The Just Shall Live by Faith

Introduction

Scott just did a great job of leading in this in thought and preparing us for what we’re going to talk about from Ezra and Nehemiah. I actually want to spend a few sermons on these texts over the next few weeks talking about this idea of building for our future. This text comes to mind just because these people are a really unique, special group of people. You know, they have been in exile for quite some time. And Cyrus’s decree now they can go home. and the text is interesting. I mean, it names the families and all the people who come home, and there’s there’s good and bad in all of that. I mean, it’s a celebration of all these families who now are returning to Jerusalem, and yet at the same time, we can number them.

We know who they are. There’s a small group, relatively, you know, 40,000 or so as compared to coming out of Exodus in Egypt. It’s thousands upon thousands. And so you see kind of the good and bad, and these people are special. They’re workers, they want to come back, they want to rebuild, they’re interested in that sort of thing, and yet along the way, there are challenges. There’s difficulties they face, there are delays, there are their problems that they deal with. And so I see a lot of that in terms of comparing to even our group here at Decker Prairie. We’re a special group. We’re a special group of believers. and one of the great things about this group that I’ve seen over the five years I’ve been here is that people are here to work, not just to watch.

And if you’re relatively new, you need to know that. We’re here to work and not watch. This is not a group where you come in and you sit and you observe and you don’t do. This is a group that is a group about doing, and that’s part of what I want to talk about this morning and kind of encourage us. This unique group that came out of exile and came back to Jerusalem, especially as they were. There were times where they lost focus. You know, they were hindered by fears and doubts. They got busy with their own lives, and it took prophets like Haggai coming in and saying, Hey, what are you doing? Are you considering what’s happening around you and what God has called you to do, and yet we’re not accomplishing what God has asked us to accomplish.

And so, in the same way, I think, just like people of old, there’s times we need reminders, we need encouragement. maybe even we need rebuke. They get they get some rebuke in Ezra and Nehemiah to get back on the right path and do things the right way. And so I want to sort of introduce us to this text this morning, and then we’ll get look at this in a few sermons. There’s a lot of rebuilding projects going on in Ezra and Nehemiah. they’re they’re restructuring or re-establishing worship, the law of Moses, and we’ll see that here in just a minute. They’re rebuilding the temple. And when we get later to Nehemiah, they’re rebuilding the wall. And so there’s a lot of interesting details that surround all of that.

And of course, this is all these are physical structures that are being talked about here, but they’re spiritual kind of underlings to all of this that I think are important for us to think about. And no, this sermon has nothing to do with us building a building. Let me just say that in the beginning. I have no interest really in talking about that this morning. I want to talk about a spiritual foundation, spiritual things that lead to growth within, growth in our families, like we’ve talked about recently with Jacob Hudgens, and growth in our church. And if we need to build a new building at some point, that’ll happen because we’ve done those things primarily in first. So let’s begin reading in Ezra chapter three. Ezra chapter three.

I’m going to begin in verse one. I’m going to jump around just a little to kind of preserve a little bit of time and get the specific content I want. And I’ll try to let you know where I’m doing that, but if I don’t, I apologize. I’m just trying to get the key elements out of the verse, out of these verses. So, chapter three of Ezra and verse one. When the seventh month came, and the children of Israel were in the towns, the people gathered as one man to Jerusalem. Then arose Jeshua, the son of Josedak, with his fellow priest, and Zerubabel the son of Shitil with his kinsmen, and they built the altar of the God of Israel to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the law of Moses, the man of God.

They set the altar in its place, for fear was on them because of the peoples of the lands, and they offered burnt offerings on it to the Lord, burnt offerings morning and evening, and they kept the feast of booths, that is as it is written, and offered daily burnt offerings by number according to the rule as each day required. Look at verse six. From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the Lord, but the foundation of the temple of the Lord was not yet laid. So they gave money to the masons and the carpenters. Now, verse eight. Now in the second year, after their coming to the house of God, the coming to the house of God just means the place where the ruins are.

It’s not built yet. So after the second year they’ve they’ve returned, they’re here in this place at Jerusalem. And in the second month, Zerubbabel the son of Shitil and Jeshua, the son of Josedak, made a beginning together with the rest of their kinsmen, the priest and the Levites, and all who had come to Jerusalem from captivity. Verse 10. And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priest and their vestments came forward with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph with symbols, to praise the Lord according to the direction of King of David, king of Israel. And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever toward Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.

But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of people’s weeping. For the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away. Now, if we look over at Haggai, what we’ll find is there were some delays in this whole process. Right? So this is the beginning, and I want to talk about some of that here in a few minutes. And when we look at Haggai, there’s been this long delay, and there’s there’s political reasons for that.

There’s people, and we’ll we’re going to talk about some obstacles in a later sermon as well. I don’t want to get into that in depth this morning. But because of some fear of the people around them, some sort of bureaucratic sorts of reasons, at least, that’s where it started, there was some delays to the building of the temple, but then it also just became distraction. They were distracted by the things of life. And so Haggai is sent, and he is telling them, Hey, you need to get back on track. You need to begin this project again and finish it. It says in Haggai chapter 1, in verse 1, in the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to the hand of Haggai the prophet, to Zerubbabel the son of Shiteel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehosadak, the high priest.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, these people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord. Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet. Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies in ruins? Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. Drop down to verse 7. Thus says the Lord of hosts consider your ways. Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it, and that I may be glorified, says the Lord. You look for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, it blew away. Why? Declares the Lord of hosts, because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house.

Pretty indicating. These are the unique special people who have come back, the people who are ready to work, and yet here we find them. Years and years later, the house still isn’t built. There’s a foundation, which is great. We need foundations. Foundations are the starting point. That’s where things begin. And yet it takes 20 years to actually end up building the temple. Once Haggai comes back, it only takes about four years. And what’s interesting about this whole story when you look at the exiles, you know, Ezra and Nehemiah come much later, Ezra first and then Nehemiah, and it’s 71 years later. The wall is still a ruin around the city. These people came back. And essentially, an entire generation people of people come and go, and the work is not finished.

I mean, many of us in this room this morning are not in our seventies. We have some. When you think about that, you came back to rebuild the city and to re-establish all this, and now you’re an old person. You came back a young person. And now you’re old. And the city’s still in ruins. There’s some disappointment, I think that could be attached to that. And Haggai, I think, deals with some of this as well. But it’s interesting when Nehemiah comes, Nehemiah sees the problem in the city. He comes back, he rallies the people, and here’s the amazing part about all of it. How long do you think it took for the walls to be rebuilt after sitting there for 71 years? Four years, seven years, ten years, fifty-two days.

All that time. All that time, the walls just sat there in ruins. And what’s also interesting about that, and you know, I want to talk about trust here in just a minute. I’m going to kind of cheat and go ahead a little bit. You know, as a human, as a person, if we were coming back to this city, particularly in ancient times, I mean, what is the first thing that we would probably think about doing when we get back there? All the nations around us and they’re threatening us. I mean, probably from a human perspective, the first thing we’d want to do is take care of our protection and our security. You know, build the wall, make sure everything is taken care of around us. Now, there’s some reasons that doesn’t happen in the first place, but then this sort of morphs into then it just doesn’t happen at all.

1. Put God's Work First

So I think there’s some interesting lessons we can learn in looking at the story of the exiles who have returned. And I think what we’ll learn about this is there’s just sacrifices that have to be made anywhere. Anytime anything good is going to happen, it takes sacrifice, it requires some sacrifice. It means giving up one thing for something else. Something else that is better. That’s really the starting point of all of this. When we think about the story of the returnees, those who’ve come back and they have a mission for God’s purposes, the lesson that they’re learning in this process is to put God’s work first. It makes so much sense, as I already mentioned, from a human perspective, to build that wall. And yet the first thing that they are expected to do is not build the wall, it’s to re-establish worship and build the temple.

Interesting. I think this involves a lot of trust. Building this wall would make a lot of sense to me and to you probably. And so one of my thoughts from this is when what we think makes sense doesn’t line up with what God says, maybe that should make us pause and consider who we’re putting our trust in. And I mean that very broadly, just about life in general in modern times and the way that we do things in comparison to what God has told us to do. That can be in our families, it can be spiritually.

God says build the temple. Because you do God’s things first. And if you do God’s things first, it says God will bless them. He says, I am with you, I will bless you. He lets them know that in Haggai chapter two. It’s a section that we’ve looked at recently, but I didn’t read this morning. He assures them, right? When they get to this point, you need to build this temple, and I am going to bless you and be with you in this process. And actually, part of Haggai’s message is have you noticed how things haven’t been working out for you? Right? You stop going about things the way I told you to do it and you started busying yourself with your own lives. And it’s amazing how when we do that, when we aren’t prioritizing God and his ways, that things just seem to not work.

And we can’t quite put our finger on why, you know, in those moments. Why is it that this isn’t working or things aren’t going right? And God’s telling him, I know why. Because you’re not doing what I told you to do first. The priority has been in the language of Haggai himself, you are busying yourself with your own houses. In modern language, that would be you’re prioritizing your own hobbies, your own desires, building your own kingdom first, right? Getting the right job and building your family up the way that you want it, and all these. That’s sort of the idea Haggai is getting at here. You’ve built your own nice houses and you’ve done all the things for yourself, and yet the house of the Lord is still in ruins.

Things are out of whack. They’re not lined up right. And so when that happens, it doesn’t work the way we may imagine that things would work. You’re putting all this effort to them, he uses an illustration of sowing and reaping, but you’re putting all this effort into sowing and all this, and you’re not getting that much out of it. Why is that? And then eventually he says, hey, you’ve laid the foundation, and now you’re building the temple, and I want you to mark this day. From this day forward, I’m going to bless you, and you’re going to see what happens when you put God first. This was the message. Haggai gave to the people. Things don’t always work quite that way nowadays. God’s kind of directly working through Haggai with these people and giving them kind of direct physical signs of things that are taking place.

I still think it works on a wisdom level. If we operate with the wisdom God has given us, generally speaking, we’re going to be blessed. That’s sort of what Proverbs and wisdom literature is about. The true wisdom comes from God. And when we neglect God and we put ourselves first and we do our own things first and we get busy with our own lives, it sort of leads to a mess. That we then have to clean up. And so the exiles started really well. I mean, they started establishing the law. I love the language there in Ezra. You know, all this the specificity of, you know, they’re doing this according to the rule. Each day as it’s required, they’re keeping all the feasts, and they’re doing the morning and the afternoon sacrifice.

I mean, they’re setting everything up exactly how it’s supposed to be. They’re committed. They want to do this right. You know, and then they start laying the foundation and they start doing that right. But then somewhere along the way, it sort of starts to just wane. And then what?

It takes sacrifice. It takes trust. It takes courage. It means choosing to prioritize the spiritual. To seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And so it’s easy to get caught up in our own personal pursuits, our careers, our homes, our hobbies. While neglecting what is the priority, our spiritual lives, the work of the church. We must intentionally prioritize God’s work. Whether it’s through worship or service or discipleship, whatever area we’re talking about, it’s a choice. It’s a decision. And what happens, as we’ll learn later on in a future sermon with these people, is that they get some distractions, they get some obstacles, and it sort of sets them off the path. And rather than intentionally making these choices, they sort of just allow things to happen the way they happen.

Well, you know, the people around us, they sent a letter to the king, and he’s telling us we should stop, so maybe we should wait a while. It’s not time to build. We just need to wait a little. Well, God said it was time to build. Well, that meant it was time to build. They’re distracted by threats and by fears, by thinking they can’t do it. They’re told they can’t do it by the people around them. They’re mocked by the people around them, saying they can’t get this done, and they sort of start to believe it. And so that’s why years go by with nothing happening. But I think maybe it’s this next lesson that I see here in the story that could be more beneficial to us in thought.

2. The Little Things Actually Do Matter

I think conceptually, we understand we should seek first the kingdom and we should put God’s things first. And of course, it’s not that we don’t understand that, it’s that things in life happen that set us off path, and then it’s really hard sometimes to get back on the path. And we can become our own worst enemy in this at times, where we think, well, I it needs to be here, and I’m just here, and so that’s really not helping at all. And what I want us to see is the little things actually do matter. And in the story, that’s a big part of the story. That beginning work is vital and important work. That the little steps that are being taken along the way, those are important to the bigger picture, to where this is ultimately headed.

And so we have to make these small choices and small ways of thinking that sort of change even our behavior. So, what does it look like to prioritize God’s work in my life? What are some of these small steps we can think about? Well, I think something that’s very much on our minds right now, because of the time of the year, is that we’ve started school again. It’s interesting, all the work, marketing wise, right, and even as parents and families that goes into these moments. We got to get new shoes and new clothes and new supplies and talk to the teachers and look at the plan and all the things that go into starting school again, or maybe if you’re homeschooling, you’re you’re organizing an entire curricula for the year or for your child’s entire life.

You know, moms like to do that too each year, and it changes. And then you plan for multiple year sequences, right? You know, it’s like here, and you got where is this gonna be my kid is eight, and where is he gonna be when he’s 17? You know, all these decisions we’re making, because we’re worried about their future, aren’t we? We want them to get into a good college, and we want them to do well when they’re in college, and we want them to get a good job, and we’ve planned all of this out, and we have all these ideas in our mind about what we want for our kid. And a lot of these are just small little steps, right? Like we gotta get them closed so they can go to school, or we gotta get them the notebook they need.

And these are not monumental huge things, but it’s just some small little things that take place. Well, let me ask what about the planning for our child’s spiritual education? What does that look like? Do you see what I mean by distractions? By busying ourselves with our own lives and our own homes and worldly things and material things. Where is the time spent on the notebooks for Bible class and the new clothes and the shoes and the effort that goes into the curriculum and making sure everything is ready before class starts and talking to the teachers and making sure the child is performing and thinking about where is this going to be someday in the future when they’re 17 or 18 or 19 years old? Now, I know many of you pretty well, and I know there is thought to that.

It’s not like there’s no thought to that. But because of the nature of how things work, I think we tend to think a lot more about the physical, about the other, because it seems more pertinent, right? Your kid’s gonna go see that teacher the first day of school. Right? And you gotta start those math lessons or whatever it is. I mean, it’s this kind of time-bearing sort of thing that’s going to happen, and it needs to happen. And it’s a lot easier to neglect or to push off the thing that nobody’s gonna check on. You’re you’re not gonna have somebody come and say, Hey, did you did you get notebooks and paper and pen for the start of this quarter in Bible class? You really should do that.

The elders have a lot of work to do, and they may come to your house at some point and ask you how things are going, but then also involves some vulnerability on my part to say, yeah, we really haven’t been doing what we’re supposed to do. We don’t have evaluations that go out each year. We evaluate, you know, the teachers. Maybe we should, I don’t know, evaluate Bible class teachers and the preachers, but that wouldn’t be necessarily a bad thing to do. But we don’t tend to do these things. You see what I’m saying? I mean, the focus is put on a lot of other things in life that actually are not nearly as important as laying a spiritual foundation. And so what I want us to do, and I’m not trying to be super negative or make you feel bad or anything like that.

I do want to prompt change in some of what we’re doing, myself included. But what I want us to do is not look at these exiles who’ve returned and think, ah, I can’t believe those people. You know, they came back and they started this and then they just stopped. How could you do that?

I want us to see how we are tempted to do the very same sorts of things. And we have to be aware of that. We’ve got to be ready for those realities and think about how we’re going to handle this. It means not quitting on the Lord. You know, just like they kind of stepped aside and said, hey, you know, it’s not time to build. It’s not time to do that right now. It’s time to do the things we want to do. Prioritizing the things of God means I don’t quit on the Lord. I don’t say things like I’ll never teach again. No. What kind of attitude is that? Or I’m too busy. There’s times when we’re all busy. There’s times when we just simply can’t do it.

And I think everybody understands that. We’re in a period like that right now. Where next quarter I’m not teaching and Katie’s not teaching. Because it’s a difficult situation we’re in the middle of. And so sometimes we have to make those choices. And so I’m not talking about that sort of thing. We all get that. But are we busy all the time? Are we too busy every quarter of every year?

And these are our children we’re talking about. You know, people are always interested in like evangelism programs, those kind of things. Like, how are we going to reach the loss?

The very best evangelism program we have is teaching our children. Whether it’s in our homes, which should be happening, or in our classes. I mean, this is an opportunity we have from birth until they leave our home every single week to be opening the Word of God with them and speaking God into their hearts. And they have to make a choice. They have to make a decision. They have to decide whether they’re going to follow the truths of Scripture and they’re going to believe in God and do what God says to do. They have to make that choice. And that’s not my choice and it’s not your choice. But we do have that opportunity. We have that privilege to spend that time in our homes and our time together as God’s people, planting truth in their brain every single week.

What an amazing opportunity. There’s not a whole lot of things I think that are more important than that reality. If I’m too busy to help with that, I probably need to reorganize my life. Things change in groups. You know, some of you, mothers and fathers, your kids have grown up and they’re not in the home anymore. And I think just by natural consequence, you may not be as involved in our children’s classes. I think some of that makes a lot of sense. That doesn’t mean you can’t be. But there’s also this opportunity to help teach. You know, no one just starts teaching immediately and just understands it all. It’s one of these myths that people have sometimes. Well, you know, you’re just a good teacher. No, remember what I said?

Everything that’s good takes sacrifice. Every good teacher that you ever had in your life, they sacrificed. They worked hard. They studied, they prepared. Most of them had a mentor that they learned from. I remember when we were younger, in our 20s, early 20s, we were at Southside. and I was working with Brother Bowman, which was an amazing experience, and I learned a ton from him, but this story’s not really about me. It’s about Katie. She hadn’t done much teaching. She had never really taught. She was never taught how to teach when she was a kid. And here’s how this works very infrequently, and Thad’s not here. Thad did not ask me to preach the sermon, by the way. you know, you typically don’t have 20-something young mothers running up to the deacon in charge of getting Bible classes ready, saying, Hey, I’m ready to do this.

Now you’ll have some, because some people are just like that. It usually requires asking. You know, hey, we really would like for you to do this. It would be really beneficial for you to learn how to do this, to teach your own kids at home, to help teach other kids here. And the responses are kind of like, I don’t know how to do this. Yeah, of course you know, because you’ve never done it. And it takes learning, and it takes some work and it takes some sacrifice, and it takes some humility to say, maybe I need to learn my Bible a little bit better, and I need to learn from somebody else who has experience. So Katie actually ended up in a classroom with Denise Bowman, Dee’s daughter, which was incredible.

She got to observe and watch what Denise and others did in that class over a pretty lengthy period of time, multiple quarters. She never even taught on her own. She just was there observing and watching and learning. Then we moved to Tennessee, and we started, she started teaching there, and I remember very distinctly, you know, she was starting to teach. We were doing OSH there as well. And she would do like five or six-page manuscript outlines. And the internet’s not working right now, so she can’t listen to any of this. She’s a home with Xander. And I was thinking, how can you teach that? Like it’s so much information. And I was like, you gotta figure out how to make an outline. And she said, No, I just can’t do it that way.

I’ve got to do it. And my point here is that there’s just small little steps. That’s how she had to do it right then. And that’s how she learned. And it took hours and hours, and me probably being a little selfish, I was like, hey, you don’t have to spend four hours typing up a five-page manuscript. You could spend time with me. But this is part of the process. This is what happens. It takes effort and time and sacrifice, and it takes mentorship most of the time. Some of you older men and women who have done your time. Your time’s not over, by the way, but you’ve done your time in the classroom, and you’ve taught your kids, it may be time to teach others how to do that.

Spend some time in the classroom helping someone else who’s nervous or afraid or has doubts to say, come along with me, I’ll show you how to do this. And over time, they will learn. It’s this beginning work that sometimes is monumental in accomplishing the will of God. And so I love that phrase here in chapter three in verse eight. That some of these leaders, but it’s not just the leaders, another important aspect of Ezra and Nehemiah. It’s all the people, it’s all the families. They’re all involved. And we’ll talk about working together in another sermon. But they all come together and it says they made a beginning together. And that’s what I’m calling on you to do this morning. Things change, families change. It may be that you’re a new mom.

You should be starting right now to think about how you’re going to get in that classroom and help and teach your kid. And other kids and be ready to teach your kid at home. And fathers, you should be encouraging that. You should be participating in that. Helping in the home, helping do Bible lessons, encouraging your wife, yes, you can teach two and three year olds. I’ve got to say, I was a little discouraged when I heard announcements that we’d have to cancel the two and three-year-old class because teachers wouldn’t come up for it. I assure you know enough, and you know more than a two and three-year-old. Every single adult in this room could do it. In a group this size, this is what I want to get at.

We are a special group. We’re a doing group, not a watching group. And in a group this size, that should never, ever be an announcement, never ever be a consequence. We should be building for the future and thinking about the future and taking small steps. And it may be that’s your very first thing you do. And maybe you’re worried you won’t do it well. It’s okay. It’s a learning process. Ask someone for help. There are plenty of people who can help. We have a host of ladies who have taught for years and years. And maybe it’s not comfortable to go up and say, hey, I want to do this, but I don’t know how. But sometimes we just got to do things that aren’t comfortable.

We have to sacrifice for things that matter. If we want to lay a good spiritual foundation, that’s what’s it’s going to happen. That’s what has to take place. We got to be willing to do that. We’ve got to be willing to take those small steps. Here’s the danger. And this is the sort of thing I’ve seen every place I’ve lived. Here’s the danger of the cycle that can happen. There’s people who end up doing lots and lots and lots of work. They configure everything. They teach so much. And finally one day they say, I’m not doing it anymore. It creates a negative cycle that stifles growth. Not only do they not want to teach anymore, they don’t want to be involved. They don’t like the curriculum we do now, or whatever the thing is.

I’ve seen this multiple places, and so I’m just gonna now step aside. It’s those young moms’ job, anyway, at this point, right? This kind of attitude.

We’re not a church like that. We’re a doing church, we’re not a watching church. And if we want to lay a spiritual foundation, that means people being willing to mentor and help and bring people along. This is the whole concept of discipleship that is central to the message of the gospel. Jesus and who he is, he brought these 12 men along and he brought them up. They had so many foolish ideas and thoughts, just like all of us do at times. And Jesus worked through that and he guided them along to a point where then they were able to do the same thing. Paul then tells Timothy, I taught you, and just as I taught you find other faithful men and you teach them. And Paul tells Titus, this is the work of older men and women to then mentor the younger and to bring them up and to help their faith and to help strengthen them.

3. Seeing the Big Picture

And so all of these things, they just they’re they’re little small beginnings types of things, but don’t underestimate the importance of small work and what that means for the future. And so this is the bigger point I want us to kind of work toward is seeing the big picture. When we build, we’re focused on the time to come. What is out there ahead of us? It’s not just about the moment.

When we lived in Alabama, there were some ladies there that taught all the time, every quarter. It’s nice to be in a congregation where that’s not the case. Growing up, my mom can maybe back me up on this. I don’t know. It seemed like those ladies taught all the time and lived in Vermont. They may have had some breaks here and there, but they were always teaching. Every quarter. It’s just what you did. Because that’s who was there. And so if we want to lay this foundation, we got to have the mentality that we’re ready, not just for the moment, but also for the glory that comes in the future from God’s work being done in the present. And that means sometimes celebrating those small steps that we just talked about.

You notice they do that in the text, right? They lay the foundation. And when they’ve laid the foundation, there’s some of the older ones who look at this and they weep and they mourn because they saw the glory of the old temple. But in the midst of that, there is this huge celebration of what’s been accomplished. You know, they worship the Lord and they praise him and they have this huge worship of all the people because of this first initial step. Now it doesn’t stop there. But it’s good to celebrate those small steps, realizing what is coming. You know, the bigger picture of what this is about. And Haggai actually encourages them not to get in that mentality, right? Some of you are older, he says, you’re looking at this, and it looks like nothing in your eyes.

But just realize that the latter glory of this temple will be greater than the former. This is working for something far greater than you can ever imagine. That’s what Haggai tells them in Haggai chapter 2, verses 3 and 4. This is about the why, right? The why of all of this that we’re doing. Whether it’s something like teaching our children or various other things. I’ve seen similar things even with leadership at different places. Well, I’m too busy to be an elder, or it’s not the right time to be an elder with someone who was qualified. Right? I mean, they are fit for the work, already doing a lot of it. Right? So it’s not just in our classes or in our teaching. These are the sorts of things that apply and in various other realms as well.

It can be how we are growing and working with our young men and our young women. There’s all sorts of ways in which this is a big deal, the small steps of growth. And it’s the sort of thing that’s been happening in this congregation that I don’t want to stop happening in this congregation. That’s why we’re doing this sermon this morning. That as we grow and as more people come in, as faces change, some leave, some come, we keep remembering we are a doing church, not a watching church. And we know what that looks like. Because when that changes, when a lot of people are happy to sit on the sidelines and watch others, is when the stop the temple stops being built. It’s when the wall lies in ruins for 70 years and nothing happens.

It’s when people give up and say, well, it’s just not the right time. We’re gonna wait for some other vague time frame that we don’t know to do the Lord’s work. And right now we’re just gonna do our own work and build our own houses. And Haggai says, consider your ways.

It’s interesting, Timothy, as you well know, he was taught his faith by his mother and his grandmother. Just think about the power of what came from the work of Timothy and working with Paul and going all over the known world. Walter Scott, who’s a name many of you may know, one of the most well-known restoration figures in our history. He baptized over a thousand people a year into Christ for the forgiveness of their sins for 30 years. You know how he started?

His mom and dad said, We want you to preach the word. That’s where he started. It was his parents’ encouragement to work for the Lord. That then led to something they probably would have never imagined that he accomplished for the kingdom. His dad was a musician. He was a music teacher. And his mom had 10 kids. That’s what she did. I know nothing about, I don’t know about their success in life or their education or any of that. But what actually mattered was something that was prioritized. And what they taught their son. And to some degree, many of us are greatly influenced by Walter Scott. Probably don’t even know how influenced we actually are by the work that he did. It’s probably incalculable. And it came from a mom and a dad who said, We want you to preach.

It doesn’t mean everybody has to be a preacher, or everybody has to be an elder or a deacon. You know, here’s the thing: if you’re afraid of teaching, we have these positions in our classes that are just helpers. You can be a helper. If all you ever do in the children’s classes is be a helper, you’re doing great work for the Lord. And it may be that as you’re in there and you observe, you may begin to be able to do other things as well. And in the process, make dad’s job a whole lot easier. Finding teachers. It’s so important that we lay this good foundation and realize how valuable all of this is, not just for the moment, but for the times to come.

My mom came from Embry Hills. Before she was there living with my sister, I knew that church quite well. I think this is just a testimony to how these sorts of things work. They’re known, not really as much for their children’s classes, although I’m sure they’re good, but they’re really known for their adult classes. And people all over know. I trained, helped train Daniel Broadwell, who now is at Bel Air. When he came to Climwood to train as a preacher, that kid was so well versed in scripture. It was an easy job to make a few changes and shift. He’s so good at what he does because he learned the Bible and he was a part of these classes that were just excellent. And they’re producing all sorts of material that’s helping people all over the place.

They’re known for that. And sometimes the small work just starts with an idea. Right? We’re gonna start this. We want to do this. Who’s gonna help? Right? And it’s not about the glory. It’s not about them being known for this. It’s about the result of what takes place. Where they have kids that come out of their congregation who are from coming from these classes that then go other places and begin helping other churches. Right? It’s like that thing we can’t even imagine how big and how important it actually is. So we’re not talking about building structures, building physical temples, building physical walls, but there is building going on. I mean, do you think about how well done it is and how involved? What am I building?

Conclusion

What am I taking part in? Am I participating? Am I helping the Lord’s work? Or am I just allowing other people to do it? That’s not going to lead to the results we want. And that’s why Haggai and others had to come and speak to these people and get them back in gear and say it’s time to build. And that’s my message for you this morning. Could be the small step for you this morning is devoting your life to Jesus Christ, realizing that’s what’s most needed in your life. You haven’t done that yet. You realize this is the way to live, but you have there’s some fear or some obstacle. I want to encourage you to step over that this morning. To take the progress, to make that small step, to give up, to sacrifice who you are, the life that you’ve lived, and now become something different and something new and begin this process.

Don’t be afraid of the big picture. Be willing to start and to celebrate the small step. Coming to Jesus Christ, giving your life to Him, being resurrected in a newness of life, coming out of the waters of baptism, ready to serve him and whatever that might mean in the future. And trust God and have courage that he will help you along the way. Can we help you do that this morning? Come now as we stand and we sing.