Ezra 3

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All right, let's pray. Lord God, thank you again for the opportunity to gather with your saints,

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God, and to hear your word read publicly and explained and expounded upon,

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Lord. I pray that these words from Ezra chapter 3, that they would encourage us, that they would give us confidence in you,

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Lord, and that they would help us become more like Christ. That's ultimately what we want,

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Lord. We want to repent from all of our sins and to become more like Christ. So God, we ask that you would do that through your word as you've promised in Jesus' name.

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Amen. All right, Ezra chapter 3. These are the words of God.

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When the seventh month came and the children of Israel were in the towns, the people gathered as one man to Jerusalem.

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Then arose Jeshua, the son of Jazadak, with his fellow priests, and Zerubbabel, the son of Shetil, with his kinsmen.

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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.

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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

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Lord, burnt offerings morning and evening. And they kept the feast of booths, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number according to the rule, as each day required.

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And after that, the regular burnt offerings, the offerings at the new moon and at all the appointed feasts of the

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Lord, and the offerings of everyone who made a freewill offering to the Lord. From the first day of the seventh month, they began to offer burnt offerings to the

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Lord. But the foundation of the temple of the Lord was not yet laid. So they gave money to the masons and the carpenters, and food, drink, and oil to the

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Sidonians and the Tyrrhenians, to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea, to Joppa, according to the grant they had from Cyrus, king of Persia.

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Now in the second year, after their coming to the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month, Zerubbabel, the son of Shetil, and Jeshua, the son of Jazadak, made a beginning together with the rest of their kinsmen, the priests and the

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Levites, and all who would come to Jerusalem from captivity. They appointed the Levites from twenty years old and upward to supervise the work of the house of the

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Lord. And Jeshua, with his sons and his brothers, and Cadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah, together supervised the workmen in the house of God, along with the sons of Hennadad and the

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Levites, their sons and brothers. And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the

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Lord, the priests in their vestments came forward with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals to praise the

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Lord, according to the directions of David, king of Israel. And they sang responsibly, praising and giving thanks to the

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Lord. For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever toward Israel.

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And all of the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundations of the house of the

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Lord was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and heads of the 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.

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Though many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people's weeping.

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For the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away. This is the word of the

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Lord. So that was a lot easier than last week for me.

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Probably a lot easier to listen to as well. So what we have here is, it's just straightforward narrative, which

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I like. It's a description of the work that had begun in the rebuilding of God's temple.

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So we remember King Cyrus decreed that this would, that this was something that the Israelites could do, that he would allow them to rebuild the temple, go back to their land.

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And then last week, we read the numbers of the thousands of faithful men of Israel, along with their families, deciding to take the journey to accomplish that task.

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But you see, in the text, even though they had an official sort of support declaration from the king, even though they had his resources available, it doesn't seem like this is going to be a very easy thing to accomplish, or at least a very safe thing to accomplish.

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Our text even says in verse three that fear was on them because of the peoples of the land.

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So clearly there was still a bit of anxiety about the work. There was still some kind of a danger that they perceived.

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The people in the surrounding lands, they probably weren't very pleased that the Israelites were returning. I would imagine for the

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Israelites that 70 years in captivity seemed like an eternity. But for Israel's enemies, they probably hadn't been gone long enough.

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So you can easily read a sort of tension and anxiety in the passage this morning. But even though there's anxiety and tension because of the peoples of the land, even though there is all of that, there seems to be a good bit of confidence in this text as well.

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Verse one says that the people gathered as one man to Jerusalem. So for the most part, everyone seems to be on the same page.

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They're going to go through with this one way or the other. And that's all there was to it.

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So even though there's anxiety, there's also a clear confidence here. What could be the reason for that confidence? That's the question.

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What's the reason that they're all able to sort of, the thousands of people come together as one man and decide that they're going to accomplish this mission?

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Why do they have that confidence? And can we have that kind of confidence? I think that it's clear that we can.

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And the reason that they had confidence and that we can have confidence is in one phrase that's repeated twice in this text, and it's repeated all throughout the

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Bible. The phrase is, as it is written, as it is written.

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I think that this phrase captures the essence of why these people are coming together as one man to do what they're doing.

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This phrase, I think, shows us why they have confidence, even though they're also afraid. I think this phrase can do the same thing for us.

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Look at verse two. It says that they built the altar of the God of Israel to offer burnt offerings on it as it is written in the law of Moses.

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So you see they're afraid, but they build this altar as it is written. It continues.

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It says, for fear was on them because of the peoples of the land, and they offered burnt offerings on it to the

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Lord, burnt offerings morning and evening, and they kept the festival of the booths as it is written.

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There it is again. So they offer these offerings, they keep the festival as it is written, and it says they do this because they're afraid of the people in the lands.

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Why would that be the motivation, right? Why would they do that? I think they do it because of what else is written in the old covenant, in the law.

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You see, in the old covenant law, these sacrifices that they did continually, the whole system of worship, the festivals, all of this stuff, this was necessary.

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They had to keep doing it in order to maintain the covenant relationship with God. That's what was written.

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Now they did it by faith, so it's not that the festival itself saved them.

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Their faith is, of course, why they had the covenant relationship with God, but they acted in this way by faith, and so when you were in covenant relationship with God, the old law said that you would have blessings from God, you would have peace and protection from your enemies, and so that's what was written, and that's why they're doing this, because they fear the people in the land.

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They had faith. They had confidence in what was written, and they had confidence that their

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God would protect them if they were in relationship with him, and so they started worship according to what was written, and they knew that God would respond with blessings, again, according to what was written.

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Hebrews chapter 9 talks about this system, and it talks about how it can apply to us today. Hebrews chapter 9 says that the first covenant had regulations for worship at an earthly place of holiness, so you see it's talking, in Hebrews 9, it's talking about the old covenant having a sort of a worship order that was required in order to maintain the relationship with God.

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It talks about what was written, but Hebrews goes on. It says that this covenant doesn't perfect them, though.

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That's the problem with it. Hebrews chapter 9 goes on. It says, according to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, but deal only with food and drink and various washings.

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These are regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation, and so you see, even though they're doing this by faith, they perform the sacrifices and the festivals as it is written in order to sort of hold on to the covenant blessings.

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It wasn't a perfect system until Christ came, so you see, for us, we don't have the same old covenant system.

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We don't have the same offerings and festivals that they did in Israel, but we can deal with our fears in our mission as well, and we can do it better and more easily.

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See, we're not building a physical temple. That's not our mission, right? We don't have a schedule of sacrifices.

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We don't have the schedule of festivals that need to be continually repeated in order to stay in covenant with God.

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On the contrary, our covenantal standing is completely and perfectly secure. Our covenantal blessings of peace, our guaranteed success in our mission as the church, is secured perfectly by Christ.

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Hebrews tells us this. It goes on. It says, Christ has entered not into the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.

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Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly as the high priest entered the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world.

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But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

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So, on our mission as the church, we act as ambassadors for Christ's kingdom here in Rutland.

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And if we had enemies that rose up that opposed our work, if we were fearful of our enemies in that time, they look strong, they look menacing, we would not need to fear because we are already in covenant with our

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God as it is written. So, when we face opposition, when we face challenges, we ought to go back to the scriptures every time and see what is written, which hopefully should give us confidence, should give us power to accomplish our mission just like it does for the

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Israelites in chapter 3. The details are slightly different, but we should have confidence because of what is written.

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You know, sometimes I think, at least for me, conventional wisdom seems more appealing. Like if we have a fearful situation or if we face opposition, um, sometimes there's other methods that I think might work better to sort of kind of alleviate that fear or deal with opposition.

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But I can guarantee you that in the end, ultimately, we'll never make progress as the people of God if we go with our own ideas over what is written.

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So, I think this is a very instructive thing from this chapter. We should commit now, while we have the opportunity, we should commit now to come back to the simple phrase, as it is written, whenever we encounter any kind of controversy or opposition or anything.

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Let's commit now. Let's commit to have confidence in God because of what he's written.

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Later in the text, we read about the reaction of the people. So, they start worship as it is written.

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They start worship because they're scared. They want to be in covenant with God. And so, they start with worship. They do the festival, the booth.

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They do all what they're supposed to do as it is written. And then they start to build the foundation.

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They start the work that gives them the confidence they need. And look at what verse 11 says. This is the reaction of the people once the real work begins.

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It says, they sang responsibly, praising and giving thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever toward Israel.

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And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord because of the foundation of the house of the

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Lord that 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 the people's weeping.

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It's kind of an interesting reaction, right? Like some of the people are so excited, they're shouting, they're singing, they're shouting with a mighty voice, and they're so joyful and happy because the work has begun.

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And they scream out in happiness. And then others, they're weeping.

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Not only are they weeping, but the text says they're weeping just as loudly as the people that are happy, which is interesting.

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It says they can't distinguish. It's so loud. It's just a mess of noise. Some of the people are crying. Some of the people are happy.

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Why are they crying? My first thought when I was reading was that, oh, this is tears of joy, right?

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This is tears of happiness. They're so happy and overcome with emotion that they're just crying.

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But when I looked into it a little deeper, I don't think that's what's going on. They're actually legitimately upset.

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They're sad. First of all, this is the first clue. Look at who's weeping.

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It says that it's many of the priests and Levites. And then it says that it's old men, old men who had seen the first house.

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Those are the ones who wept with a loud voice. So it's not only the priests. It's also common people.

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But it says it's exclusively the older men. It was men who had lived throughout the captivity.

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So they'd lived the 70 years in Babylon and they had seen the original temple before. They saw it before it was destroyed.

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And now they're seeing this new one and it's making them weep. Is it just nostalgia, you think?

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Are they sad in a kind of a way that I was sad when I saw the new Star Wars movie?

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And I was like, this isn't like the originals. And I get just nostalgic. And I feel like I'm losing the good old days.

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I don't think it's nostalgia. There's a few passages that talk about this moment in Prophets.

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The first one is from Zechariah chapter four. You don't have to turn there, but Zechariah chapter four talks about this.

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And in verse eight, this is what it says in the Prophet Zechariah's book. It says, the word of the

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Lord came to me saying, the hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundations of this house.

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His hands shall also complete it. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you for whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice and shall see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel.

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The Prophet Haggai also prophesies about this moment in chapter two of his book. Here's what he says.

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He says, who was left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now?

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Is it not as nothing in your eyes? So do you see what's happened here?

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The old men are weeping because they remember how amazing the old temple was.

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They remember how beautiful it was, how much stature it had. They remember how impressive it was and how busy it was.

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And now they're standing on a construction site. Probably dirty, probably rubble everywhere.

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All that stands now is a new foundation, an altar and a bunch of raw materials and a bunch of people.

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People who had no power at all. People who had lived in exile for 70 years, hanging on by a thread.

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No political power, no military power, just lowly people standing in a construction site.

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And when they compare that to what they used to have, the glory of the old temple, to them, it's nothing.

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It's just a small beginning of an impossible mission. And so that is why they wept.

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They could not see how God could use a small beginning like this for anything substantial.

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And I can understand that feeling. I really could. You know, all of us know about humble beginnings.

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Lots of people would walk into this building here and they would think this is a humble beginning, right?

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But to me, this looks great. You know what I mean? Like, I remember what it used to look like before Dave was working on it and Tim.

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I remember what it used to look like. This is an awesome place to worship, to have school in, to meet in.

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But you know, let's just be honest, in comparison to what a lot of people are used to, this is a very humble beginning.

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This is a small group of people. But what we should learn from our text is that you shouldn't sleep on a humble beginning.

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God accomplishes great things through humble beginnings. And it may be hard to envision now, but God will use these five small families in the city of Rutland to accomplish his glorious mission in Rutland and beyond.

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That I'm sure of. I don't know how it'll all shake out. I don't know what role each person or each family will play, but I know he will do it.

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So don't sleep on a small beginning. Look at the rest of the, this is the rest of the Haggai passage.

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Look at the rest of this. It says, this is what we read earlier. It says, who has left you? Who has left among you who saw this house in its former glory?

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How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? Yet now be strong.

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O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord, be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadek, the high priest.

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Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares the

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Lord of hosts. According to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt, my spirit remains in your midst.

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Fear not. For thus says the Lord of hosts, yet once more in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land.

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And I will shake all the nations so that the treasures of all the nations shall come in. And I will fill this house with glory, says the

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Lord of hosts. The silver is mine and the gold is mine, declares the

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Lord of hosts. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts.

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And in this place, I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts. Now that's an awesome prophecy.

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It's not exactly about us in our context, obviously, but we can make application with this prophecy.

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We can hold onto this prophecy ourselves, because we too have a promise.

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We have prophecies about our own future. We know the kingdom of God will prevail and we know it will be glorious.

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We know that the people of God will number more than the sands of the seashore, more than the stars in the sky.

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We know all this. And so our small beginning in Rutland, we know will have an impact on the glory of God's kingdom in the future.

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This might not happen in our lifetimes. This might not happen in our generation, but it is guaranteed to happen.

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The work that we do for the Lord here will be added and applied to the larger work of his kingdom.

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And so it is huge. It's powerful and it matters. You know, it's not just our church that was about small beginnings.

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Think about just the church in general. Our Lord and Savior, he was born like a little baby, like as little as our littlest ones.

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There is nothing more humble and cute than a little baby swaddled up, completely dependent on their mother for life.

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There's nothing more humble than that. Even the church itself, if you think about it, huddled in an upper room, living in fear of their lives, locked up in a room.

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God had come to them. The Lord was crucified. He was resurrected. He had appeared to them, but they're still huddled and living in fear.

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There's just 12 of them. Maybe there's a few other followers, but it's a small group. And then the

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Holy Spirit comes. And in 2000 years, it sounds like a long time, but it's not that long. In 2000 years, they go from 12 to 2 .2

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billion professing Christians in just about 2000 years. That is something.

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So don't sleep on small beginnings. There's no reason to look at the state of the church in Rutland or the state of the church in Vermont, or even in the

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United States, and be sad or weep about that. There's no reason to do it because the church, through the power of the

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Holy Spirit, is just getting started. It might look like a small beginning, but it's leading to something.

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I think I've said this to you guys many times, but if you haven't, you'll hear it again. I think that when all is said and done, our time that we're living in now is going to be considered early church history.

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So don't sleep on small beginnings. We have a prophecy in the glorious prophecy.

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God worked through his people in the Book of Ezra, and he will work through his people today as it is written.

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Let's pray. Lord God, thank you so much for this passage from Ezra.

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Lord, thank you that you've worked through your remnant,

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God. It's just a humble little group of people. Thank you that you've done this from the beginning,

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God, that you've always worked through this small group of people to have your plan, your mission be accomplished throughout the world,

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God. Thank you so much for saving us. Thank you for giving us work to do, whether it's raising our families, whether it's working in ministry or anything,

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God. Lord, thank you for working through us and using us, even though we're imperfect, even though that we still struggle against sins.

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Thank you for all of that, God. And lastly, God, thank you for the new covenant.

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Thank you for coming once and for all, Lord, that we don't have to keep up the sacrifices day and night, that we don't have to do the festivals to the letter.

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Lord, thank you that you've done all these things and so that we can have a good standing with you, a good covenantal relationship with you for forever,

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God. We're secure. We're completely secure and perfectly secure because you've accomplished all of this for us,

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God. And so, Lord, we thank you for the blessings that you've given us. We thank you for just our absolute security in you,

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Lord. And we pray that as we go into communion, Lord, that we would remember that and remember what it costs to get that, and that it would change our hearts and that it would make us more like like Jesus Christ.