Sound Advice For Sidetracked Saints

Introduction

Every January for the past several years, the Central Church up in Ocala has devoted one Saturday for a special all-day discussion of the work of evangelism. I’ve tried to go that to that every year, and some of you have been with me the last couple years. I try to go because I found those sessions so instructional and encouraging and inspiring. And I found them a bit challenging. Every year when I go, I find myself reminded about how important this work of winning souls really is. And how I need to be more diligent about that. And one of the reasons I like to go is I always leave feeling like I’ve had my tank filled up and I’m excited and pumped up and eager to come back and get to work and be more diligent.

And usually for a while, I think I am.

But something happens to that energy and that motivation after some time passes. Other things come up, and my attention gets diverted, and all of a sudden the enthusiasm is lost, and I found myself slipping back into old patterns of neglect and not being diligent about that work like I ought to be. I get sidetracked from my good intentions. Do you ever have that happen to you? Ever struggle with that? Maybe sitting in a Bible class and hear some great discussion about how we we ought to study the Bible more. Or maybe hear a sermon about prayer calling us to our responsibility and our need for an effective prayer life, or one that reminds us of our need to spend more time with our children talking about God’s word, and you think, you know, I really need to do better about that.

And maybe we go away determined that we are going to do better, we’re going to study more, we’re going to pray more. I’m going to take more time with my kids, and maybe for the next couple of days, we do. Then something happens, doesn’t it? Things come up, and our attention gets diverted and stuff gets in the way, and all of a sudden we find ourselves slipping back into old patterns of neglect.

It’s so easy to get sidetracked from our good intentions and grow neglectful of God’s important work in our life. If you can understand that struggle, then I think you’ll be able to understand somewhat what the Old Testament prophet Haggai was up against when God called him into service to take his message to his people. Be turning in your Bibles, if you will, this evening to the book of Haggah. Haggai was called to motivate a people who had allowed themselves to be sidetracked from important spiritual responsibilities. To set the context, sixteen years before Haggaiah’s prophecy, 50,000 Jews had left Babylonian captivity and returned to their homeland to rebuild their cities and restore their life there after having been captives for 70 years. And it’s impressive if you go back to the early chapters of the book of Ezra and notice their efforts to move back and to get back to work.

It’s impressive to notice that they start on the right foot, I’m convinced. One of the first things they do when they get back is they restore the altar of God. And they get back to the Levitical system of sacrifices. They get back to the worship of Jehovah. And they begin to gather materials for the purpose of rebuilding the temple. It’s impressive to notice in these early chapters of Ezra that when they come back, they get started doing the right things. They’re focused on the right things. They’re going in the right direction. But we know what happens next, don’t we? They got sidetracked. Opposition arose from their neighbors, and false accusations were made by the kings, and governmental authority came to bear against them, and all kinds of problems came up that sidetracked them from their work, and they were soon diverted from it, and work on the temple ceased.

What is sad is that it stopped for 15 years. All that time the temple was lying there, desolate, unfinished. That’s when God called Haggai. It’s impressive how really simple the message of Haggai is. If you want to summarize it real quickly, it is build the temple. God called upon him to go back to the people and say, get to work, doing what you should have been doing all along. Build my temple. But as uncomplicated as the message is, getting the people to that task was a bit more complicated. Because in doing so, Haggai would have to address all of the things that had sidetracked the people and hindered them from finishing this important word. In doing that, in speaking to the people about those things, I’m convinced that Haggai says something to us.

Like the people of his day, we suggested, sometimes we find ourselves deterred from God’s work. And what I find interesting is that I think we’re typically deterred by the very same kinds of things that deterred the people of his day. And so when Haggai speaks to them, I’m convinced he speaks to us. There are lessons to be learned about what was tripping them up and how Haggai chose to respond to those problems. And so I want us tonight to take a closer look at this short Old Testament prophet and some of the sound advice he would give to those of us who were sidetracked sayings, sidetracked from God’s important spiritual purposes. God’s first message, if you’ll start with me in Haggai chapter 1 and verse 1, came to the prophet on the first day of the sixth month.

1. Sidetracked by Misplaced Priorities

That would have been in the latter part of our month of September by our calendar. God would send four messages to the people through the prophet Haggai, and this evening we’re going to look primarily at three of those messages. The first message was designed to attack the problem that had allowed the people for all these years to neglect God’s temple. If he was ever going to get them to resume the work, he had to attack the problem that for all these years had kept them from doing the work. Read with me the first eleven verses.

Zerubbable, the son of Sheltel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehosedek the high priest, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, this people says, the time has not come, even the time to rebuild the house of the Lord. Then the word of the Lord came by Haggard the prophet, saying, Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in paneled houses while this house lies desolate? Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. You have sown much but harvest little. You eat, but there is not enough to be satisfied. You drink, but there’s not enough to become drunk. You put on clothing, but no one is warm enough. And he who earns earns wages to put it into a purse with holes.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. Go up to the mountains and bring wood and rebuild the temple that I may be pleased with it and glorify and be glorified, says the Lord. You look for much, but behold it comes to little. And when you bring it home, I blow it away. Why declares the Lord of hosts? Because of my house which lies desolate while each of you runs to his own house. Therefore, because of you the sky has withheld its dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. And I call for drought on the land, on the mountains, on the grain, on the new wine, on the oil, on what the ground produces, on men, on cattle, and all the labor of your hands.

What was the problem? Well, Haggai seems to suggest that what had kept them all this time sidetracked from God’s word was a problem of misplaced priorities. And as proof of that, he would cite not only their neglect of God’s house, but what they had taken care of in the process. In verse 2, when the question came up of God’s house and restoring God’s house, it said the people would respond by saying, Well, it’s not time. It’s not the right time. Circumstances aren’t right to begin that project. He says, Yes, you say that. But verse 4, is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses? Oh, they’ve taken care of themselves. They built fine homes for themselves. Some suggest the idea of paneled houses implies some degree of luxury.

They built nice homes for themselves. But when it came to rebuilding the temple, well, all they had for that were excuses. It’s just not the time for that project. He uses this phrase in verse 5 twice. He challenges the people to consider your ways. And I think the meaning that he’s trying to convey there is look at what you’ve been doing and the consequences of it. You’ve chosen to see to your own material concerns and leave the house of God desolate, and you’ve done that for the past 15 years, but how have you fared during that time?

Verse 6, he says, You’ve suffered for it. You sow, you’ve sown much but harvest little. You eat, but there isn’t enough to be satisfied. They’ve experienced shortages. Things haven’t gone well for them. Say you earn wages, but all of a sudden it’s gone. It’s like putting money into a purse with holes in it. Verse 9. God asked the question, why? declares the Lord of hosts. Why has it been that way? He says, Because of my house which lies desolate while each of you runs to his own house. Don’t misunderstand. God is not griping with the people because they had built houses for themselves, or even that they had built fine houses for themselves. That wasn’t the problem. It’s what they had done that in replacer. You’ve done that for yourselves, but you’ve neglected God’s house.

Right apart of verse 7, he says, Consider your ways, go up to the mountains, bring wood, and rebuild the temple. Now, before we make some applications, I can’t pass by that without noting how the people respond. How would you like it if some preacher got up here and said to you folks, you know, your problem is your priorities aren’t straight. You need to get with it and get that straight. Would you like that? Verse 12. It says, Then Zarubel the son of Sheltao and Joshua the son of Jehoshaphat, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, just underline this in your Bible, 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 showed reverence for the Lord. And he goes on to tell how they took up the work of rebuilding the temple. In fact, just 23 days from the time that message was preached, the people were working on the house of the Lord. And I’m going to tell you something, folks. That’s how you respond to preaching. When God’s word is presented to us, we need to hear it. We need to understand it. And then when we’ve done that, we need to get with it. Whatever it is that God’s word has called upon us to do. That’s what they do. And in that they teach us an important lesson. But I think there’s a lot to be learned from this problem of misplaced priorities that plague the people of Jerusalem.

In fact, this whole first chapter, I fear, really strikes kind of close to home for those of us today. Because sometimes we find ourselves in our lives building all kinds of houses. While neglecting the most important house, the spiritual house. I’m not talking about the church building. I’m talking about our relationship with Jesus Christ and the work to which God has called us to do. My first work as a preacher was in the college town of Huntsville. And I watched a lot of young people come to school in Huntsville, Texas, and focus on building a good intellectual house, getting a good education. And they gave their energies to that, while at the same time they neglected their spiritual house. They didn’t even always have time to go to church.

Much less study their Bible and pray and work to talk to lost friends around them. It was as though some of them were saying the same thing that the people of Jerusalem were saying. It’s not time to work on God’s house. I mean, college is busy, and I’ve got a lot to do, and I’ve got to get my education. And when I get that knocked out, and that getting gets taken care of, then I’ll work on God’s house. The only problem is, in four years later, as those young people would walk across that stage and receive their diploma, having built this fine intellectual house, they did it to the destruction of their own faith because they had no faith when they left school. Oh, they built a fine intellectual house, but God’s house was desolate.

And it’s easy in a culture like ours to get busy building financial houses. We even use that terminology, don’t we? Problem is sometimes we get so consumed about that that we neglect our spiritual houses. Does it ever seem like we just don’t have time for family devotional? That we do all this stuff all day long and we get to the end of the day and we didn’t spend any time talking about God’s word together.

No time to pray and to study, maybe not even enough time to come to assemblies or to talk to our neighbors about the gospel. Does it just seem like spiritual things are always getting pushed back off in the corner to the back burner of our lives? We get to the end of the day, and there just wasn’t time for those things. Oh, it’s not that we’re not doing anything. We’re all building something, folks. The question is, what are we building? And are we allowing God’s house to be a neglected? I suggest that we need to ponder the words of Haggai when he said to the people in verse 5 and verse 7, consider your ways. Look at what we’re doing and the outcome of it. Where are our energies focused?

And what will the outcome of those choices be? What Haggai tried to say to the people of Judah is look, you’ve been neglecting God’s house all this time, and there have been consequences of that. The land has suffered, you have suffered. There’s been poverty and struggle and difficulty because you’ve neglected God’s house. Brethren, the same is no less true in our day. That when we neglect God’s spiritual relationship with us in our lives, there are going to be consequences of it. I’m convinced that often our spiritual weaknesses that never seem to be overcome. Our struggling and failed marriages, our rebellious children, our dead churches are symptomatic of neglected spiritual houses in individual lives. We need to listen to Haggai’s warning. And consider our ways. Whether we’re a student in school or a young married couple trying to bring up children in a difficult world, or an older couple who’s thinking about those retirement years, we need to be sure that we take care of God’s house by nurturing our relationship with Him and making room for His work.

2. The Problem of Disappointment

Folks, we can’t get sidetracked by misplaced priorities. And in thinking about that, I would remind you of the response that the people of Haggai’s day had to that message when he challenged them about their priorities. I tell you what they did. They got with it. How about us? How will we respond? Well, there was another message. This one about a month, if you’ll be turning to chapter 2 of Haggai. This one about a month after they had begun the work, a month into the project to rebuild the temple. So we’ve come now, probably roughly on our calendar, about the middle of October. And again, Haggai was called to carry a message from God to the people. And again to address a problem that threatened the work.

You see, it wasn’t just enough to get them started, but as the work progressed, there were problems that were arising that needed to be handled. Problems that threatened to sidetrack them from this important work. And in chapter 2, starting in verse 1, Haggai would talk about another such problem. Read with me, if you will, please. It says, on the 21st day of the seventh month, the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet, saying, Speak now to Zerubbabel, the son of Sheltel, the governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehosedick, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, saying, Who was left among you who saw this temple in its former glory? And how do you see it now? Does it not seem to you like nothing in comparison?

But now take courage, the rubble, declares the Lord. Take courage also, Joshua, the son of Jehosedak, the high priest. And all you people of the land, take courage, declares the Lord, and work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts. As for the promise which I made you when you came out of Egypt, my spirit is abiding in your midst. Do not fear.

That this new temple wasn’t going to be anything like the old one. In fact, there were some there that were old enough to remember the temple of Solomon and its glory. And really, Haggai addresses himself particularly to them in verse 3 when he says, Who is left among you who saw this temple in its former glory? And how do you see it now? Does it not seem to you like nothing in comparison? I kind of have a mental image of what this scene must have been like. I imagine that the younger men of the city were the ones doing the work on the new temple. Now, I’m not trying to insult anybody, but I imagine the older men, perhaps out of their pride for doing that work, were watching the younger men do it, probably to be sure they were doing it right.

And as they saw it go up, they just thought this isn’t going to look like the old one. I mean, the old temple had been built during the glory days of the nation, during the wealth years of Solomon when they had all the resources to put into it. These people lived in desperate times. Resources weren’t there to build something like had been built in the days of Solomon. And they just knew it wasn’t going to turn out so good. Maybe you could just see them tearing up and weeping as they pondered that. And how discouraging that must have been to those who were doing the work on God’s house. As they saw the men weeping with disappointment. Well, you know, that’s a problem that threatened to jeopardize the work.

Listen, if it’s never going to measure up, if it’s never going to be good enough, why try? And I think the problem of disappointment is one that affects our efforts to work for God as well today. I’m fearful sometimes that as Christians we’re under this delusion that whenever we set out to do something for God, that everything is supposed to come off without a hitch. That when I’m trying to do God’s work, everything’s supposed to work out right in the end. And there aren’t supposed to be any disappointments. Anybody that’s done God’s work knows that that’s just not so. That in reality, many of the things that God calls upon us to do are things that are fraught with the threat of disappointment. I tell you, folks, I’ve taught some Bible classes with unbelievers that I was just convinced, based upon what I’d seen, upon their attitude, that when we got to the conclusion of this thing and they heard what was right, they were going to obey.

I just knew it. I was anxious to get to the end and bring them to the call of decision because I knew they were going to obey. And I got them down to that point and called upon them to do the right thing, and guess what? They didn’t. That’s disappointing. That’s discouraging. So many of the things that we do with God do for God are fraught with that possibility. Sometimes our efforts to do the right thing just don’t seem to come off as we’d hoped, and we’re disappointed. And the danger is that that disappointment gets us gets us sidetracked. Boy, when you go out and you try to teach someone the gospel, and it goes so well, and then they just reject it. Isn’t it easy to say, why am I doing this?

Why do I even try? How do you deal with that? How do we deal with the danger of disappointment and keep it from sidetracking us in our word? Well, let me tell you that Haggai had some things to say about that. That I think we need to consider. In fact, I think there were four things that he told the people to help them deal with their disappointment. And most, the first three are found in verse 4. I want you to notice, first of all, that he tells the people to deal with their disappointment. They need to take courage. I think the old King James translation in the NIV rendered that same phrase, be strong. And I think literally the idea is be inwardly tough. You know, there are moments when God’s work just requires toughness.

These people were facing a moment like that. Things weren’t turning out, it seemed, as they had hoped. They were discouraged. And what does Haggai say? He said, you know what? You just need to be tough about this. And folks, so do we. Sometimes there just isn’t any other way to put it. When we run into a wall of disappointment and our effort to work for God, and we’re discouraged by that, sometimes we just need to say to ourselves, get over it and be tough. Work in the kingdom of God is no place for the wimpy of spirit. You know, folks, our strength is not tested at moments of victory. We don’t know how strong we are when everything turns out like we hoped it would. Strength is tested in the depths of disappointment.

What does Haggai say? He says, y’all just need to take courage. You need to be strong in the face of this disappointment. And then again in verse 4, connected right with that, he says, and work. God had called them to rebuild this house. He had called them to this work. And in spite of how it may appear that things weren’t going, or in spite of the fact that things may have seemed to be disappointing, they just had to keep with them. Keep working. And that’s what we have to do. When we’re out there doing the work to which God has called us and we face all kinds of disappointments that come along the way, really, you only have two options in how we respond to disappointment.

You think about that? When things don’t go right, there are only two ways to handle that. One is to be defeated by the disappointment, to just say, well, if that’s the way it’s going to go, why try and quit? Or we can redouble our efforts and keep on working, which means we defeat the disappointment. When we’re working with some poor soul out here that rejects the gospel and that disappoints me, I just need to look around and say, Well, who’s next? Keep working. Certainly that would be the option that God would prefer. And then a third thing that he tells them, he reminds them that God is with them. In verse 4, and then again in verse 5. Take courage, declares the Lord, and work, for I am with you.

How much comfort is there in those words? Those almost don’t even need additional comment.

That together with God, they’re tackling this problem. And with him on their side, what enemy is too great? What obstacle too difficult to overcome? And we need to remember that. You know, I think too often our disappointment and discouragement is rooted in the fact that we view all the work that we have to do as being accomplished or things that we have to accomplish by our own power and our own strength. And I’m going to tell you something, folks. When David Banning looks out into this old world and thinks about what God wants him to do and to accomplish by my own strength, that’s not very much. But you know, when I think about what I’ve got to do for God and connection with him and by his power with Isell, listen, what enemy can withstand that?

What obstacle will be too great to overcome? In the face of disappointment, we need to remember that God is with us. And God works with us. And then a fourth thing that he tells them is he tells them what they don’t realize is that greater things are coming. That they just can’t see. And really, in verses 6 and 7 and 8 and 9, that’s what he talks to them about. I have to confess, I’m not exactly sure what Haggai is trying to say in these four verses. Particularly in verse 9, he seems to be driving to this point that the latter glory of this house will be greater than the former. In essence, saying what you don’t realize is that there are greater things coming. What does he mean by that?

Some suggest that perhaps he’s saying little more than look, it doesn’t look like much now, but when it’s finished, it’s going to be a whole lot more. Well, that’s always true when you’re working on a project like that. But you know, the language I think suggests that there’s more to it than that. In fact, I’m convinced that the prophecy of here and of Haggai, these verses is messianic in nature, that he’s looking forward to the time of the coming of Jesus when the ultimate temple of God, the church, would be established. And I think he’s saying to the people that in spite of how things look at that moment, God’s got a grand plan that he’s accomplishing, and what you need to do is you need to do your little part right now that he needs you to do, and let God get the big things accomplished in the end.

We need to remember that. Folks, we can’t always see the end result of our efforts. You may be teaching children in Bible class and just feel like nothing you say is getting through those skulls. You may talk with a neighbor and plant seed that just seemed like is lying dormant. But the truth is that our contribution may only be part of a greater purpose. That in time is going to grow and germinate into something grand. The point is we just need to do our part. Even at that moment, we’re disappointed because we don’t see the results we hope for. We just need to do our part. Because greater things may be come. And that’s what Haggai told them to help them deal with their discouragement. We need to be careful that disappointment doesn’t sidetrack us from the important things that God has called upon us to do.

3. Sidetracked by Impatience

Well, there is a fourth message that Haggai would deliver to the people, this time starting in chapter 2 and verse 10. Two months after this second message was delivered, now we’ve reached mid December. Haggai would once again be called upon to bring a message to the people to head off a threat that was potentially going to derail their work. This time it appears from the reply that Haggai gives that the people were discouraged because of impatience, that they were discouraged because they had not seen the blessings that they had anticipated when they had renewed their efforts to serve the Lord. Remember, Haggai had told them back in chapter 1, in the very first speech he gave them, you’ve neglected God’s house, and that’s why you’ve been suffering.

That’s why things have been so difficult. And so it wasn’t a leap to an illogical conclusion to think, well, if we’ll just get busy and we’ll start doing the right things, then God’s blessings will be upon us, and we’ll turn things around, not just spiritually, but in all aspects of our life as a nation. Well, here they were three months into the project. And they weren’t seeing any results. They weren’t seeing the blessings. They were still suffering. And God let them down. Chapter 2, starting in verse 10, seems to be God’s attempt to reply to such a concern. Read with me, starting in verse 10. It says, On the 24th of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Haggai the prophet, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, ask now the priests for a ruling.

If a man carries holy meat in the fold of his garment and touches bread with this fold, or cooked food, wine, oil, or any other food, will it become holy? The priest answered and said, No. Then Haggai said, If one who is unclean from a corpse touches any of these, will the latter become unclean? And the priest answered and said, It will become unclean. Now here’s the point, verse 14. Then Haggai answered and said, So is this people. He said, You’re unclean. And so is this nation before me, declares the Lord. And so is every work of their hands and what they offer there is unclean. He said, You’re unclean, and just as when a defiled person comes in contact with anything else, he makes it unclean, so because as a nation you’re unclean.

Everything you’ve done, everything you’ve touched, your sacrifices, your labors, they’ve all been unclean. Verse 15, but now consider from this day backward. Before one stone was placed upon another in the temple of the Lord. From that time when you came to a grain heap of 20 measures, there would be only ten. And when one came to the wine vat to draw 50 measures, there would only be 20. I smote you, and every work of your hands with blasting wind, mildew, and hell. Yet you did not come back to me, declares the Lord. Do consider from this day onward, from the 24th day of the ninth month, from the day when the temple of the Lord was founded. Consider, is the seed still in the barn? Even including the vine and the fig tree and the pomegranate and the olive tree, it has not borne fruit yet.

And here’s the key, verse 19. Yet from this day on, I will bless you.

God challenges them first to look back over the last 15 years. Said, you folks have been unclean. And as a result, everything you touched was cursed. Doomed to failure. But things were changing. The people had showed reverence for God. They were back to work on his house. And in verse 18 and 19, what Haggai appeals them to do is look forward now. You’re doing the right things. And as a consequence of that, what does he say in verse 19? Yet from this day on I will bless you. The blessing’s going to come. You’ve got to be patient. To be derailed by that impatience and disappointment that they weren’t seeing the blessings they wanted right now, and to stop doing the right things would do what? It’d just take them back to a state of being unclean again.

It wasn’t going to fix anything. We had to be patient. And I think there’s a lesson in that for us. Because sometimes I fear that we risk being sidetracked in our spiritual efforts by impatience. Because we don’t see immediately the results that we want. Has that ever discouraged you? There have been times where I really wanted to understand a particular passage in the Bible, and I was just convinced that if I would sit down at my desk and open up my Bible and pull out a few books and read and study that for an hour or two, I’d figure it out. I’m going to tell you something, brother folks. There have been times when I’ve done that that after I’d studied for an hour or two, I was more confused and new less than when I started.

And I did it, and I just didn’t get the results. Not immediately, not that I wanted. And it’s easy to just kind of throw your hands up and say, Well, I’m not going to figure this out. Point is that we can’t give up when we don’t see immediately the results we want. We’ve got to keep patiently working. And that’s true in our spiritual lives as well. Maybe we’re out here trying to tackle some weakness that we’re wrestling with. You know, sometimes we have the disposition, maybe I’m struggling with being patient. And we say to the Lord, look, I want to be patient, God, and I want you to teach me to be that way right now. Right?

And when we start trying to be more patient, when we fail, we get discouraged and just are ready to quit when we struggle. Can’t give up when we don’t see immediately the results we want. We’ve got to keep working patiently. And you know that’s true in our local congregations. Maybe we look around and perceive that as a church there’s some things we need to be working on. There’s some things that we could do better. And maybe we make suggestions about that, and maybe we try to do better, but after after some weeks or even some months, it seems like we’re still negligent and still need to do better. You know, sometimes brethren just kind of get frustrated when that happens and they throw up their hands and they give up.

Conclusion

It’s not the time to quit. We can’t give up when we don’t immediately see the results we desire. We’ve got to keep working patiently at it. We all like to feel like we’ve reached the goal and fixed the problem and conquered the weakness. But that doesn’t always happen today or tomorrow. And when we struggle, we must learn to persevere in what is right. We can’t be sidetracked from doing the right thing by impatience because we don’t immediately see the desired result. Well, I tell you, I think this grand old Testament prophet had some things to say to us. We’ve got a great work to do. But you know there’s the risk always that there are things that are going to come up that are going to get us sidetracked.

Maybe the wrong priorities, maybe disappointment, maybe impatience. I think the prophet helps us learn how to deal with that. Take out your songbooks, if you would, please, and turn to the number that Tim has selected as the invitation song. And before he leads us in that song, I’d like for you to think with me just for one more moment. About what it might be in your life that’s keeping you from obeying your Lord. Maybe there’s someone in this audience that’s not a Christian. And you’ve been derailed from serving your God, and you’ve been hindered from being right with him for some cause, for some reason. What tonight has kept you from serving your God? Wrong priorities? Disappointments in your life? Listen, folks, being right with God, building that spiritual house needs to be our primary concern.

Whatever has sidetracked you tonight, you need to get back on course and make your life right with him. If you’re subject to his invitation, come right now. It’s together. We stand while we sing.