Hag. 1:1-11: Consider Your Ways

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Intro

1)     Context reminder

A)   539 – Cyrus lets the Jews go back home after their Babylonian captivity

B)    535 (Ezra 3:10) – The builders laid the foundation of the temple

C)    Ezra 4:24 – The work stops

D)   520 (Ezra 5:1) – Haggai and Zechariah show up and ask, “What have you been doing for the last 15 years!”

2)     In this lesson, I want to point to three main points in Hag. 1.

Points

1)     The problem: The people have been prioritizing the wrong things.

A)   v. 2 – “These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.”

1)     It’s important to notice what they did NOT say:

(a)   They did not say that would not, or should not build God’s house.

(b)   They did not say that God did not matter to them anymore, or that they were ready to abandon this project.

(c)   They just said, “The time is not right yet.”

2)     I can Imagine some of their excuses:

(a)   We really need Persian politics to calm down and the economy to stabilize first.

(b)   The local opposition is pretty tense right now, and we don’t want to stir stuff up if it doesn’t need to be stirred up.

(c)   Once we get our own farms up and running, then we’ll have some discretionary income, and then we can get to the spiritual stuff.

(d)   It’s just not practical right now for us to be working on God’s stuff.

B)    vv. 3-4 – “Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?”

1)     “you yourselves”

(a)   Pic - There is a double “you” here for emphasis.

(b)   “YOU are living in paneled houses”

2)     “paneled houses”

(a)   NET Notes – “Paneling is otherwise known in the OT only in connection with the temple (1 Kgs 6:9) and the royal palace. It implies decoration and luxury. The impropriety of the people living in such lavish accommodations while the temple lay unfinished is striking.”

(b)   Trans.

(i)    NET – “richly paneled houses”

(ii)  NCV – “fancy houses”

(iii)          NLT – “luxurious houses”

(iv) NIrV – “you are living in your houses that have beautiful wooden walls”

3)     Summary: MSG – “How is it that it’s the ‘right time’ for you to live in your fine new homes while the Home, God’s Temple, is in ruins?”

C)    v. 8 – Reset your priorities to work for God’s pleasure and glory

1)     Implication: NOT your pleasure and your glory.

2)     It’s a pretty simple question: Are my priorities and efforts in life centered around what I like and what I want, or are they centered around what pleases God and gives him glory?

D)   v. 9 – “My house lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house.”

E)    POINT: God sent the prophet Haggai to give a message to this people, and that message is as clear as day: God’s temple has been sitting unfinished for 15 years because you have been prioritizing your own selves to the neglect of God’s pleasure and God’s glory.

1)     There are some things that we HAVE to do to live in this world. You HAVE to go to work and school and you don’t have a choice about those things.

2)     But there’s a pretty big space in our lives where we get to CHOOSE what we’re going to do with our time, and I wonder how often the choices we make in this space are based upon what I want rather than what brings pleasure and glory to God?

2)     Consider your ways.

A)   vv. 5, 7

B)    Lit. “set your heart on your ways”

C)    Trans.

1)     NET – “Think carefully about what you are doing”

2)     NIV – “Give careful thought to your ways”

3)     MSG – “Take a good, hard look at your life. Think it over.”

4)     NCV – “Think about what you have done.”

D)   CSBSB – This “is a call for serious thinking on the decisions that the people were making and what theses choices say about their priorities.”

E)    cf. Zech. 1:2-5 – Their fathers did not consider their ways, so where are they?

F)    This is our first action item:

1)     I want you to think about some things.

2)     How have you been spending your time? Has it been for your pleasure and your glory, or for God’s?

3)     How have you been spending your money? Has it been for your pleasure and glory, or for God’s?

4)     Men, how have you been leading your home? Towards what you want, or towards what God wants?

3)     Reality: The stuff you put before God will never amount to anything.

A)   v. 6

1)     Haggai:

(a)   “You have sown much, and harvested little”

(b)   “You eat, but you never have enough”

(c)   “You drink, but you never have your fill”

(d)   “You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm”

(e)   “And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes”

2)     Lk. 12:13-34

B)    vv. 9-10

1)     Irony:

(a)   I feel almost certain that these people said to themselves, “I’m going to work until I attain X, and, when I do, then I’ll be secure enough, and wealthy enough, and have enough time on my hands that I will finally be able to give God what he deserves.” I assume that they had good intentions.

(b)   You keep piling up your food, and God keeps blowing it away. You will never have enough.

C)    v. 11

1)     God’s people had been devoting themselves towards all the wrong things, so God said he was going to take those things away.

D)   Ps. 127:1-2

1)     Notes from this sermon: Main point: You can try to do whatever you want, but if your home, work, efforts are not aligned with God’s will, then your work is ultimately worthless and is a waste of time and will fail

2) You can get up and start working as early as you want, and stay up working as late you can

3) And you can work as hard as you possibly can while you’re at it

4) BUT... if your work is not aligned with God’s will, then you are ultimately wasting your time

(a)   It’s vain, empty, worthless, like vapor

(b)   And it will ultimately fail

4)     Conclusion: God’s message to the people of Israel through Haggai is the same message for us today:

A)   Have you been prioritizing the wrong things?

B)    Consider your ways!

C)    Remember, the stuff you put before God will never amount to anything.