost, there's almost no correspondence with what they remembered and what their eyes are plainly telling them. Empty words are not going to help a discouraged people, are they? And so it's as if he's saying that Solomon's temple is gone for good. Forget about it. That's not what we're talking about here. There is a very helpful place to start with addressing our discouragement in our day as well. We must honestly and bravely accept the reasons for our discouragement. Embrace the reality of the situation in which you find yourself. Don't try to pretend that things aren't as bad as they really are. Don't try to deny it, to whitewash it, to ignore it, or rationalize it away. James Montgomery Boyce makes this comparison. He says, sometimes we compare the church of our day to that of previous ages we just read from the book of Acts. And there we see those early Christians were together and had everything in common. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together and with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. The Lord blessed that church, adding to it daily those who are being saved. But our churches are not like that, we reason. The apostolic church was united, were divided. They were filled with joy. And they were praising God, and we are often discouraged and depressed. They had many converts, and often we seem to have few. We say, this is a bad age. No matter how we work, our days are never going to equal the days of the apostles. Or we look to the Protestant Reformation. And there were great men of God in those days. The people of Europe gave unprecedented attention to the gospel. The doctrine of justification had literally swept across the continent. And we say, where is the power of the gospel today? Where are those leaders? By comparison, our century seems to be one of small things. And we are discouraged. Or again, we could look at the Great Awakening in England and America. And we can say, where are the Whitefields? Where are the Westleys of our time? Where are the gatherings of 20, 40, even 50,000 people to hear the gospel, not just on a rare occasion, but regularly? And we do not see that, and so we get depressed, we get discouraged. And even if we do not look at the past to compare our situation with that of some former age of church history, we often do the same thing in comparing our work here with other contemporary works. We look at another church and we say to ourselves, look at that congregation. 25 years ago they were meeting in someone's living room, but today they have 5,000 people. and they have a significant new building. All sorts of works are being launched through their ministry. Perhaps you've only been making slow progress in your own Christian life, and it's dawned upon you that by this time in your Christian experience, you really have not progressed as far as you think that you should have. You're still struggling with some of the same issues that you faced even a decade ago or more. Well, don't deny it or try to reason it away. Embrace the reality of your lack of progress. Even as the writer to Hebrews says, for though by this time you ought to be teachers and need someone Yet you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food. By now you should be a resource to encourage others with this or that spiritual dimension or practical discipline of the Christian life. And yet here you are needing things to be spelled out to you again, even to you. How many times have I come to terms with that myself? And here I am deep into my fourth decade of Christian experience. I need to face up to it as well. Perhaps you've been toiling away at some project and yet you have little to show for it. Am I getting you depressed yet? Or you've been praying for someone for years, even decades perhaps, with little visible fruit. For a family member or a friend who's not a believer, you've invited them to come to events at church. You've given them something to read, books, perhaps a Bible. You've talked with them, but there's been no change. It's as if nothing has happened. And perhaps you're discouraged because your life isn't working out the way that you'd envisage it to be. And when you were younger, you had all these ideas of what your life would be like and what you would accomplish. And now, decades later, you come to realize it's just not going to happen the way that you dreamed that it would. We have several reasons for discouragement, don't we? And we need to face up to whatever these are. So we need to face up with the real reasons why we may be discouraged. And there may be, in your case, a genuine cause for concern. But after you faced up to them, what then? Is that all we're to do just to face the reality of our current situation? Just to grin and bear up under it, to accept it as our lot? What is God's message to God's people in such time? Does he have any encouragement for us here in our situation? Is this the end of this morning's meditation? Is this sermon over right now? Well, look to your handout, Roman numeral two. Let's consider the remedy for discouragement. The remedy for discouragement. As we pick up the reading at verse four. Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehoshadak, 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. First, he says to be strong and work. Three times Haggai commands the leaders and the people elect to be strong. He repeated these words precisely because of their discouragement. And then he adds, and work. In other words, we're not to just sit around in our discouragement. Positive action here is required. This phrase, be strong and work, is one that the people would have been familiar with. It is a phrase that was used at decisive moments in Israel's history to spur the people on. to decisive, to resolute action. And God spoke to Moses this way with similar words. And it is especially used at the conquest of Canaan, a seemingly impossible task. From Joshua 1 verse 9, Have I not commanded you, be strong? courageous. Do not be frightened and do not be dismayed for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. I have this verse hanging on the wall of my study. Still further, when starting the construction of the former temple, we had just read and Mike had just alluded to that in Psalm 138 it was, where he alludes to David who is the one who had initiated really the building of this temple for God, the house for God in 2 Samuel 7. But if we turn to 1 Chronicles 28 verse 20, we find David's words to his son Solomon here. And he says, be strong and courageous and do it. Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed for the Lord God, even my God is with you. He will not leave you or forsake you until all the work of the service of the house of the Lord is finished. And so these were no doubt familiar words to Haggai's hearers in our passage here. Courage, perseverance, and resolution is needed. And that's the same encouragement that we need when we face daunting challenges in our day. We need to be strong and to work. We're not to throw up our hands and whimper somewhere in a corner. We need to be courageous. We also need to apply ourselves wholeheartedly to the task that God has set before us. The devil would love to paralyze the people of God to stop working. And so that's why Haggai exhorts the people here to be strong and to work. And yet even that advice by itself is hardly enough, isn't it? But you can see that God has more to say than to be strong and to work. And the issue is that the Jews really don't have by themselves the resources they need. They're weak. They're not strong. And there is no point telling them to be strong when they can't be strong. And so God promises all they need to be strong and to obey his voice. He says, I am with you. He said to Moses as well and to Joshua and many others besides. He said, I am with you. Look at verse five with me. According to the covenant I made with you when you came out of Egypt, my spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. And so, as we can see, he has words of encouragement to be strong and work. But we're also to look back. Part B, we're to look back. As I had mentioned, this is the great promise of the covenant back in the time of Exodus. You need not turn there. But in Exodus 29, beginning at verse 45, God says, I will dwell among the people of Israel and be their God. And they shall know that I am the Lord, their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them. I am the Lord, their God. And so for a moment, imagine what was before them. For over 400 years, they lived in a state of bondage and were recently liberated from the rigor and the lash of the Egyptian taskmasters and Pharaoh, the most formidable monarch of the ancient world. They had embarked on a long, difficult journey to a land that they had never seen before. They had no military training. They had not yet learned warfare. And God said to them, I will be with you. I will guide you. I will be with you every step of the way. And what feast commemorates this long journey? Can you guess? It's the Feast of Tabernacles, this very day in which they are meeting together at the Temple ruins. It is likely that the people with Haggai had been meditating on these very words from the Book of Exodus. The Israelites faced an incredibly difficult journey on the way to the Promised Land. And perhaps the people before Haggai are now musing in their hearts, if only God could do that today. If only he would be with us today as he was then. And so Haggai stands up and he says to them, he is. God is with you just as he was so many years ago. What God did then, he has promised to do even now. God hasn't gone back on his word. He hasn't forgotten one of his promises. He has pledged that he is with you. He is still with you in spite of all the centuries of disobedience, of idolatry and sin and failure. God is with you still and I am with you, God says. God has not changed. And so if God is with them, then they have all they need to be strong and to work. But why is that? Well, not only can they look up, they can look back, but they can also look up. They are to look up. And so this question brings us back to the very nature of God, to the character and to the person of God. If you look back to verse four, Haggai calls him the Lord of hosts. You know, this is the favorite title that Haggai refers to God with. It's used repeatedly in his book. And so this is the God to whom all the powers of the universe belong. We had sung that hymn during the offering as well that reminds us. This is the God to whom all the powers of the universe belong. The angelic hosts, all the armies of men, and also all the stars, all the powers of the universe belong to God. And so Haggai draws attention to this attribute of God, namely his omnipotence. and so his omnipotence to help the people deal with their discouragement. And so this God of infinite power is with them. Even though they look around and they see the ruins, they need to look with the eyes of faith to know that it is this God of infinite power that is with them, that they are to look up to this Lord. And so that's why the people don't need to fear. That's why they don't need to be discouraged. This is the God who is with them. And although it is the completion of the temple that will bring about the dwelling of God's glory in their midst, even now about the dwelling of God's glory, God is present with them even without the temple. Verse 5 says literally that the Spirit is standing in their midst. In this same way, the pillar of cloud was standing, same verb is used here, at the entrance of the tent of meeting, even before that tabernacle had been assembled there in the wilderness. God's presence has been standing there in their midst. And it is the same now, he's telling these believers. They can be confident that God is indeed with them because of His covenant with them, described by the Lord as the covenant that I made with you when you came out from Egypt, in verse five. And so that's where we need to direct our attention when we become discouraged in the work of the kingdom. When everything around us looks unbearably bleak and hopeless, we're not to look at ourselves or to our circumstances. We look up to the Lord of hosts so that we do not fear. And so herein is our strength for the work that God has given us to accomplish in this generation. And so when crunch time comes for you young people at school, or you and the workplace when you have to stand and to be counted as a Christian. It may mean that you'll be mocked, perhaps even demoted. Maybe you'll even lose your job, perhaps. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts. My spirit remains in your midst, fear not. We sing these words, all things created by his hand and held together at his command. He knows the mysteries of the seas. The secrets of the stars are his. He guides the planets on their way and turns the earth through another day. And so when we are, discouraged by weakness and illness and pain and death, we must train ourselves to look up. When we are bereaved, as even in the loss of losing Jean here this past week, or enemies break into our lives, don't get discouraged. We need to be strong to look up to this ever-faithful and all-powerful and wise Creator God, to be strong to work. For I am with you, declares the Lord. hosts. Don't stop trusting Him. Don't stop loving Him. He is the one who is able to give you strength. And so perhaps you don't have the gifts and abilities that you like, your circumstances are not enviable. Perhaps people don't point to you and think, well if only I had the ability that he or she did, then I would be able to accomplish more. You do have this, you have the Lord of hosts at your side. And so you as well as I are to look up, to be strong and to work for he is with you, he has promised this. Don't wait for your circumstances to change before you go to the work. It's as if Haggai is saying to the Jews, your circumstances are not going to change for any immediate time here. at least immediately, don't stop. Now that you've begun the work you've been set apart to do, get on with it, be strong and work. And so when you're attempted to sin, and that sin seems to you so desirable, so attractive, and everything in you longs to give into it, you must fight it. Not in your own strength, but in the strength that the Lord provides to you to resist it. And so it is not only then that you experience the Lord's, it's the only at that time that you experience the Lord's power to overcome it. Consider Jesus in the wilderness, who being the perfect man, put down the enemy with the word of God at every turn. Be strong. Each time you're tempted, cry out to God that he would allow the enemy that he would allow the enemy not to triumph over you. You can say, I am weak, but you are strong. Give me strength to walk away in victory, dear Lord. So brothers and sisters, this message is for all of us, as you can see in the text. It's for the people of the land. It's not only for Zerubbabel and Joshua the leaders, but for them all. And so this means you as well as me. And so we are called to be strong and to work. Every one of us is valuable and needed down to the weakest among us. And so that's why all of us are needed to join in prayer on Wednesdays. Everyone in this congregation has worth beyond value. Each one of us is needed for God's work to go forward. And so there can be no break in our lines at all. You may not think that you are or believe that you are, but all the people of the land are called to be strong. to work. And so it's good news that I'm able to tell you the rest of this story here. The people who joined with Haggai did listen, and they looked back to God's promise. They looked up to the Lord, and their they completed the construction of this temple in only four years. And so after 16 years of lethargy and disobedience, the work was completed. Once they had turned back to the Lord, the Lord of hosts had been with them and he helped them. And so your circumstances may seem right now to be very unpromising. It may be a situation that is dragged on perhaps even for years, but if you look up and trust God to be with you, to help you, he will enable you to do whatever he has called you to do. God has an even greater encouragement for the people in the remainder of this little book, and so we'll continue on with that at another time. but your prayers, your witness, your presence, your contribution, each of these are needed. It would not be required of us if it were not necessary. Let me remind you of Paul's words from Ephesians 2 in verse 10. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. And so finally this morning, look to Jesus. Look to Jesus. In my reading, my devotional reading, I've come across Psalm 74 and Jeremiah chapter 9. And there is mourning of the destruction of God's temple here at the hands of enemies. And yet it was actually the Jews' own sins which brought this to pass. The temple ruins our picture of what each of us try to do to the knowledge of God. We don't want to let God be God to us, do we? And so we've gone off in our own way, Isaiah says. And tragically, in doing so, we have torn ourselves away from a knowledge not only of God, from a knowledge of who we really are as created in God's image. As one philosopher expressed it, When our story is told in isolation or divorced from the story of God, then it indeed becomes a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing. If we are considered without reference to God, we become useless passion. We live between a meaningless birth and die a meaningless death. And so these ruins represent you and they represent me apart from God. We've destroyed God and ourselves as well. But there is more here fortunately, just in these ruins of the knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves. These ruins here also remind us Christ's death, the destruction of his body, of his temple. Christ was crucified in Jerusalem, this very area, years later by the hands of wicked men. But this temple God also rebuilt when he raised Jesus from the dead on the third day. He then placed Jesus in heaven after his ascension to the place of highest glory above all heaven and earth. Each of us will one day acknowledge him whom God has raised when Jesus comes to judge the earth. And so in Christ alone. We can also not only find the forgiveness of our sins, but also in his love rediscover the meaning and purpose and belonging in each of our lives. Jesus came to give a life of abundance for all who had turned to him in faith and repentance. And this is still true in our day as well. He is raised never to be destroyed again. And so let us, each one of us, place our hope, our trust in him. You know, King David, who first envisioned this Jerusalem temple, also called this Jesus Lord in Psalm 110. And so the question this morning, my friend, is will you call him Lord? As we look at Paul, his sayings as well, he says, for our sake, he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, that in him we might become the righteousness of God. And so we must also look back at what Paul has already said in the previous verse of Ephesians 2. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of your own doing, it is a gift of God that no one should boast. So let not one of us here this morning somehow think that by our prayers or your efforts, your presence here, your contributions, no matter how extensive and great, can in themselves somehow win God's favor, though you have been called to work and to trust in God. that it is all of God's grace, his unmerited and unearned favor. We are all saved by grace and we all live by God's grace, his favor and his enabling power. And our experience of that grace and power is most evident when we put God's strength and work for his glory. So it's very likely in a gathering this size this morning that there's some here that have never really considered God at work in the world today. What does this ancient prophet's words have to do in your life? Well, let me remind you of what Paul said in Acts 17. He says, because God has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man, Jesus Christ, whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. And as amazing as it is, this Jesus wants you to come to him, confessing your crimes against him, and he offers you this day, not tomorrow, he offers you this day full pardon and forgiveness because Jesus offers this to you, his payment, for our sins, for your sins to satisfy God's justice. And so ask the Lord that he would rebuild his temple in your heart, that you would deeply desire his presence to be with you as he was with these Jews, to seek him in prayer and in his word this day. Amen. Well, let's go ahead to pray, shall we? At first glance, oh Lord, we look back at the prophet Haggai, this little book of two chapters, and we think, what does this have to do with me? What does this have to do with me? your church, dear Lord. And yet we can see it has everything to do. We pray that as you are building up your church in this day, as a temple in the Spirit, as you're adding this precious stone and this other precious stone over here, adding believers to this dwelling, this habitation in the Spirit, Lord, may you gather from every tribe and kindred and tongue those who are calling upon the name of the Lord Jesus, and bless our consideration of your word today as those who may even this day turn to Jesus Christ and be saved. We pray that you would encourage our hands for the days ahead, for the work that you have for us to do as a church, and for those that are far off whom we've prayed for this morning. We ask your blessing in Jesus' name. Amen. And so in closing we'll sing together from this