Sermon Transcript
Haggai chapter 1, verses 8— 1 through 8. In the 2nd year of King Darius, on the 1st day of the 6th month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest. This is what the Lord Almighty says: These people say, the time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord’s house. Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses while this house remains a ruin? Now this is what the Lord Almighty says, give careful thought to your ways.
You have planted much but harvested little. You eat but never have enough. You drink but never have your fill. You put on clothes but are not warm. You earn wages only to put them in a purse with holes in it.
This is what the Lord Almighty says, give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I might take pleasure in it and be honored, says the Lord. Haggai chapter 2, verses 1 through 9. On the 21st day of the 7th month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai. Speak to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, to Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people.
Ask them, who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it not seem to you like nothing? But now be strong, Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong, Joshua of Jozadak, the high priest.
Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord, and work, for I am with you, declares the Lord Almighty. This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, and my Spirit remains among you. Do not fear. This is what the Lord Almighty says: In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all the nations, and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord Almighty.
The silver is mine and the gold is mine, declares the Lord Almighty. The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house, says the Lord Almighty. And in this place I will grant peace, declares the Lord Almighty.
Thank you, Johanna. And I would just want to say a word of welcome to Johanna and to all of our college students who are back in town. During this Thanksgiving break. I’m just so glad that you’re here. I got to talk with some of you.
Church family, can we welcome back some of our college students here?
We love it, and we always say we hope that you keep coming back. We want to be a family to you all and to your parents who’ve been longing for you to come back. We’re so glad that you’ve returned, and we know you’re going to go back here to your school here for a couple more more weeks and come back hopefully for the Christmas break and spend some time with us. But we hope that this feels like home to you. Happy Thanksgiving to everybody.
I know it’s a couple days ago, so I, I just feel like every day is Happy Thanksgiving, isn’t it? You know, we should always be thankful to the Lord. I hope that you all had a good one. I know that some of you are going through a variety of things in your lives, so maybe there are things that you’re wrestling with and struggling to remain grateful in the midst of all those things. As Pastor Dan preached that last week, that we have a hope even in the midst of difficulty, looking for ways to be grateful at all times.
Can you think of anything from your personal experience, I know I can, where something you thought had great value ended up having little value at all, and then other things that you thought had some value ended up actually Actually, it’s like, well, this wasn’t very valuable one way or the other. Can you think of anything like that? Like, take cryptocurrency for example. Okay, I, I don’t know the circles you run in, the last time you had a conversation about cryptocurrency. That’s not the circle of people I typically am with.
I remember the first time somebody introduced me to the idea. It was at a lunch, uh, in Mountain View. It was actually Peter Licari. Some of you remember Peter and his wife Katie, and now up north. But yeah, Peter and I were talking about cryptocurrency.
I just— I guess I wasn’t prepared for the possibility that we’d ever be talking about an entirely new form of currency that is essentially data stored on a hard drive somewhere. I’m not criticizing it. I’m not. I’m just saying I wasn’t prepared for it. When people started talking about it.
And Shannon and I did eventually buy a little just to mess with it a few years ago. And by a little, I mean very, very little. But what’s interesting to me is hearing about people who had cryptocurrency of some kind at the very beginning but didn’t really have an idea of its potential value one way or the other. And maybe you heard about the guy who paid for a couple of Papa John’s pizzas with 10,000 Bitcoins. After that transaction, though, the value of those very same Bitcoins skyrocketed, as you know, over the next decade.
And in fact, if that guy ever had sold his entire stash at Bitcoin’s all-time high of $68,990, he would have made roughly $1.5 million. $690 million, which is enough to buy, I think, 46 million large Papa John’s pizzas at $15 each. That would be a great youth party we could have, have some pizza out on the patio. But that’s why every May 22nd, whether you realize it or not, there, there’s actually a thing called Pizza Bitcoin Day every May the 22nd, because that was believed to be the very first use of Bitcoin in a commercial transaction with Bitcoin as the medium of exchange. Or maybe you heard about the guy in the UK who later on threw out his old hard drive, and then a friend reminded him that he had loaded some Bitcoin on it.
So the man checked to see what it was worth and found the Bitcoin on his hard drive was worth more than $6 million. By that time, the trash had already been picked up, though, so the man went to the landfill— this is a real story— and he dug and dug and dug and never found it. So here’s a hypothetical question for you. How long would you dig in a nasty landfill for a $6 million object? Turn to your neighbor.
I’m serious. Take 30 seconds and have a quick conversation. How long would you dig for a $6 million object?
All right, some of you are like, I would not do that. Others of you are like, I’d stay as long as it takes.
Again though, you and I— the point is, you and I know from our personal experience that again, there are often things which you think have no value that actually turn out to be incredibly valuable and worthwhile investments. And then there are other things that you thought had value that ended up not quite having the value that you thought that it did. We could all go around and share stories probably today, and this is why we want everybody here at the church in a small group of some kind— a life group, a Sunday morning group of some kind— so that we can share these kinds of stories and be of support to each other, to, uh, kind of bear those burdens with one another whenever we learn lessons like this the hard way. You can experiment with something like Bitcoin or some other kind of cryptocurrency or maybe something else with fairly minimal consequences, but the point of Haggai is that there are certain things that you should never gamble with. You certainly shouldn’t invest in the wrong way with your time and your energy when it comes to eternal things or a relationship with God.
And yet how often often do we continue to invest in and to prioritize and to give our lives over to things that don’t have lasting eternal value, that don’t matter, that won’t satisfy, and that can’t sustain us? How long are we going to keep doing that? We do that all the time. That’s one of the key themes of this small book in the Old Testament that bears the name of the Hebrew Haggai. We’re in the series of the minor prophets leading up to Christmas, and the message of Haggai is a message that we’ll be considering today as we continue on in this sermon series.
The book of Haggai is actually the 2nd smallest book or shortest book in the Old Testament. The shortest one is Obadiah. We did that one a few weeks ago. So the 2nd shortest book in the Old Testament is Haggai. And one of the biggest challenges, honestly, of studying Haggai or reading Haggai is just finding it in our Bibles.
I’m going to help you all. It’s right after Zephaniah and right before Zechariah, okay? So I hope that that helps you all a little bit with that. Haggai is a pretty short book, but that doesn’t mean that it’s minor. It is crucially important in the overall storyline of the Old Testament.
I like the book because it’s super easy to outline. It is essentially 4 different sermons that this prophet Haggai delivered to the Israelite people between a really precise amount of dates, August to December of 520 BC. You know, there’s lots of Old Testament dates that people are kind of fuzzy on. Nobody’s fuzzy about this. Between August and December of 520 BC, there’s all these historical records that tie into the people who were king at that time in the Persian Empire and all these things.
So that to me is interesting. Give you some quick context here. In 587, 586 BC, the unthinkable had happened. Jerusalem, the capital of Judah— had that, by the way, was the city, God’s chosen city, filled with God’s chosen people— Jerusalem fell to the Babylonian Empire. They came in, they burned the city, they destroyed the temple.
Most of the Jews were carried 900 miles to the east to Babylon in exile, and then And then about 50 years later, the Babylonians were overtaken and conquered by the Medo-Persian Empire. Cyrus was king of the Medes and the Persians. He issued a decree allowing any Jews who were still alive to return to Jerusalem from Babylon, and Cyrus even helped finance the return trip. So by around 536 BC, about 50,000 Jews returned to their homeland, and under the leadership of named Joshua and the governor of Judah named Zerubbabel, the people got off to a great start back in their homeland. They rebuilt the walls of the city.
They laid the cornerstone and foundation for a new temple, and then it just stopped. Production just mysteriously stopped, and things remained at a standstill, not for a month, not for a year, not for 2 years, for 16 years. So God sends our guy Haggai back into that community to get the people back on track, to finish the job of rebuilding the temple. That’s what Haggai is about. It’s about getting back on track.
You’ve gotten lost somewhere, gotten off the path. How do we get back on track that God has set before us? So we can boil the book of Haggai down to 2 key principles, simple principles that I’m going to give us today. They’re incredibly practical for our lives, whatever it is that you’re facing right now in your life. The first principle is to consider your ways, to consider your own ways.
Give careful thought to your ways. And the second is to consider God’s ways, to consider God’s ways. Let’s start with considering our own ways. In the opening verses of the book, we learn, as I mentioned a moment the Israelites had gotten off track and they stopped rebuilding the temple after they returned from exile. Why?
Well, verse 2 tells us the people started saying, quote, the time has not yet come to finish rebuilding the Lord’s house. Maybe some of the people had gotten indifferent to the idea of rebuilding the temple, figuring this is— this can wait. Maybe some others had just grown tired and bored of it, saying this doesn’t matter.
Matter? It’s not that big of a deal. Whatever the reason for indifference, we’re not totally told. They, according to verse 4, apparently had enough motivation to keep remodeling their own homes. Their own paneled houses is what it says.
They found a way to spend money on and to make a priority of the things that they wanted. Paneled houses may not sound all that great to you, although some of you are like, what’s wrong with paneled houses. I live in one.
These were some fancy homes.
The word for panel that Haggai uses implies well-appointed or comfortable. In other words, the people had not only settled back into their homes, but they had been to their equivalent of Restoration Hardware or West Elm, acquired all sorts of beautiful things for the home, and were living quite comfortably. Meanwhile, the walls of the unfinished temple just stood there as a visible accusation day after day against the people and their indifference towards what should have been their priority. They’re investing in the wrong things. So again, why were they so indifferent?
Because the people thought now is not the right time to rebuild. Okay, I’ll just go on ahead and ask the awkward question here. Have you ever delayed doing something that God wanted you to do by saying, it’s not the right time. You ever done that?
I have done that too many times to count. But, and I think you and I know this instinctively already, the time has not yet come is often code for I have better things to do. We don’t want to admit that, but let’s come on, that’s often what it means.
You know, we often in Christianity hear phrases like, I’m just waiting to get a word from God. Have you noticed that we only say that about spiritual things that we generally don’t want to do? Someone asks, hey, would you be open to hosting a small group in your home for ministry? And the other person says, you know, I’ve been praying and I’ve been asking, just waiting for God to move and to show me what he wants me to do. He hasn’t really answered me though.
Okay, how about serving somewhere? Well, Well, I’ve been praying for God to speak to me and to show me where I should serve. Okay, well, how about giving or being generous? You know, just waiting for God to do something financially in my life so that I can bless others. You ever done these things?
Again, I have. But if you notice, we never seem to say these things about things that concern serving ourselves. I’m really good at serving Steve I’ll just confess that to you. Steve, do you want to go see a movie tonight? Steve, do you want to watch the Warriors game tonight?
Some of you know if you are my wife’s friend on Facebook that we were the last couple days at Disneyland. They’re driving back right now. I came back last night so I could be with you all. Praise God. I’m happy to be here actually.
I was done with Disney, but, you know, we did everything we needed to do, but you never have to twist my arm to go to Disneyland. You never have to— should we go on Space Mountain? You know, I just— now is not the right time right now to do that. If you want to really see Shannon’s true colors, get her on that ride Toy Story Mania in California Adventure. She’s crazy on that thing.
You never have to convince— I don’t really know about that. You know, I’m just waiting to hear from God, and I just want the Spirit to move me. No, I I know how to serve me and what I want, but serving or obeying God, I’m waiting. Now’s not the right time. The point God is making through Haggai is not that it’s wrong to live comfortably.
He’s not saying it’s wrong to have money. Rather, he is condemning this living at the expense of obedience to God’s commands and blaming it as, well, it’s not the right time. It’s a matter of misplaced priorities, of investing in the wrong things, finding certain things to be more valuable than what they really are and not valuing the things that really are valuable. Haggai is asking, are your own houses really much more important than your allegiance to God? That’s what it seems like.
Okay, you say, so what was the big deal with the temple? What did God care, seriously, whether it got finished or not? Well, for one, I mean, it did say there in verse 8, God is saying rebuilding the temple would bring honor to him. So that’s a really big deal when God says, this would honor me, and they weren’t doing the very thing that would actually honor God. But again, what’s the big deal?
I mean, it’s just a building, right? There’s a long history of Christian pastors who love preaching on the book of Haggai wherever— whenever there’s like a building program at the church. Like, let’s let Haggai, you know, make the people feel guilty so that they give more But honestly, when King David had the first— had like brought up this idea of the first temple back up to God back in 2 Samuel, God didn’t seem altogether super excited about it. So why would God care about this now?
Here’s my supposition to you. I think it’s possible that this was super important to God because it would be a clear and public statement that God’s people still wanted him, even after having been in exile. This would be a statement that they still valued God, that he was a higher priority than all of the other things that clamored for attention in their lives. Second, it would also be a sign to the nations that the God of Israel had not gone out of business when Jerusalem had fallen years earlier. It would be a sign that God still lived among them, that he hadn’t abandoned them.
The temple was intended to be this visible symbol of the presence of God with his people. So no temple, no God’s presence. That’s a really big deal. So you think that for these reasons alone, rebuilding the temple would have been a priority for those who would return from exile, but it wasn’t. And so look at what God did.
Because the people put themselves first and God second or third or fourth or somewhere else other than first, God frustrated the people’s efforts. Verse 6 of chapter 1: You have planted much, but you’ve harvested little. You eat, but you don’t have enough. You’ve— you, you drink, but you never have your fill. You put on clothes, you’re not warm.
You earn wages only to put them in a purse or pocket that seems to have holes in it. Verse 9 of chapter 1, which, uh, we didn’t read, but you expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. God said, why? Declares the Lord Almighty, because of my house, which remains a ruin while each of you is busy with your own homes.
Verses 10 and 11 of chapter 1, therefore, because of you, the heavens have withered held their due, and the earth its crops. I was the one, God says, who called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the olive oil, and everything else the ground produces, on people and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands. Look, this wasn’t some kind of demonic spiritual attack, these bad things happening. This was the people of God reaping what they had sown or failed to sow. And so God was using various means to just try to get their attention, to give them a wake-up call.
And Haggai is saying, look, you’ve put all of this effort into your own life and your own homes. You’ve worked hard, but you ultimately ended up with disappointment because it’s never enough. You’re hungry, you’re thirsty, you’re cold, you’re exhausted, and the money you thought you had is not enough to satisfy you. You expected much, turned out to be little. And the reason why is because you have veered from the path of God and you’ve decided to put other priorities ahead of him.
So what is the conclusion? Give careful thought to your ways. Consider your ways. It says it twice in chapter 1, once in verse 5, once in verse 7, and then it says that same phrase 2 more times in chapter 2. Haggai doesn’t try to browbeat the people.
He’s not trying to manipulate them. He’s trying to say that in the middle of a disappointment, maybe there is something about the way that you view your life and the path that you’re on that you need to stop and reassess and audit your life, asking, is this really what I want out of my life? Is this worth it? Am I investing in the right things? So when Haggai says, give careful thought to your ways, it should remind us— reminds me of Jesus’ words: what good does it do you if you gain the whole world and then you lose your very soul?
Seek first the kingdom of God.
Let’s be clear, this is not a message about the prosperity gospel. Do these things and God will bless you, and if you don’t do these things, then God will not bless you, as if we can manipulate God. Let’s be clear. That’s not what this is. This is a reaping and a sowing, and God providentially working to get their attention.
But let’s also be clear. This message isn’t so much about the rebuilding of an ancient Middle Eastern temple. If it was, it wouldn’t apply to us. I’ve never been guilty of failing to rebuild a Middle Eastern temple. I’m not guilty of that, and neither are you?
This is about our priorities, isn’t it?
Anytime you or I put our own priorities before God because that seems the wise thing to do, the good thing to do, the prudent thing to do, like now’s not the right time, God will deconstruct that logic and challenge that wisdom like he does in Haggai. He reminds the people there’s nothing wrong with success, there’s nothing wrong with having a nice job or a nice house, but when you uncouple those things from the ways and the priorities of God, it will always leave you in a famine in the end. Seeking first the kingdom of God, seeking that first, always leads to true rest for your soul. So consider your ways, Haggai is saying. But second, the book of Haggai says, consider God.
Ways. Consider God’s ways. When we get to chapter 2 of Haggai, we see that the people had actually— and this is super surprising— lo and behold, these people actually listened to God’s correction in chapter 1. That never seems to happen in the Old Testament. Are you kidding me?
The prophets come and the people actually obey? The people actually repent? Okay, that, that’s, that’s surprising to But that actually happened, and they started rebuilding the temple again. Amazing. So the beginning of Haggai 2 is great.
They’re like, hey, let’s— Haggai checks back in with them at the beginning of chapter 2, 1 month after they started rebuilding, and they repent. And so he checks back in with them after the end of chapter 1. The people have resumed things, but the temple was honestly still looking pretty unimpressive, especially compared to the glory of the temple that King Solomon had built there some 500 years later that the Babylonians Babylonians had destroyed. And so sensing that morale was really low, Haggai goes ahead and he asks the people, look, let’s just compare the state, the current state of the temple with the former state. And we’re like, ouch, that really hurts, Haggai.
Why would you bring that up? He says, how does it compare? He asks. And by asking the question, he’s really trying to get at the people’s discouragement here because their answer would certainly be, look, of course this current temple seems like nothing compared to the former one. Physically speaking, all of the materials, the surfaces in Solomon’s Temple were overlaid in gold.
Did you know that? That former temple had the Ark of the Covenant. This new temple doesn’t have those things. There is no comparison between then and now, not by a mile. Those were the glory days, they would say.
That’s when we were bigger. That’s when we were better. That’s when people from all over the world would come to us. But now look at us. What’s going on here?
Well, for one thing, and I don’t think this is the only point in Haggai, but it is a point, there is a real danger in the kind of nostalgia, especially religious nostalgia, that can paralyze us and discourage us, in which you’re stuck in some story of something that existed before, saying things were just better back then. Sometimes we’re not even aware that we’re saying it or thinking it, but we just, we wrestle with that. And that just has a way of robbing us of joy of what God is doing right now and what he wants to do in the future.
Nostalgia can actually become an idol to us of the way things used to be. And nostalgia is great in certain circumstances, but it’s not good if it pulls our heart away from again what God wants us to do now in the present, which is what is happening here in Haggai 2. So what does God say to the people? Verses 4 and 5 of chapter 2, God says, be strong, work, don’t fear. Be strong, Zerubbabel the governor.
Be strong, Joshua the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land. Work. Why? Because God says, I am with you.
My Spirit remains among you, so don’t be afraid. He’s reminding the people that God’s ways are not our ways. He’s reminding the people to consider who he is, to consider what he’s done for them in the past— rescuing their ancestors out of Egypt, providing for them all along the way— to consider God’s covenant with them that he had made with them and that he still held on with them. And he’s also telling them to consider what God wants to do in the future. So in telling the people to be strong and to not fear, God is reminding the people that the glory of the Temple of Solomon was actually not the silver, it was not the gold.
The glory of Solomon’s Temple is not the people who came from all over the rest of the Eastern world to marvel at it. That was not the glory of Solomon’s Temple. The glory of the Temple of Solomon was the presence of God. So consider the ways of God. Take your eyes off of yourselves, this book is saying, and fix your eyes on God and be strong in that.
In God’s economy, because God’s ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts, in God’s economy, being strong doesn’t mean being stronger than everybody else or being consumed with being bigger and better than everyone else. In God’s economy, being strong actually means what? Being weak. Because we know that 2 Corinthians 12 says when we are weak, when we’re dependent upon God, then we’re actually made strong. That’s ironic.
In our weakness, God’s strength is made perfect and his grace is more than enough for us. Consider the ways of God. And God consistently chooses the weak things of the world, the foolish things of the world, to shame the seemingly strong and the seemingly wise. So, in saying, be strong, God is saying to lean into our weakness, to consider God’s ways, and that his ways, again, are not like our ways. So, God calls on the people to work in hope despite their challenging circumstances.
Circumstances, despite their disappointing circumstances. And then God makes this great promise in chapter 2, in verses 6 through 8. In a little while, God says, I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and what is desired— I love this phrase— what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house, meaning this temple, with my glory. The silver is mine and the gold is mine, God says.
And I’m telling you that the glory of this present house, the one that you’re struggling to rebuild right now, will actually be greater than the former house. And in this place, I will grant peace. Consider the ways of God.
God says, don’t worry about money. I’ve got more than enough for you to be able to finish this project and to provide for you and your panel houses. That is indeed what happened. In Nehemiah 6, it says that the Persian King Darius issued a decree to the Persian governor of the region that the cost of the temple should be paid in full and without delay from the royal revenue. So God did shake the nations, and he did provide more than what was needed.
And there’s another amazing promise that would be easy to skip over in the book of Haggai. We didn’t read it a moment ago when Johanna was reading these verses, but I just want to point it out because it’s to me so incredible, where God tells Haggai to tell Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, that I’m going to shake the heavens and the earth. It’s at the very, very end of chapter 2. Tell Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, I’m going to shake the heavens and the earth. I will overturn royal thrones.
I will shatter the power of the foreign kingdoms. I will overthrow chariots and their drivers, just like he did in bringing the people across the Red Sea. I will do these things. Horses and their riders will fall, each by the sword of his brother. And on that day, declares the Lord Almighty, I will take you, my servant Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, declares the Lord, and I will make you like my signet ring, for I have chosen you, declares the Lord Almighty.
Now some people are confused about the language there. The governor Zerubbabel there— what? It’s confusing because we don’t really know what happened to Zerubbabel after the book of Haggai. Historical records don’t tell us what happened to him. Some people think that once the Persian King Darius got things settled, he saw Zerubbabel as a potential rival in Judah and had him knocked off.
We— look, like, we just don’t know. But it mentions in verse 23, and I hope you picked up on it, that the Lord said that he would make Zerubbabel like a signet ring. You have to understand what a high honor that that would be. A signet is a mark of honor that you give from a king to an important person to show confidence in that person. It was a high honor.
And if you were to go back to Jeremiah— we’re not going to— Jeremiah chapter 22, verse 24, you’ll realize that God had actually announced a curse on Zerubbabel’s grandfather, King Jehoiachin, one of the last kings of Judah. God had told Jehoiachin that if he wore a signet ring, God would throw him off. Now, at the end of Haggai 2, God is picking back up this royal line of Joijachin, the line of David, and saying, I will bless you, Zerubbabel. And indeed, if you go to the genealogy at the beginning of Matthew 1 that eventually leads to Jesus, you’ll see Zerubbabel is right in that line of David that ultimately leads to Jesus. So verse 23 is a recommitment reaffirmation by God of his covenant with the people.
It had appeared to the people like God’s covenant with them was broken off when they were taken off into exile, but here God is reaffirming his relationship with the people. It’s amazing. So the promises made to Zerubbabel here in Haggai are not promises made to him personally, but rather as an heir to God’s— or excuse me, as an heir to David’s throne. Zerubbabel is this descendant of David David and was chosen to be the rebuilder of God’s house, so to speak. And in this way, Zerubbabel points us to whom?
Points us to Jesus. And all of the things that are promised in Haggai in chapter 2 will be ultimately fulfilled when Jesus comes. Jesus is the one who is the desire of all nations. Verse 7 says of chapter 2, he is the desire of all nations. He is the one who came so that when we wake up and we recognize our priorities are out of whack and how far short that we fall of God’s standard, and then we confess that to God so that we can be reconciled back to him.
And Jesus came so that we, all of us, could become the church, the people of God who would become the temple where God actually dwells. God is no longer located in a building.
Building. He’s located where? In his people. He literally dwells in his people. So our hope is not in the opulence of a physical temple or what God did in the past.
Our hope is not some paneled home. Our hope is not in our circumstances. Our hope is only— the only reason we have hope is because Jesus came as Emmanuel, God with us, God in us. So I hope we can see that this tiny book and this prophet with a funny name actually contains a really great challenge to every generation of God’s people. It’s this, that our choices, our priorities, your choices, your priorities really do matter.
So give very careful thought to your ways.
And give very careful thought to the ways of God. God calls each and every one of us here today. If you’re here today, God is calling you and me to put him first.
And whenever we talk about the place that God has in our life, that usually means trying to squeeze him in somewhere like we do our Thanksgiving plate with all the food and, well, there’s not really a whole lot of room here, but let me kind of wedge it in there so we can kind of make some place for God. That, that’s not what this is talking about.
God is looking for our hearts. He’s looking for, God, I want you to have priority over me and over everything else in my life— my paneled houses, my checking account, my children, my career, my education, all of these things, my health, health. God, I want you to have priority in all of these things. So the question for Israel in Haggai’s day, and the question for you today, for me: do you trust God enough to put him first?
Do you trust him enough to put him first? Let’s pray. Father, I want to thank you for your word. As your word goes forth, we trust that it will not return void, Father, that it will land in our hearts and bring conviction, not because me as a fallen human being have any power in my words, but because your Word brings life. I pray that it would take root in our hearts, that we would be changed by it today.
Consider our ways. Consider our priorities, the things that we think are valuable. Show us, Lord, where they are less important than what we might think, and the things that we don’t value, like weakness, like trusting you, Lord, I— you want those to be more valuable in our lives, Lord. Show us the error of our ways and change us. And thank you, Lord, that Jesus came to remind us that he is our temple.
He is the one who lives He is the one who dwells among us, and I pray, God, that we would be changed by that. Thank you for fulfilling these promises in Haggai through Jesus. And it’s in his name that we pray. Amen.
