It’s Time to Respond To God’s Call

It's Time January 26, 2025 Haggai 1:12-15 Notes


Have you heard God’s call on your life? For some, it’s a call to come to faith in Jesus. You’ve never responded to the call of salvation. You’re still trying to live life according to your own priorities and purpose.

For others, you’ve answered God’s call to come to Jesus. You’ve trusted Him as your Lord and Savior. But lately, you’ve been feeling stuck spiritually, you’ve lost the joy, the fire that you once experienced in Christ. Could it be that Jesus has called you to more? Could it be that you’ve gotten your priorities out of order and forgotten your true purpose?

Jesus hasn’t left you nor forsaken you, but He can’t fully bless you and lead you until respond in faithful obedience to His call. That’s where the people of God in Haggai were. They had been stuck, but now they’re ready to move on with God again! In the book of Haggai 1:12-15, the people of God faithfully responded to God’s call to rebuild His house. We can faithfully respond to God’s call.

Audio

Transcript

We're in part three of our series, going verse by verse, through the book of Haggai. We've entitled this series, “It's Time.” It's time to be strong, do the work and be fearless. We get it from these verses in Haggai.

Haggai 1:2; 2:4-5 (ESV) “These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord… Yet now be strong… Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord… My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not.”

And so the people were saying, ‘It's not time,” but God said that it is time. It's time to be strong, do the work and be fearless. Now, I hope you stopped by our “It's Time” table as you came in today. If you haven't already picked one up, pick up a journey guide. In the journey guide, you can keep your sermon notes together in one place,

as we're going through this eight-week series, verse by verse, through the book of Haggai. Of course, you can take your notes in the bulletin as well, but this gives you another place to keep them all in one place. You can read about our vision. We have a six-week devotional here, where there's five devotions per week and that gives you the weekends off, so you can catch up or go back and look back over it. If you're here for the first time and you want to get on the journey with us, you're welcome to get a journey guide

as you leave. Pick up one with the bookmark and get an “It's time” pen and start journaling. You can start at the beginning and just catch up with us; that's fine. There's five devotions a week for six weeks and we're starting week three tomorrow. There’s a place to keep your prayers, frequently asked questions about the “It's Time” generosity initiative and a commitment guide. We hope everyone has one of these guides.

If you didn't get one, drop by the table as you leave today and pick one up. We want to put that in your hands. I hope you'll pick one of these up so you can stay on the journey, because we're on a spiritual journey together right now, asking God to help us to reach the people in our city with the Gospel. Now, over the past couple of weeks, this is week three, we've covered the majority of chapter one of Haggai.

We're in the final verses of chapter one of the book of Haggai. In the previous verses, we heard this repetitive phrase, God speaking to the people of God saying, “Consider your ways.” In week one, we said that it's about your priorities. “Consider your priorities.” Are you putting God first or are you putting your house first?

We talked about that. Then, last week we said, “Consider your purpose.” Do you know ‘Who you are and Whose you are?’ Do you know your identity and your purpose in life? We talked about that last week.

Now, in week three, we've entitled this message, “It's time to respond to God's call.” You've considered your ways. Now it's time to get moving. As I think about that today, and I think about those that are seated before me, those that are next door watching on the screens next door and those of you that are watching on our streaming service online today. I think about all of you right now.

There are at least two kinds of people in the room. I want to speak to the first kind of person that's in the room. There’s the call that's on your life if you've never given your life to Jesus. You've never answered the call of salvation, where Jesus is calling you to give your life to Him, to repent of your sin, to turn from your sin and to turn to God. To trust Jesus for your salvation as your Lord and Savior. And I pray today, most importantly of anyone, I'm praying for today, I'm praying for you that you would answer the call of salvation to come to Jesus.

That's why we exist as a church. That's why I answered the call to preach. It's so that people far from God could be brought near, because people are hurting, people are lonely, and people are far from God. They have a Savior, if only they would call on Him. So, that's the first type of person.

Now, there's another type of person in the room. You're a Christ follower. You've given your life to Jesus, but you've gone spiritually dry. You've lost the joy. You feel stuck in your growth spiritually.

There could be many reasons, but for some of you, it's because He asked you to do something and you were afraid to do it and you turned back from it. He asked you to go somewhere and you stayed home. He asked you to give and you kept it. He called you to something and you didn't really say, ‘no.’ You just said, ‘it's not time, it's later.

Maybe, when I have more, maybe when I'm more gifted, maybe if I learn this first…’ You're like the people of God here in the book of Haggai who are saying, ‘It's not time yet, Lord. Maybe later.’ I would propose to you that if that's you, the reason you're going through this extended spiritual dry spell is because you need to revisit the place where you said “no” to God.

He called you to give, to do and to go. He's called you. But, Jesus hasn't left you nor forsaken you. He's still with you, believer,

but He can't fully bless you because you are refusing His blessing by your “no.” Okay, that's serious stuff. You may be stuck right now, but you don't have to stay that way. The people of God that we're reading about today, they finally wake up and they finally decide to respond to God's call. He was so tender with them.

He was so patient. “Consider your ways,” He said. Then, finally, they heard the Lord in the book of Haggai, chapter one, verses 12 through 15. That's where we'll be today.

The people of God faithfully responded to God's call to rebuild the house of God, the temple. I believe today that we can look at how they responded and it will inform us how we might respond to God's call on our lives. As we look at the text, I think we'll see three ways, three faithful ways that we can respond to God's call on our lives. Let's read the text and let's ask the Lord to speak to us from his word. Haggai 1:12-15 (ESV) 12 “Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the LORD their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the LORD their God had sent him. And the people feared the LORD.

13 Then Haggai, the messenger of the LORD, spoke to the people with the LORD’s message, “I am with you, declares the LORD.” 14 And the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and worked on the house of the LORD of hosts, their God, 15 on the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.”This is God's word.

Amen. We're looking for three ways we can faithfully respond to God's call.

1. By obeying God’s Word.

I want to go ahead and show you the three ways by looking at the three responses of the people. Sometimes people will ask me, ‘How do you decide how to preach a passage?’ We always begin with an inductive Bible study, where we do a grammatical structural diagram. We look up all the words and we look for repetitive phrases, but we often look at what God is saying. What is God doing

and how are the people responding? So in this case we saw that God told them to do something and we look at how they respond. We saw three verbs of how they responded: In verse 12, they obeyed the voice of the Lord. So that's what we're going to talk about in just a second.

Then, it says that the people feared the Lord. So, obeyed and feared. Feared will be our second point when we get to it. And then you get all the way down to verse 14, where it says that they came and worked on the house of the Lord. So our third verb is worked.

Can you see how we got there? The thing I want you to always know, Church, is that I'm not preaching my opinion. I am “unpacking” God's word. I'm trying to be a good chef and lay out the buffet, okay? I cut it into bite size pieces so the little ones can chew it and I cut some bigger hunks of meat in there for the more mature to have something to really gnaw on.

I try to get the bones out so you don't choke. That's what I do. That's what you've asked me to do, church; you've set me apart to do. That's what God has called me to do and it's my joy to do it.

So, that's what we're looking at, three faithful ways we can respond to God's call. The first is by obeying God's word. Now let's “unpack” who these people are. Zerubbabel is the son of Shealtiel. Zerubbabel is born into the line of David.

He would have been king of Israel if the Babylonians had not overthrown Jerusalem. He grew up in Babylon. Indeed, his name, Zerubbabel, means “seed of Babel.” He was “born in Babel.”

He's got a name that's pretty unique in terms of Jewish names. “Born in Babylon.” He's the governor of Jerusalem.He's under Darius the Great, the king of Persia, whose forebearer, Cyrus the Great, had overthrown Babylon, released the remnant and the captive Israelites that were there for 70 years of captivity in Babylon.

Now, they've come back to the land of Judah. Now King Darius is favorable towards them. King Darius wants them to rebuild the temple. This is the time period. Then we have Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest.

Joshua is born into the line of Aaron. He's the high priest, but he's a high priest with no temple. He's a priest without a temple. He's a preacher without a church.

That's what's going on right here. But, they're ready to obey the voice of the Lord. Then, we see Haggai the prophet.Haggai boy, he's a good date keeper, isn't he?

I mean,he makes sure you know the date. He's like the most precise date keeper perhaps of any author that God used in the Bible. He gives us those great dates at the end. We'll “unpack” that in just a second. (1) By obeying God's word.

Let's work that out a minute. The word, obey, has the idea to hear and respond obediently. Now, you can't respond obediently until you hear, until you read. But once you've heard God's word, once you've verified what He's asking you to do, it's not enough just to hear it.

”We must be not only hearers of the word, but doers of the word,” the book of James teaches us. I think God would rather for you if you only knew one verse of the Bible and you did that verse. I think God would prefer that over you memorizing a hundred verses and not doing any of them. God cares about your obedience.

The Jewish Exiles have been disobedient. They had been back in Judah, back in Jerusalem for, it looks like about 18 years. When they first started, they started rebuilding the temple, they laid the foundation, but then they ran into opposition. There were people there against it. If those Israelites rebuild that temple, they'll rebel against Persia.

So, they sent word back to the king of Persia at that time, and he stopped the work. But now, King Darius has been there for two years and he's released them to do the work. But, they hadn't gotten back to work until now. Now they're ready. Now they're ready to hear the voice of the Lord and obey the voice of the Lord.

I really like that Haggai's the one speaking. They recognized, it says, that he was sent. You see that in verse 12, “...obeyed the voice of the LORD their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the LORD their God had sent him.” They recognized him as a prophet of God, as one sent.

He was sent. Did you know that you're sent, believer? Did you know that Jesus has sent you, that you've been sent? You have been sent and you've been called to obey His call.

Luke 11:28 (NIV) He [Jesus] replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” That's who God blesses - the ones who come under obedience, obeying His word. Then, He said to His disciples, in John 20:21 (NIV) Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” What?

That's what He said. We're to live incarnationally in our workplaces, in our neighborhoods, in our families, in the schools we attend. We are the body of Jesus in those places; we are Jesus to them. The only Jesus they're going to see, the only Jesus they're going to hear, is us, because we're the body of Christ. We've been sent.

We've been called and sent. If you're a believer, that's your purpose and you're called to it. So, the Jewish exiles had been disobedient. God had released them from captivity and brought them home.

They were talking, ‘Oh, we're going to build the temple. That's the first thing we're going to do. We'll live in tents and we'll build the temple.’ But then, we read chapter one and we find out that, no, they are already installing “jacuzzis” at their houses. They're already paneling their houses.

It didn't say “jacuzzis.” I threw that in. But it did say that they were paneling their houses and they were putting luxurious features to their homes. They had forgotten God, but now they're ready to obey. They had experienced a drought from God. Because He loves His people,

sometimes the only way to get our attention is to allow us to go through a dry spell, to allow us to go through a “wilderness,” in order to return to Him and to put Him first. Now, during this series, I believe each of us is on an individual journey that we're all called to an individual journey, that we're to be thinking about what God is calling us to do. What area have I not given to God in my life, in terms of my time, in terms of my talent (what I'm good at) and am I serving in terms of my treasure? Those are really the three things we all have: time, talent and treasure. Am I giving to God, generously, a portion from those three arenas in my life?

Then, I think He's saying something to us, corporately, as a church. So, individually we're sent, but as a church we're sent. And we're. I'm part of a group of pastors here in town that we call our group Christ Together for Wilson. And our goal is gospel saturation so that every man, woman and child in Wilson county has repeated opportunities to see, hear and respond to the gospel.

That's going to require an army of people that recognize that they're sent. So it's going to require people and resources. It's going to require financial resources in order to plaster the gospel on every source of media that we can think of. We're not even scratching the surface yet. A big part of the benefit of our generosity initiative is to go towards this community engagement, to strengthen our community engagement, because we're sent by Jesus, giving over and above our normal giving towards such a value to strengthen our outreach. How will we do it?

I am going to throw a few ideas out to you. Maybe you don't think about these things. We that are really serious about trying to reach people, think, how do we reach people? One way would be traditional media:

billboards, radio, tv, direct mail… All of those things cost a lot of money, by the way. We haven't been doing any of those. We reach out to new movers; we send a postcard if you have just moved to town. That costs a certain amount of money.

But, we've been running a “tight ship” financially. Traditional media, digital and social media, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram is a lot of that stuff you can do yourself. To really penetrate, and I'm getting older now, so I don't know what the kids are doing now. It gets harder and harder to keep up with how to reach the next generation. So, we want to get better at that.

We want to keep on doing the kinds of stuff that we're actually pretty good at, and that's high labor, low cost. We're pretty good at high labor, low cost. That is stuff like wearing t-shirts.

We're the “t-shirt church.” If we're going to do something, we're going to give out t-shirts. I hope if you're at the Walmart wearing your “It's Time” t-shirt or your Eastgate t-shirt and somebody comes up to you and asks, “It's time for what?” you'll say to them, “It's time to be strong, do the work, and be fearless.”

Well, that's a cool idea. Where's that from? It's from the book of Haggai, where God told the people to get serious about His kingdom. Well, where are you getting all this? It's from our church.

We're over there talking about Jesus. You ought to come. If you'll say all that, then we spent good money on giving you those t-shirts. Now if they ask, “What is It’s Time?

What's it time for?” and you say to them, “Oh, it's just this thing we're doing at church.” If you do that, give me the t- shirt back, please. We'll give it to somebody else.

That is what you call a lower cost, but your labor goes into it. Or, when we do a food drive; we hang door hangers on doors, we collect food and we give it to the Hope Station to feed the hungry. These are the kinds of things we can do, events like we already do, like the Whirligig Festival. We can do other kinds of events; we're brainstorming all the time how we can get the gospel in front of more people and that requires human resources and financial resources to do it.

So that's what we're thinking about. I want you to think about how we can obey God's call to reach our city, to actually stretch and think about your part of that. That's the first. Here's number two:

2. By honoring God's name.

By honoring God's name, We're still in verse 12; we're dealing with the words, “And the people feared the Lord.” I chose the word, “honor,” because it's a close synonym. The word, “feared,” here sometimes gives the wrong connotation to the believer. It doesn't mean to be fearful that He's going to destroy you,

because if you're a believer, your life is sure, you have eternal life in the Lord. But, you should fear His discipline and His displeasure, because the scripture clearly teaches in many places, especially in Hebrews, that He will discipline His own and so you should fear that. I think I talked about this briefly last week; my mother was the spanker of the family.

If you did something wrong, she got after you with a “switch,” a little maple stick. I was never afraid of that; just go ahead. I was a hard headed little booger; my mom would switch me and I wouldn't cry, so I got more switching. My brother Barry, he's four years younger than me, he was actually smart.

I thought he was a wimp, but he was actually smart, because as soon as she came at him with the switch, he started crying. So, she would just switch him once and he was done. I got switched all over the house. I was hard headed, I wouldn't cry. But, my daddy liked to talk to you.

I talked about this last week. He would sit me down and he'd say, “Now boy, look at me. Look me in the eyes like a man. Why'd you do this? It's not like you.

I'm really disappointed in you.” I'd cry like a baby. I feared his displeasure. I feared my father's displeasure. You know, honor and fear are closely related here as we speak about God.

It's a display of deep reverence and awe, recognizing God's holiness and authority, recognizing how high and holy He is. Our fear of Him is wisdom because of who He is. He's Yahweh, all caps LORD, as we see in our text today. It shows that it's Yahweh, Jehovah, the Great I am that we're talking about. The book of Proverbs helps us see how fearing and honoring are related.

Proverbs 3:7-10 (ESV) 7 “Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. 8 It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. 9 Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce; 10 then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine.”

Notice how fear and honor are used synonymously in this passage. If you fear the Lord, then you'll honor Him with your time, talent and treasure. If you look up to Him and you worship Him, you won't hesitate to honor Him with who you are and what you have. I had an unexpected phone call earlier this week

from someone I haven't talked to in years. It was a “blast from the past,” from my corporate days when I used to run drugstores for the Eckerd drugstore chain. It was from my boss, Mike, but I never called him Mike.

Even now, I feel funny calling him Mike. He called me at home. He looked me up and called me. As soon as I heard his voice on my phone. I said, “Hey, boss”

and he say, “Hey, boy.” Now, don't you call me boy, but it felt right for him to call me boy. He's older than me. He was my boss for nearly the whole 12 years I was with Eckerds.

When he first became my boss, I'd only been there a little while. I was a management candidate before and I kept getting promoted with that company. When he first came on (he's like 6 foot 5, big old guy, real direct and kind of had a bad temper)I started praying, God, I liked working here before he came, would you get rid of him? Move him to another district or another company or something.

He's making my life miserable. He's on me all of the time. But, instead of God getting rid of him, God changed my heart and gave me a love for the man. I told him this on the phone.

Guess how long he and I talked this week? We talked for two hours. We were on the phone for two hours. We were more than coworkers.

We were more than “boss” and “boy.” He's more like a father and I am more like a son. See, my daddy died when I was 8 years old, and I was undisciplined. I had a lot of potential that I wasn't living up to. I would show up late for work or I'd let something slide.

Man, he would hammer me and I always felt like he was harder on me than anybody else. As we were talking on the phone, he said, “I always saw your potential. Yeah, I was hard on you because I knew that great things were in store for you.”

So, when we got ready to hang up the phone after two hours of talking, of telling every story we could remember about our twelve years together, he said, “Tell Robin and the kids that Sandra and I sure do love y'all.” That was my boss, the one I prayed to get rid of, that God saved two years after I left Eckerds. He called me on a Sunday night and said, “Hey, boy” and I replied, “Hey, boss.” “I got saved today” and he started crying.

“You're the first person I'm calling, because I know you were praying for me all those years.” I was and he knew it. That's fear. I feared that man, but it turned into respect and awe. Now, you can't call me “boy,”

but I like it when he calls me “boy.” I had a bunch of people line up after the first service trying that out. I rebuked them, except for a couple that were older than me. To them, I said, “you can call me ‘boy’ if you need to.” Are you awed by God's holiness?

Are you moved to repentance and worship as you consider His greatness and all He's done for you? Do you fear the Lord? True fear of God leads to transformation and wisdom. Do you honor God with the giving of your time and your talent and treasure? Do you fear the Lord?

That was the second way they responded. Here's the third:

3. By working in God’s power.

We're in verses 13 through 15 now. Look at how God moves in whenever He sees them obey and He sees how they respond in fearful honoring and worship. It says, 13 Then Haggai, the messenger of the LORD, spoke to the people with the LORD’s message, “I am with you, declares the LORD.” The Lord says, ‘I'm all in now with you.’

Now, He had never left them. He'd never forsaken them. He couldn't bless them because they were disobedient, but He was patient with them. He said, “Consider your ways.”

Wake up. Wake up. Come on, follow Me. But now, they're ready and He gives them the promise.

”I'm with you.” But more than that, you'll see in verse 14 it says that He stirred them up. He stirred them up. Verse 14, “And the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, 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.”

He stirred them up. He gave them zeal. He gave them passion. He got them fired up. Do you remember when you were fired up for God?

Do you remember back when you were fired up for God? Remember when that was? Remember when it stopped?

Sometimes, we think, You know, I've just lost my passion.

You know, I've just lost my zeal. I'm just not going to be able to do this work anymore for the Lord. I'm not going to be able to do this. Now, you can't; you can't stir yourself up, but you can decide to obey and honor and then ask the Lord to stir you up.

If the mama out there who has that newborn crying in the middle of the night thinks, It seemed like a good idea to get pregnant and have this baby, but these multiple feedings during the middle of the night, I've lost my passion for it.

Don't let that baby starve. I just don't feel like feeding that baby. No, you obey the call of being a mom and it changes you. You become more like Jesus as you put others ahead of yourself.

That's just an example that popped in my head. But, if you only do what you feel like doing, you probably won't get out of bed most days. But no, you obey God's calling on your life and you fear His displeasure. You want to honor Him with your life so that your life honors Him in all that you do and so that stirs you up.

If you just seek the passion, it seems to me you will miss it, but if you obey, respect, awe the Lord and worship the Lord, He stirs you up. I'm stirred up right now, in case you didn't notice. Then, it's Him. He stirs me up.

Oh, it's great. It's the best thing to be stirred up by the Lord and to have passion for life. That's what He did for them. He was excited. The Lord was excited because His people were obeying Him. They were worshiping Him and honoring Him.

They came and said, ‘Let's get to work on Your house, God.’ He tells them that I am going to stir you up and He did. Are you dry? Are you stirred up?

Only God can do it, but you have to get moving. It's hard to drive a parked car. Get moving for God. Do what He told you to do.

Ask Him to stir you up. Remember when Timothy got discouraged? Paul wrote him a letter. Paul said, 2 Timothy 1:6 (ESV) “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands,” Come on, Timothy, get your passion back.

Get to work. They came and worked. He says, “I'm with you.: He stirred them up and they worked. They worked for God.

Then, we see Haggai, who's really good with his diary at keeping dates. This happened on the 24th day of the month, in the sixth month in the second year of Darius the king. They didn't have the Gregorian calendar, so we could say 2025 years after the coming of Jesus, which is how we build our calendar. 2025 AD since our Lord, the year of our Lord.

That's how we do it. Everybody followed a calendar based on what year the king had become king. So Darius had been king for two years. It's in his second year. It's the sixth month.

That's the Hebrew month. That would be the Hebrew month of Elul, which would correspond to August, September in our calendar and it's the 24th day of Elul. If you go back to verse one, he started writing on the first day of Elul. 23 days have passed since Haggai started preaching.

He had preached for 23 days before them. It's 23 days later. It's the 24th day of the month and the people got busy.

They didn't get busy to earn. We don't work to earn because salvation is free. Jesus has earned it. We cannot earn it, but we can work out of it because He saved us; we can do good works. It says in Ephesians 2:10 (NIV) “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

We don't earn, but we work in God's kingdom because He made us for that purpose. We do it out of joy, out of honor and out of obedience. Then, we have this command from the Lord. Corporately, what is the church called to do? I remember when I was in the business world, we would go off to leadership retreats all of the time and we would read all of these great leadership books.

I still have shelves of leadership books from my corporate days. I remember one of the big gurus that we would listen to had these two principles. Peter Drucker was this leadership guru from the business world. He had two questions. He called them “the most powerful questions.”

The first question was, “What business are you in?” and the second was, “How's business?” As a pastor, I've not forgotten those two things. As a church, what business are we in? Well, Jesus tells us He's the boss In Matthew 28:19-20 (ESV) 19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that

I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” There it is. I'm with you. What business are we in, church?

We're in the disciple- making business. That's what we're called to as a church. We're called to make disciples of Jesus Christ. The way we say it here is, we're called to make disciples of Jesus Christ who have a growing heart for God, a heart for each other and heart for our world.

Then, the second diagnostic question is, “How’s business?” We're supposed to be making disciples of all nations, of everyone. “How's business?” Are there still people in your neighborhood, when you back out your driveway and come to church, that their cars are still sitting in the driveway? They are in my neighborhood.

When you come back on a summer day, how many people are mowing the grass because that's what they do on Sundays? Did you know the majority of Wilson county people do not go to church? The majority of Wilson county, do not have a relationship, a personal relationship with God. We're supposed to be the “buckle” on the Bible Belt, but that was years ago.

Times have changed. People are far from God. People are hurting, people are lonely. People are looking for answers in all the wrong places and here we are.

We have the answer. He's called us to make disciples. Every Sunday morning, we gather in this room, which is behind the Gathering Place. We gather the two worship teams; we have a worship team next door and a worship team here.

We have two tech teams that are running our technology. We go in there to pray for the service. Invariably, I have an opportunity to pray and I'm always thinking about, Who's God going to trust us with today? It’s their first time

and they came in on a thin thread. They're hurting, they're looking, and they're far from God. 'I’ll pray, “God, we've prepared. We have studied for a sermon.

We have studied to play our notes and to sing. We've prepared and we've worked. We got here early to get everything ready.

But, we can't save anybody. Only You can save. Only You can touch.”

I pray something like this nearly every Sunday morning. “God, if You don't show up, nothing will happen. God, if you don't show up and inhabit our praise, speak through our preaching, touch through our guest services, teach the little kids with our teachers, if You don't show up, this is all just a big nothing. Lord, if You show up, if You show up, if You show up and stir up, revival might break out in Wilson County.” Wouldn't you like to see that?

The way we see it, church, is when we let revival start in each of us. We say, “Lord, stir me up. Stir me up about Your business. Lord, I want to do Your work. Lord, if You don't show up in my life, I'm going to keep having nothing happening.

I'm just going to keep on doing what I've been doing and it's not bringing me fulfillment and joy.” Are you stirred up for God today? Have you experienced the way He shows up when you serve and work for Him? Have you seen how He gives you strength even when you're weak?

You step out and do something. They asked me to give a testimony at church, but I don't like speaking in public. Well, they asked me to talk to people. They asked me to teach kids, and I've never done that before.

You're acting out of fear and God's calling you. He's saying, ‘I've made you for a purpose. I want you to work in My kingdom. I want you to be a kingdom citizen, to stretch out and to move into those places.’ There's something we've been doing.

We started this last week, and we've done this one other time in our church. We have these “It's Time” cards. We've got them on all four of the tables down front. We've got them on the tables next door.

You can see them in the container here. You might be wondering, What in the world is that? We did this last week, but we're going to leave it up now for the next three years. When you come in on Sundays, have you thought of somebody new that needs to hear the gospel? Maybe you just met them this week, maybe you put one in here last week, but you met a new person at the grocery store or at the workplace or in your neighborhood

and you decide to write this person's name down. I'm going to write “John Smith” right here and “Sally,” his wife and I'm going to pray for them. I'm going to walk forward and I'm going to prayerfully drop it in here.

Saints that come forward and take the Lord's Supper and respond to God on Sunday morning, I'm going to invite you, if you would, to just touch this as you go by and let it represent your prayer for people that are far from God, because that's why we are called to generosity, so that we could make disciples of Jesus Christ. That's why we exist. That's our purpose.

That's why we're still here. If I'm not dead, God's not done, right? That's why I'm still here. That's why you're still here.

Then, if you know of somebody and it would be a miracle for them to come to Jesus. You actually used to pray for them, but you stopped because you lost faith. Write their name right here where it says “My long shot.” Write that name right there and watch God show up.

Drop that in there. We're going to give you an opportunity to do that in just a little while. For some of you here, it might be your name. You need to put your name down; you've never come to Jesus. Maybe that's your response.

Today, we're going on a spiritual journey together. We're going through the book of Haggai verse by verse. But we're also talking about how to reach our community in fresh, new and challenging ways. I'm challenging you to stay on course, to keep coming out and hearing the sermons, to keep praying the prayer, “God, what do You want to do in me and through me?”

To be thinking about February 16th, when we're going to ask for commitments of giving above and beyond your normal giving so that we can reach every man, woman and child in our city, in our Jerusalem. I'm going to ask you to faithfully respond to God's call on your life by obeying, fearing and working for God. Let's pray. Lord, first of all, I just want to pray for that person that I mentioned at the beginning. The one who came in today far from You.

Is that you, my friend? Maybe you're in this room or maybe you're next door. Maybe you're watching online. You've never given your life to Jesus. You can do it right now.

Why wait? Take care of it right now. You can talk to the Lord right now in prayer. Pray with me, “Dear Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner, but I repent of my sin and I give my life to You.

I believe You died on the cross for me and that You were raised from the grave and that You live today. Come and live in me by Your spirit. Make me a child of God. I want to follow You all the days of my life as my Lord and my Savior.” If you're praying that prayer of faith, believing, He'll save you. That's the first calling; I would prayerfully ask you to consider today that you would pray that prayer.

Others are here and you're of Christ follower, but you're feeling that spiritual drought and maybe the Lord showed you why today as you were listening. Maybe He touched that place where you've said “no” to a call. Maybe it was out of fear; maybe it was some other reason.

Would you yield to the Spirit right now and say, “Holy Spirit, stir me up to do the work, the purpose that You've called me to. I want to live into everything You have for me. Stir me up, Lord Jesus, set me a fire, afresh for You in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

Audio

Transcript

All right. Good morning church. So thankful you're here. So great to see all of you this morning. We are in part three of this series called It's Time.

If you've missed any of these, they're online, you can check them out. But we've been going through, we will be going through in fact the book of Haggai for a few weeks and maybe you're thinking to yourself, I've never really studied that book. I pray and I hope that it will really speak to you over these next few weeks as we spend time together. So far it's really been moving me. I want to remind you of the theme verse that's really guiding or the theme verses that are really guiding this whole series.

They come out of Haggai 1 and 2 where it says these people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord yet now be strong, work for I am with you, declares the Lord and my spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. Fear not. Those are the three things we've been preaching for weeks. We're going to keep preaching together as be strong, do the work and be fearless.

This is what it means to be a Christ follower in life and we're getting to jump into that as a church together. Now if you haven't been around, please grab one of those it's time journals if you haven't yet. We're in week three, we've got a few left so grab that. We've been doing a devotion in there together for the last few weeks and we've been using those in community groups and things like that and so feel free to grab one love for you to take one home. They do us no good if we keep them.

So get one. And over the last two weeks we've already been asking this thing about what does it look like to consider our ways in the sense of our priorities we talked about in week one? How do we reshape our priorities in Christ? Last week we talked about reshaping our purpose and this week I pray you'll hear from God. What would it look like to respond to his call?

As you've been thinking, alright, let me prioritize my life. Let me find my purpose in him. Alright now God, what are you asking me? What are you calling me to do? Have you ever heard God's clear call in your life?

Just you felt like the Lord was really leading you towards something. For some of you today, I can promise you this. The Lord calls all of us into faith. That is his constant and consistent call. That he calls us to faith in Christ.

And for some of you today, that's the main call. Jesus is saying, hey, make me your Lord and Savior. Let me allow me to be the main priority in your life. Let me allow you to be a son or a daughter. Some of you need to hear that voice today, that clear call from God that he is Savior and Lord.

You've been perhaps trying to live life in your own way. And maybe I pray today you'll hear the Lord say, the Lord Jesus, hey, I can set you free for others and a lot many of you in the room, you've answered God's call to come to Jesus, but what's next? You've trusted him as Lord and Savior, but lately maybe you're feeling a little stuck spiritually. Maybe you feel like I don't know what's next or I don't know what. I don't know what he's calling me to.

Maybe you've lost the joy somewhat what you remember being in Christ Jesus. You feel like, I don't know what's happened to me, but I've lost the fervor that I once had, the fire that I once had. Some of us are feeling that way. It's pretty common in the walk with Christ that we would somewhat feel distant from him. It could be that your priorities have gotten out of whack, that there's things you've put ahead of God.

That's often true and it's not always conscious. It's not always that we did it on purpose, but it's happened. Maybe you've turned back from following wholeheartedly. Maybe for some of you, you said no. At some point there was a clear call from God.

Hey, do this. Hey, say this to this person. Hey, stop that activity. It's hurting you. And at some point in your journey, you said, not now or maybe later or no, no.

And perhaps that's why you're feeling stuck, because it's time to go back to the original call and say, all right, God, it's a yes from me. What's next? Jesus, I can promise you this, has not left you, nor has he forsaken you. He promises this in His Word. He can fully bless you, but he can't do it when you're living outside of faithful obedience to his call.

So that's where we're going to be today. Haggai chapter one. Just a few verses together, 12 through 15. What we see here is the people of God faithfully responded to God's call. They've been Kind of slapped over the face.

I mean, the Lord really kind of just said, hey, if you're wondering what's been going on in your life, why everything seems to just be falling apart, he literally says, why you feel like there's holes in your pockets while the ground won't grow crops. If you've been wondering what's going on, I did it. That's what God's come out and said to him. I'm the one who's been causing this disruption in your life. Now go and do the thing I've called you to do.

Guess what the people do in today's story? In today's Word? They respond. They respond, and we can do the same. I think the text will give us three ways we can faithfully respond to God's call.

Let's read Haggai 1 together. Verses 12 through 15. It says, then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Joshua the son of Jehozadak the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice. Hear it obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and 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.

Listen to the Lord's message to you. Today it's more pleasant. I am with you. I am with you, declares the lord. And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of.

Of Joshua the son of Jehozadak the high priest. And guess what? He stirred up the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and they worked on the house of the Lord of hosts, their God, on the 24th day of the month, in the sixth month in the second year of Darius the king. That's God's word.

Amen. What a wonderful thing to hear today. This is a more pleasant message to preach today than what we've had the last few weeks, where he's saying, that drought you've been experiencing. I did that. It's been tough to kind of work through that today.

He says, I'm with you. I'm with you. And who stirs up the people? Who does the stirring? It's not us.

It's not the people, it's the Lord. The Lord does the stirring. So here's the first thing, how we can faithfully respond to God's call. The first is this, that we would obey God's word that's the first way to respond is in obedience by obeying God. Word.

You'll notice three words, and this is easy, where I'm pulling these three ideas today. They come right out of the scripture. It says the people responded in three ways. It says that they obeyed. It says that they feared him and then they worked.

And those are the things we're going to deal with today. First is obedience. Now he says to the leaders, but not only to the leaders, I want you to hear this today. This isn't just for the governor. This isn't just for the high priest.

This is for the remnant of the people. The people who are saying, I am still God's people. I am still a believer today. It's not just for the pastors and the elders and the deacons. It's not just for some leadership.

No, it's for the people who have said, I'm still yours, God. I am that remnant. Those are the people he says obeyed him and he stirred up. What did they obey? They obeyed the voice of the Lord.

The Lord, at least in my translation. I don't know how your Bible looks today. I don't remember how it looked on the screen, but the lords in this section all appear in all caps. Did y'all? I don't know if you've noticed that in your scripture, but it appears in all caps.

That's to signify to you that this is the Yahweh word. This is the word that, in fact, we don't totally know how to translate. This is God's most holy name. And it says that they obeyed the voice of Yahweh, of the most high God. They heard his voice and they moved on.

John Gillen, writing on this, says they heard the voice of the Lord by the prophet very attentively and seriously. They received it and regarded it not as a word from men, but as a word of God and determined to act according to it. Now, this is this interesting thing that's happening here in Scripture, and it's happening right now in front of your eyes up here talking and you're listening. That's an interesting thing for you and I. It's interesting for me because who am I?

Who am I to say this? Haggai must have felt the same. All the prophets of old. But it says that they heard the voice of the Lord through the prophet. And that's all I'm trying.

That's all I've ever tried to do is simply let the voice of God speak through his word. And try my best not to get in the way. And so today, this is what we're faithfully hearing from God. Hey. When you are part of the Remnant, those chosen by God and those who say, I'm in, do you obey his voice?

Do you hear it when it comes? Would you know it if he spoke? Some of us, it's been so long since we've talked to God, we would have no idea what his voice sounded like. You got to spend time in relationship. You take a few months, take a few years off from.

From a friend or from a family member, and they call you up and you're like, is this. Who is this? It's not much different with the Lord. You take some time off from him and he'll speak in your life. And you're like, what was that?

Because he often comes in a quiet voice. He often comes in the most obscure places where he's speaking and knocking. Stop taking time off from hearing his voice. It takes daily devotion in prayer and in His Word. You would do this with every other friend and family, everyone that you life.

You're giving him time, time, time. But do you hear the voice of God? And when you hear it, do you quickly obey it? Are you the type to go, you sure that was for me? That might have been for the more important people around here.

You sure that word was for me? No, that's not what the people did here. Now, I have to admit something to you, and this is. This is something I would have covered later, but I'm going to cover it now. Right at the very end, it says in the 24th day of the month, the sixth month, that means 23 days have passed.

So don't beat yourself up. It took these people three weeks to go. We probably should do something because God has really. He has really pressed in on us and he desires more for us. We need to move.

And so don't, you know, as you leave today, don't go, man, I gotta make. I gotta figure all this out today. Yeah, you do. You do need to figure out what it is God's calling you to do and put your yes on the table. But don't be so unnerved that it's got to be instantaneous.

These people, they dwelt on it for a while and heard God's voice and said, all right, we understand what to do. Now. I think they were a little bit slow, but it takes time sometimes to hear his voice and understand what he's saying. And so the people heard. Jesus taught this constantly.

Listen to this. In Luke, chapter 11, Jesus replied Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it. There's two challenges in that. Do you hear it and will you obey it when you hear it? How can you hear it unless you're listening?

And how can you obey it if you're constantly closed off? Some of you have come in today and I love you and I want you to know that. And God cares for you way more than any man, any person ever could. And he has a plan for your life that you decided a long time ago. You were unuseful.

You decided a long time ago. There's absolutely no way, Jonathan. You don't know what I've done. You don't know where I've been through. There's no way God could use me.

I'm too old, I'm too broken, I'm too much of a mess. You fill in your blank and you've been saying there's no way God could call me. But he's been knocking for years and you've not heard his voice or you've heard it and made all these excuses. This isn't what God does. He doesn't just say, hey, I'm going to give my word to just one or two people in a church of 100, in the church of 500.

That's not what God. He gives his voice is speaking to every single Christian. Do you understand this? It's not for the elite. Why do I know this?

Because there are no elite. They don't exist in Christianity.

Paul, in fact, the one who wrote most of the New Testament says, I am the worst, I am the least of all. He understood his place.

I heard this this week. This lady, this Christian lady was going through, I think it was Pilates or something like that. And a lot of these programs will have kind of these like self enrichment stuff inside of that. You're doing the stretches and all. But there's also language that they're sharing like, I am enough, I am worth it.

And all this. And some of you have done that and you're like, it really helped me. But I like what this lady, she said, look, I'm too deep for that. I am loved by God, I am worth it because of the blood of Jesus. That's what she was doing within her mind.

She's like, I can't just say that sentence and put a period where they're putting that period. I'm worth it because God is good. That's good to know that's who we are in Christ Jesus. We have been saved and set free and none of us are elite. All of us are hearing from his word.

The reason that some people are moving on it is because they've heard it and they've obeyed. And each of us have been called. Jesus said, in fact, this very thing in John 20, he said, Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. You've been sent church.

You're sent. You're going to places every single week, every single day that your pastor and your friends and your small group people can't go and won't go ever. Your workplace, some of you have jobs. I can't just walk in there and say, let's talk about Jesus up in here. I know y'all are trying to heal people in this.

In this hospital. I know y'all are arresting people out here on the streets, but I'm just gonna roll in here and start working on that. I can't go to most of your jobs. But you. You were called there.

Oh, but I just. Do I just do something silly? Jonathan, none of it's silly. Are there people around? You've been called.

Do you hear the voice? And when you hear it, do you obey it? I pray that you'll experience this this week. Maybe you've experienced in the past, and I want you to go back and review that. When has God spoken?

And what did I say? How did I respond? If you've experienced this in your life, you'll know. It's like a quiet voice that says, hey, talk to them. Go that way.

Stop doing that. My son, my daughter, that is not my best for you. There's something incredible in the midst of that obedience. There's a peace and that place of obedience with Christ that you won't experience anywhere else, that you'll walk away from situations where maybe you worked really hard, maybe you should be exhausted, but you feel a sense of peace because you did what God called you to do. I shared this Friday a little bit, but when I took a mission trip in 2019 to Uganda, I should have been exhausted that whole time, right?

We flew a long ways. We were working long hours. There was a lot going on. However, in the midst of it, I felt like I had energy forever. I just felt like I could jump over a mountain.

People were literally talking about, hey, let's go up and climb these mountains. I'm like, I kind of want to do that. They wouldn't let me because apparently there's just no rails. Like, they just don't obey. Like normal stuff.

Like up here, if you have a trail, there's like a rail up there. They just, hey, you might fall off a cliff and die. Like, yeah, we're not going to let the mazungos go up there, right? We're not going to let these. Which just means white guy, I think something like that.

But I felt supercharged. I felt supercharged by it when I got home. I just crashed. This is what it's like to be in obedience to Christ, is that there's something he's doing. Our obedience, there's always more.

The blessing is more nuanced than you think. If I give of my wealth, he's going to give me more wealth. I don't know about that. What he will give you is peace. You'll have enough.

If I give him my time, aren't I going to be tired? I need my alone time. Y'all may not know this about me. I need a lot of alone time. After today, seeing all your faces and trying to be my best and be, you know, outward.

As soon as I get home, I'm like, I don't want to think about people. I want to pretend people don't exist. You know, that's who I am. But guess what? God gives me more when I say, yes, I will be yours.

I will give you my time. I always seem to have enough energy for the day.

How do you respond to God's call to action through his word? This is part of what we're doing in this series as a church. We're moving in a direction as a church. If you've not gotten this yet in a few months, we are literally moving as a church. If you haven't understood that yet, that's what's happening.

Talk to me afterwards. We are going to move. We're not going to be in here in May, maybe Easter Sunday even. We may not be in this building, but we're moving. But guess what?

We're not ready for whatever harvest God is going to send us over there if we don't change while we're here. We've got to rehearse. We've got to get ready. We've got to be the kinds of people God's called us to be for years and we've been saying no or are just not hearing his voice. It's time to change now.

So what are we doing about engaging others? We're sent by Jesus. People are hurting. Their answer is Christ. I want to give you a heads up about what's coming over the next few months.

You're going to start seeing Eastgate Church all over the place. We're going to try all kinds of stuff to try to get the word out, because we're basically going to do a grand opening. We're going to reopen few months at a new location, and we're going to be putting out things in every kind of way. I'm asking you, church, will you be involved in helping me do some of the things that require low cost, high labor? Those are the kinds of things where we walk through neighborhoods with door hangers.

That costs pennies. That's nothing to do, that kind of printing. What it costs is time and energy. Can you walk? Some of you can't walk in the room, but.

Well, I think all of you can walk. I mean, I've kind of watched y'all walking in. Most of you can walk. Maybe you can only walk for a little while. Give God a little while, Walk for a few.

Walk one little street. Can you speak to people? Ooh, I don't know about that one, Jonathan. Well, just come and walk. All right, I'll do the speaking.

Somebody else in your group.

Some of these things need high labor, low cost. Some of them are high cost. We're going to do some stuff like, just so you know, some of the things we're trying to do, we're going to be sending out a mass mailer. That stuff's crazy expensive. But we're going to.

You know, people all over the city are going to get a mailer that says, hey, we're moving. Come check us out. I don't know if anybody will show with this, but we're just trusting God with all of these different things. That's the first thing we're going to do as a people and as a church. We're going to obey the Lord.

We believe he's given us an opportunity to reach more. Otherwise, understand what he's doing. It must be that he desires us to reach a certain amount of people in our city. It must be that God has said, and this surprises me, that little O East gate, I'm gonna use you to change some more people's lives. Now, God's the one doing it.

Christ Jesus is the Savior. He's the one working. But he uses his people to reach more. And so what will we be? We're gonna be obedient.

Second thing we're gonna do is we're gonna honor God's name as a people, as individuals, as a church, that we would honor his name. Now, you'll notice in verse 12, the verse there says that the people feared the Lord. Now, I Didn't know how you would feel if I just simply said by fearing God's name. There's a sense of that. There's a sense that they heard from God and they heard God say, the reason which you've been so broken, your holes, pockets have holes in all this is cause of me.

There's a bit of like the word fear there where they say, God, you are big and I'm not, and I fear your displeasure. But this word here, both in the Greek and in the Hebrew, has more to do with reverence. It's awe. They're in awe of God. That's why I chose the word honor.

Here is the sense that we revere him, we honor him, we lift his name high. That's what the people are doing. By their action, they're saying, okay, God, we hear you. We, we're going to obey your voice and we're going to lift up your name. That's why we come into this place and do this very strange thing where we come in here and sing these same words together.

That's very rare to see in this life that people of all kinds of walks of life will get together and sing about this man who once lived and died to sing about this God who they can't see. This is a strange activity. It's called worship. It's called praise. The reason we do it is why reverence.

We've been called to do it. This is part of our obedient act in honoring him. It says that the people, they feared him, they revered him, they honored him. God puts this plainly in many places in Scripture. I really like how the writer of Proverbs applies this.

Chapter three. He says, be not wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord. Turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.

Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of your produce. Then your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will be bursting with wine. Now that last part, we kind of have to just take as take on faith that if I honor God with my stuff, if I honor him with the first of my stuff, not like the least of it, but the best of it. The first of it that he will give us plenty. This makes me think of something here.

I heard this recently. It's really been kind of digging at me that most of us are doing the work we're doing now because someone we respected or trusted asked us to do something intentional. Intentional. Most of us are in the work we're in right now. Because someone we trusted asked us to do something intentional.

That's definitely true for me. I bet some angle of how you've got where you've got has to do with someone along the way that you respected, challenged you and moved you forward. And this is what's happening here to the people. God has now challenged them to move forward, and they're obeying and they're honoring Him. It makes me think, like, in this town, this won't apply to everybody.

That's why I'm going to give you several examples. But for some of you in the room, if Messi showed up in town and was holding a soccer camp, I bet you'd try your best to go. I bet you'd go out of your way. If Jordan shows up to hold a basketball camp, I can tell you right now, you'd never get in, because the entire city would come out to try to go to that camp. If Warren Buffett shows up to teach finance, I'm gonna try to go.

You know, seems like he knew what he was doing. For some of you, like Gordon Ramsay shows up to teach a class on cooking. I'm going. I'm trying to get in there. I'm not a professional cook.

I just really like cooking. I like watching people cook, too. I'm gonna try to be there. What's going on with that? Hey, you hear that?

You know, your favorite person, your favorite team, somebody you really respect is going to be around. You're going to try to go out of your way. We do this all the time. Hey, such and such is coming to play up here in Raleigh. I really want to get tickets.

What's going on there? I think it's because the amount of awe, the amount of reverence determines your willingness and your obedience. It does. It's true with people. It's definitely true with God.

And something that I would encourage you to test is to understand that God supersedes all of these people in every single way. He created them and in every single way, God is more. Is your awe up? Is your reverence? If it is, your willingness and your obedience will follow.

God is good. He is great. He has set me free. He has set me on a course that he desires me to lead others to know Him. He's done that in each and every one of us.

He wants me to be a part of his kingdom's purpose. He's done that. Every one of you Christians in here, he's all these things. Get your reverence up. Start filling it.

Read this word a little bit. And you'll start. Read the Psalms. Start there. Read the psalmist.

Speak of who this God is. Fill up your awe meter and your willingness will follow your obedience. Find your awe. Are you awed by God's holiness? Moved by worship?

Moved by the fact that God did everything for you? This is amazing. This is what's crazy about Christianity, is that we did nothing to earn our salvation. We simply said, I believe he did everything. This is crazy.

This is an amazing gift. Are you awed by it? The writer of Proverbs says very plainly this, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The awe, reverence of God. That's where wisdom starts.

True reverence will lead to your transformation. Until you put God where He belongs, you're not going to change. If he's not top, you will be or someone else. And they'll fail you. Guess who will definitely fail you?

You.

I'm good at failing me. I'm super good at it. And I try real hard. That's where God belongs. What am I doing up there?

Showing myself. Reverence. Have you ever given, ever in your life, a generous gift to God of your time, your talent, your treasure? Something you said, this is for you and no one else. I'm trying to do that with my whole life.

I want him to have it all. And I found that the more I do that, the more I finally understand peace and. And joy. Like I couldn't when I'm trying to be on top myself. That's the second.

Honor him. Obey him. Honor him. And then third, plainly, the people came and they worked. So work in God's power.

Work in his power. Notice before the people came and worked, it says that God stirred up their spirit. I don't ever want to teach you a gospel that says, hey, if you'll work really hard, you'll be made right in God. That's not what scripture teaches at all. Now, it does teach, however, that those who have faith will have works.

That's the order of things. That when you come to Christ and you have faith in him, you'll work out of his pleasure, not out of fear, not out of a sense that if I don't do it, I won't earn. We can be on opposite sides of this really broken thing. This is sometimes what happens to us that we think, if I don't work hard enough, if I don't do enough, God's not going to love me now. He loved you when you were a hot mess.

He loved you before you were born. And he saw all the junk you were going to do in this life. He already loved you and nothing you could do could make him love you less. So you're working not for his love, but for his good pleasure. You're working because I just want, at the end of the day, I want to hear well done, good and faithful servant applause of one work in his power.

Notice the only thing God says in our scripture today is this. I am with you. The Hebrew, there is two words, ani ekhem, which is really hard to say. Etchem, ani etchem. I don't know if that's what God said, but that's what the people heard from the prophet Haggai.

Got to get your phlegm in the mix, it says. This is the message from Yahweh, from the Lord almighty. I like what one commentator says. I am with you in relationship as your father. I am near you in this place.

You are not alone. You are not abandoned. All the needs and longings of the creature are summed up in those two words. Ani achem, I am with you. Everything you need in this life.

You want to get your all meter up for a second. Whatever you need is those words, I am with you. And any place you go where he is not is bumpy. Oh, it might feel good at first. There might be rain pouring over there where God's not.

Because the Bible says, strangely enough, that God allows it to rain on the evil and the wicked and the good. Some of you have noticed this in your life, that the most unethical, most broken people are highly successful in business. In fact, their very unethical methods sometimes lead to their wealth. And you go, what is that there? What's going on there?

One of the richest men that ever lived was a guy named Howard Hughes. And just look him up sometimes things didn't end well for him. That's often the nature of this. Oh, yeah, you can really get a ton of stuff. What about peace?

There's some things that God gives that we can't see. What about joy? What about authentic relationships? Some of these people, they long for true friends. They can't trust anybody because everybody's just like, more, more, more.

Give me, give me, give me. I don't want that. I want real relationships. I want a real relationship with a God who loves me. I want peace, I want joy.

I want comfort. I want the fruit of the spirit. I want gentleness. I want self control. These are things I get when I walk with him and nowhere else.

I don't get them anywhere else. Do you get this today? If God is not with you, then you're walking in the wrong direction. I just want to hear this from him. I am with you.

I am with you, church. He's with you, and he stirred you up. This isn't just a word for haggai. This isn't just for the priests of old and for the remnant of the people. It says he stirred up his people.

And God always does this. Jamison Fausett Brown, good commentary. If you're looking for these, these are some of these really old commentaries. They're like 17, 1800s. I love that stuff back there.

A lot of these in thou's. It's my cup of tea. Maybe not for you, but I love some of their thoughts. And here's what he says about this idea of stirred up. He says every good impulse and revival of religion is the direct work of God by his spirit.

Every single time that you think to do the right thing, no, that's not from you. That's from the Lord. Every single time that the church says, hey, we want to be about the kingdom of God in this place, know that it's from the Holy Spirit and not from men. This thing, whatever this thing God is doing in our church right now, we didn't create it. We didn't come up with it.

This is about the fullest this room has been in a long time. Some of you know this. Some of you are looking around going, wow, this is cool. You know what I did? Nothing.

I just said, God, I love you. And I'm tired of doubting the things you've told me in the past. I'm just going to believe. And this crazy thing has happened over the last few weeks where God's provided opportunities for us that we couldn't plan, predict, we didn't try. God did it.

And I don't know what brought you in here today. I'm thankful for you. But God's doing all that. I didn't call any of y'all this week and say, hey, can y'all please come to church? Something's going on.

He's stirring up his people. We can't do that part. And we can't do the work apart from his power. I don't. I say this every week.

And sometimes I worry, don't let me get up here and preach God, if you're not in it, don't let me do it, please. And there have been some weeks, y'all, oh, I was trying to be real sly, real funny. I always know. I can't. I don't know if Y'all can tell, but I always know, man.

What was that about? I did the planning. I did the prep. But Jesus, man, where were you? Lord, he's got to stir up his people, and then they go to work.

It says in verse 14 that they came to town. So they're out here living in the countryside, trying to do their own thing, living selfishly. God's really appointed them come in the city and start rebuilding. My presence needs to fall on the temple. And the people came into town and they began to work.

This word work here literally means ministry, employment. Like they've come in laboring for God. We work church not to earn, but to serve God's call in our lives. He said this many times. Ephesians 2 puts it really well.

We are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus. For what? To do good works. Do the good works save us? No.

Were we created for them? Yes. When Christians do bad stuff, that's not what God designed. He designed us for good works. And guess what else?

He prepared us in advance to do them. He has shaped you and built you to do the good work of his kingdom. Some of you are doing good physical work in this life. You are helping people. I mean, if you really break it down, every single job that we do in this life is built to help people.

Some of you are like, but I work at McDonald's. Some people eat that. You know, you've helped them. You fed them. They're not hungry.

You work at a grocery store. Yeah, you're helping people. Everything that we make, everything that we design, it's for people. Everything you do is to help people. And you're around them constantly.

You were created, but that's the physical work, and you ought to do that. The Bible says, as unto the Lord, work hard. As unto the Lord, I'm going to make the best Big Mac I can make for God. And I don't know if he's going to really bless that for somebody, but he will bless your hard work.

Work us unto the Lord. Why? Because we're God's handiwork. He's made us in advance to do good work. But that's not all he's talking about here.

We are his ambassadors of reconciliation for a broken world. He's made each and every one of us for that. The place from which you work, only you have been assigned there. I bet so many of you, you might work in places where no one else believes. God has given you a holy assignment.

Will you say yes? Will you obey?

Here's the Good news, you're doing this in God's power. You're doing this under God's good Holy Spirit. Matthew 28 puts it very well. And I'm likely to recite this almost every week because it keeps applying. It says in the Great Commission here, go therefore make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Spirit teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you and behold what church. I am with you, Ani Achem.

I am with you always. This is an even better word to you, believer. There's no end point. There's no end state on his promise. I'm with you always.

To the end of the age. I'm with you. I want to encourage you church to pray something. I pray often and I sometimes remember to pray it on Sunday mornings. But it's this prayer.

Lord, if you don't show up, nothing happens. I'm going to work today. I'm driving into this business. Lord, if you don't show up, nothing happens. Lord, be present in my life.

Show up big, stir us up. What would it look like to start praying that on your way to work? Some of you need to pray it on the way home. God, what would it look like when I get home for you to show up in my family? That my wife could see it, that she could see it.

That my co workers, my family members would begin to say things like used to be said of the disciples and that is they could tell that they'd been with Jesus. The Pharisees see these goofy fishermen teaching the truth of the gospel and they say we could tell that they've walked with Jesus because they are working way above their pay grade. Oh, that I could hear that. I can tell you spent time with Jesus today. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

You're talking different today. Why are you so hopeful? Where's this compassion coming from? Where's the guy from last week that was like I hate this work. I can't stand any of you people.

Some of you been that person. It's okay if you didn't get fired, then God's up to something. If you're still there, God said alright, do over. If you got fired, then he's got a new plan, you know, honor him with your work, honor him with your lips and behold, he is with you always. We gotta start praying this church.

We certainly ought to pray this as a church. We ought not to do another church service in here that God didn't show up. I don't want to be a part of that. That's why we're here. We're not here just for fellowship.

I'm thankful for it. I love being around you. I love seeing your faces. I love hearing what God's doing in your life. But I want to experience the presence of God together.

I want to experience it every day. I don't need you for that and you don't need me for that. I want to see him tomorrow morning when I'm likely to be one of the first people up. Like, maybe not tomorrow my wife will beat me, but I want to see him. Are you stirred up by God?

Have you experienced the way he shows up when you serve, when you're working for his kingdom? Have you experienced God fall on that kind of stuff when you're stepping out in faith and just see what your trusting in him will do? I want you to consider these things, how you might work, how you might be a part of our church. Now, this is going to sound like a shameless plug, but you're here. And I don't know why you showed up, but here you go.

In order for us to reach more, as God seems to be calling us to do, we're going to need more of his people to say yes. Going to need more people to say, I want to be a part of reaching this generation. I want to be a part of reaching Rocky Mountain, Nash County. If you live here, then come on, let's figure out what God's doing in our city. Some of you Wilson folks that have showed up today, well, I don't know what you're up to.

Maybe God wants you to help us do that. I don't know. But I'm thankful for it. I'm thankful for this. But some of you in the room have been like, testing the waters.

You've been hanging out. I kind of like that Pastor Jonathan. He's alright. I kind of like such and such. Maybe you've come with somebody.

You're like, I don't want to really disappoint that person. You know what? The Lord's looking for your. Yes. Today.

He's looking for you to go ahead and say, all right, what can I do, God? What can I do to show you a generous gift of my time of whatever it is you're calling me to do today. Some of you have been kind of kicking the tires around here for a while. Come on and join the church. Join, Join.

Start doing the work. Somebody asked me today, how do we find out what people like to do and where they want to serve. Well, the system's a little bit imperfect, but normally we find out in membership class, hey, somebody signs up. I'm good with kids. I'm good at greeting people.

I have a musical talent church. If somebody has a musical talent today, you don't have to wait for membership class. Tell me on the way out. All right. We'll figure out where to put you.

If you're good with kids, you can do the same. Because we need teachers and people who love the children. That's normally how this works. But if you don't. If you don't get into the process, we're like, I don't know what you can do.

Join the church. You like it here. Come on. And then you might find out when you're trying to join the church, this church is whacked out. And then you'll know to move on.

You'll know to move on. I want to be a part of that, too. I want to help you in your process. I'm not ashamed of what we're trying to do here. I'm not.

I'm doing my very best as a pastor, and we're doing our very best as a church to be the most God honoring, glorifying church. We can be not ashamed of that. If it doesn't work for you, then this isn't it for you. It's okay. Come on.

Next week. So I'm telling you this because next Sunday we have a membership class after service come. And some of you went to membership classes years ago. You know who you are. Just go ahead and say yes.

You're still here. What are you doing? Say yes. Join the church. Let's hang out.

Some of you are going to be mad at me leaving today. I'm okay with that, too. I love you. It's time to get into the spiritual journey. A commitment.

A greater commitment. I want to obey his voice. I want to honor him with my life. I want to be part of the work of God. Do you?

Let's take a spiritual journey together then. Every week I've been posting. Every day I've been posting. I was a little bit late on Friday. Some of you know this, but I've been posting every day, Monday through Friday, out of our it's time devotional.

Little snippets. But do that devotional with us. If you don't have a habit of spending time with God and his Word. That's a good start. It's just a little snippet.

It doesn't take long. It's a good Starting point, if you're not in a small group, you're not in a community group, talk to me afterwards. Talk to some people afterwards. A lot of our church is in a community group, but if you're not plugged in, this is a great opportunity to be a part of the church, the body of Christ, and you're missing something that you don't even know is lacking. And then pray consistently with me, Lord, what do you want me to do?

What do you want to do in me and through me moving forward? In a few weeks we're going to have, and I announced this last week in just a few weeks going to have what we're calling Commitment Sunday, February 16 Commitment Sunday Together, where we're praying and asking God, how do you want me to make a sacrificial commitment to you? And I'm praying by that day you'll kind of have heard from God, but you've got to spend time listening and listening to what he wants and obeying his voice. You faithfully respond to his call, obey his word, honor his name, work in his power. Let's pray now together.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for a wonderful opportunity this morning to speak in your name. I pray above all else, God, that your word was clear, that the book of Haggai first was clear to your people here and that the principles that we can pull out of that were obvious. I think they are, God, I'm praying for your people, but first I'm praying for myself. Let me start with me. God, help me to hear your voice.

Pray this church for yourself. God, help me to hear you. Maybe for some of us it's been a while since we heard his voice, him speaking to us through his word or in prayer. However it is that God quietly, calmly comes into your life and speaks, have you heard his voice? And when you do, are you quick to say, yes, God, yes, Do this in me, do this in my lifetime.

I pray, God, that your people would be quick to obedience, quick to hear, slow to speak, quick to obey, slow to be coming to the God of the universe with a no God, be with your people in this. God help us to know what it means to revere and honor your you are deserving of our praise. We often will praise you with our lips. But do we praise you with our hearts when you come to mind when we dwell on you, Lord, or we think of you as top, no one else supersedes you.

God help us to honor you and know you. And then we pray, God, stir us up. I pray for your church today. Lord, I pray for your church. It looks like you're moving us.

We don't know exactly what that means. I pray for your people that they would be great witnesses in their workplaces, in their neighborhoods. God, you would give them opportunities. There's some shy folks in this room. God, I pray that they would get some opportunities this week that they can't avoid.

God, I pray that will happen. God, would you give us opportunities to work in your name? By your power, would you so stir us up that we couldn't get over it? God, we love you. We pray all of these things in Jesus name, amen.


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