Consider Your Ways

invite you to Haggi chapter 1, Haggi 1. We’re going to read that text in just a few moments. So, good to be here with you this morning. And what we’re going to talk about this morning really, I think, is some of the concept of behind what we do each week when we get together. The the main theme, the concept of the sermon sort of writes itself when you read Hagi chapter 1. The repeated refrain that the prophet is going to give the people is consider your ways.

And of course, that’s what we do each week. We’re we’re meant to come here and to consider our ways and to think through who we are and what we’re trying to be and who God is and what that means for us. And so, this message is very direct from Haggi, but I think it’s it’s something that really applies all the time. It’s why we sing the songs that we sing. It’s why we open scripture and we look through it because we’re using it as a mirror. We’re trying to consider ourselves. Think about the kind of person I am.

Is it matching up with go what God wants me to be? And so I appreciate the work that’s already been done this morning, the thoughts and the prayer that Rick offered and the songs that we’ve all sung together, the teaching that has already been a part of what has taken place this morning. And I think that’s God’s wisdom behind that. There may be various situations that we’re all in this morning. And maybe it was the singing you needed most this morning. Maybe it’s the words that we proclaimed and that we said to each other. Maybe you’re in a situation this morning where it’s the words of Haggi 1 that you need the most.

But it’s why we do all of this together. It’s why we sing to one another and we teach one another through song. And it’s why we open scripture. And so I invite you to do that with me now as we look at Haggi chapter 1 in the words of this great prophet to the people who have returned from exile. It says in verse one, “In the second year of Daras the king. In the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggi to the prophet the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shithiel, governor of Judah, to Joshua the son of Jehosedac the high priest.

Thus says the Lord of hosts.” These people say, “The time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.” Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Hagi the prophet. Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies in ruins? Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. You have sown much and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough. You drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.

Thus said the Lord of Hosts, “Consider your ways. Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord. You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why, declares the Lord, Lord of Hosts, because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. Therefore, the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce.

And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills and on the grain and the new wine and the oil on what the ground brings forth on man and beast and on all their labors. Then Zerubbabel the son of Chitiel and Joshua the son of Jehosedac the high priest with all the remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the Lord their God. And the words of Haggi the prophet as the Lord their God had sent him. And the people feared the Lord. Then Haggi the messenger of the Lord spoke to the people with the Lord’s message.

I am with you, declares the Lord. And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, the son of Chil, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua, the son of Jehoshed, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and worked on the house of the Lord of hosts their God, on the 24th day of the month, in the sixth month, and in the second year of Das, the king. These people were not simply rebellious. It’s not that they decided we don’t want to serve the Lord.

We’re not interested in the things of the Lord. In fact, these are the people who when the call was made with the decree of Cyrus, they decided to come back. They wanted to come back to God’s city and begin rebuilding his city and rebuilding his temple. They had returned from exile into a pretty difficult situation. And they had experienced a lot of difficulties along the way. They had direct opposition of the people around them in the land. There were various delays. There were economic pressures and disappointments that were caused by the situations they found themselves in.

And then there was the emotional weight of trying to rebuild something that had been destroyed. Looking at the city that had once been so glorious and this temple that had been so amazing and now realizing, at least in their own minds, it was going to be much smaller, much less significant. And a lot of what Haggi and Zachchariah are doing in their prophecy is trying to help them see the importance of even small things. It’s small in your eyes, but this is big in terms of what God is planning and what he wants you to accomplish.

And because of that, their apathy is somewhat understandable, even if it is not faithful. It’s the struggle of humanity at times where we know what we ought to do, and yet for various reasons, we delay or we find interest somewhere else and we don’t accomplish the task at hand. The same things happen to us from time to time. Whether it’s discouragement or weariness or the complexities of life, maybe there’s disappointment in ourselves or in others.

There are just the ordinary pressures of life that slowly make even hard workers sometimes apathetic to the work that needs to be done. And we begin protecting our own house, our own schedules, our own family systems, our own comfort. And God’s work is left undone in the process. And I think for many people, just like these exiles, the problem is not uh that we’re trying to be rebellious. It’s not that we look at what God has asked us to do and say, “We don’t want to follow God.

We’re not interested in that.” It’s that maybe our efforts have seemed ineffective or they’ve gone unappreciated or maybe they’ve been hindered by the actions of others or maybe by our own unwillingness to follow through with the desires of our heart that we know would please the Lord. All the exiles felt much of these same feelings based on what we see in places like Ezra and Nehemiah and Haggi and Zachchariah. And after these discouragements and the obstacles that come our way, it becomes easy to coast to lower our expectations to settle into kind of half-hearted devotion that challenges no one doesn’t challenge me.

It makes everyone kind of feel comfortable. We’re happy with the way things are and we just let them continue going on and on day after day without any change. I think in many ways this describes the post- exilic people. These people who came back from their exile in Babylon. They’re here in the city. They’re supposed to be building and through a variety of situations, sometimes of their own doing and sometimes someone else’s doing, now they’ve just been stuck in this pattern where nothing is happening.

Cyrus’s decree, you may remember, was in 539, 538 BC, somewhere around there. Haggi and Zachchariah are doing their work in 520 BC. So, they’ve been back in the land for 18 years. The foundation is laid pretty early on. We see this in the book of Ezra. Everyone’s excited and then the work stops. And it stops for a long time. kind of amazing to think about that the very purpose these people have come back. They’re walking day by day and they’re looking at this foundation that they had laying of the temple as it gradually is dilapitated over time and by the time we get to Hagi’s day they actually have to redo some of this work because we read further in the text and we see they actually have to lay the foundation again.

I don’t know what all was involved in that if they had to completely strip it away and redo it that something had to happen. and they had to secure up part of the what had been lost over those 18 years. And now it was time to rebuild. And so I want us to think about some of the lessons that we can learn from these people, from these post- exilent people, the struggles they have. I think many of those are the same kinds of struggles. They’re not going to be exactly the same. And I do want to point out before we go much further that they had a direct command essentially from God to come back and rebuild the temple.

And so we’re getting lessons and concepts and ideas from this that we can maybe have them resonate in our life about the things that we’re trying to do which are maybe general principles or ideas of what God wants from us. He has not necessarily given us direct statements about each thing to be done. But we can learn from what’s happening here with them not fulfilling what God had asked them to do for now many years when it was a direct expectation from the Lord and yet they have not done this.

And so their time though it’s very different also has a lot of similarities with us as humans. We just struggle with the same kinds of things. Whether it’s discouragement or economic pressures or just the ordinary life that goes on around us or we get distracted by the things that we’re dealing with. We get caught up in the world around us and we’re seeking after that first rather than the kingdom of God first. And that’s what we’re dealing with in this series over these next few weeks. the idea of seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all of these things will be added to you.

And I think the problem we see in Haggi 1 is that they’re seeking after all of these things. That’s what’s happening in the text. That’s what God points out through Haggi. They’re seeking after the food and the drink and the clothing, all the the basic things that Jesus talks about in Matthew 6 that he says, “Don’t worry about that. Worry about the things that matter most and all of those things are going to be added. Those are the the extras. Those are the very basics. Don’t get caught up in all that.

Focus where the focus needs to be. And all the daily things of life, they are going to take care of themselves. But as humans, it’s easy to lose sight of that reality. And not only to lose sight of that, to put ourselves into the things that actually aren’t going to give anything back to us. That’s what’s happening here with the people in Haggi’s day and what they’re going through. The first reality I see in this text as we’re reading through Haggi in the first chapter is that when we deal with all the things we just talked about, the discouragement, um the apathy that we begin feeling where, whatever the source may be, the tendency is that these pressures, these disappointments, they tend to make us turn inward.

You’ve probably experienced that some way in your life. you put a lot of effort into something, whatever it might be, maybe your child’s birthday or something, and they don’t show any appreciation. And so you say, “I’m not doing that again.” And I put all this work into this, and they didn’t even care. I’m going to take care of myself. I’m going to do things for me. Now, hopefully with our kids, that’s not where we go. But you’ve know the feeling.

you understand the mindset where a lot of effort maybe it’s at your job you you put yourself into some project and the boss doesn’t show any appreciation for all the hard work and the extra hours you put in this see if I’m going to do that again we think no I’m going to hunker down and I’m going to take care of me and I’m going to do the things that I want to do and and to some extent there’s not necessarily an ill will in that it’s just the reaction of what sometimes happens through disappointment and through weariness iness and discouragement and the complexities that we face in life and we decide what I’m going to do is I’m going to put these other things first now in my life and unfortunately with these post-exelic people this begins to be the neglect of the important things of God.

The first thing that God points out he’s quoting them kind of working through different thoughts they’re having exposing their thoughts to them which is again part of what scripture does to us. It reveals our own heart to us and and help helps us face that reality. And what he’s pointing out to them is really their issue with time. He says, ‘You know, your problem is you keep saying, ‘Yeah, that’s important. I I want to do that, but the time has not yet come.

The time hasn’t yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord. And so, they just keep putting it off for one thing or another. But of course, God’s response to them is rather biting. He says, “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your panled houses while this house lies in ruins?” Now, keep in mind this has been going on for some time. And I will say there there are legitimate reasons sometimes why we may delay something or we may not jump right into to something we would even like to do.

There are real pressures we face in life and and those are realities. And so, part of what we’re looking at here this morning is balance. Balancing. How legitimate is this? Is this a real concern? Do I really have a legitimate thought here that I need to wait to do whatever this thing is I’m going to do? Or has it actually just become an excuse to neglect the things of God? We’re talking about 18 years now that these people have continued to say, “It’s not yet time.

The time isn’t right yet to build God’s house.” Meanwhile, what God sees is a bunch of people going to the hills and the mountains to get wood and to get supplies and to get resources to build their own homes and to do their own things. And that’s why he’s calling them out on this. And he’s saying the time for excuses is over. How long am I going to say, I’ll do that when life settles down or when the kids get older or when work is less demanding or I’m in just I’m just in a difficult season right now or when I have more money or more energy when I start feeling better.

And the interesting thing about those kinds of excuses is they tend to change, don’t they? Eventually the kids get older and now the excuse is something else. Well, what when I have some more energy or when work isn’t as busy. And if we have this kind of mindset, we’re going to allow those other excuses to then find their way in. This is what’s I think happening here with these people, right? 18 years they have delayed in this and God finally has had enough and he’s sending his prophet to say when are you going to realize now is the time.

It’s not wait for another time. Let’s not wait until it’s a better season or I feel better or I have more money. No, the time to serve God is right now. And he’s not asking them to give up on their sewing and their reaping and even building their houses. It’s not that those are bad or wrong or evil. And often that is the the case. That’s why it’s such a struggle. What I want us to understand and what we’re seeing here is we can spend our lives building good things and still neglect what matters most in life.

That’s what the call to seek first the kingdom of God is all about. Jesus is not saying there that food is bad and clothing is bad and seeking to be sustained in life. Those things are not bad or wrong. But it is the priority that we put on them. It’s the anxiety. It’s the worry that we place on the basic things, all of these other things as he calls them while potentially neglecting the most important things. seeking safety and security and comfort instead of seeking first the kingdom of God.

And for these people at least, this had to do with building the physical temple, rebuilding first the temple that had been destroyed, this symbol, this representation of God being in their presence, the center of their religious life, not existing. And he’s saying, “This is important for you. You need to rebuild this.” As we’re going to see as we move through the sermon this morning, we are the temple. And so the building that we’re doing is not really of a physical nature.

It is more of a spiritual nature. It’s a spiritual concept that we are God’s temple. We’re being built together as a dwelling place for God and the spirit. And so the thoughts and the responsibilities are a little bit different than what they’re dealing with. We don’t have to go to Home Depot to get supplies to build the temple today. That’s not the idea like he’s telling them to do. But it is just as important that we’re thinking about seeking first the kingdom of God in our lives, planning how we’re going to do that rather than putting off what is most important.

The pressures of life often narrow our attention. When it gets hard, we begin to think, I’m just going to focus on my home, the way we do things, our comfort, making sure everything’s fine here. And so protection of self and family becomes this boundary of concern. And storing up and building up the things that we have is the temptation rather than thinking about what can be done for the Lord and for his purposes. And as I said earlier, the balance is difficult. There are legitimate concerns and God expects for us to take care of our families and to function in the world around us. But finding that balance with understanding that the first priority is God and his kingdom.

And if we do that, the other things will fall into place. So the pressures of life can cause us to do what’s comfortable instead of what is actually a priority. And what I want us to understand in terms of this first concept that God is calling out their misunderstanding of time is that we make time for what matters to us. That principle is really true in all aspects of life. if it matters to me, I will find a way to make time for it. Now, I understand again again like the the the day-to-day activities.

We we have various things we’re doing and sometimes we would like to be doing something else other than what we have to do. We work jobs and those jobs have schedules and we know those schedules and sometimes there may be something going on that we would really like to be a part of, but it’s at 3:00 in the afternoon when I’m typically at work. That’s a reality of life. And so not every opportunity and every situation do I get to choose even the thing that I really want to choose.

That’s just part of life in this temporary existence. But what we’re getting at here about seeking first is the desire. What we would really like to be doing and kind of overall big picture. If it matters to me, I’m going to find ways to make time for this to work in my life. If God’s people matter to me, I’m going to find time to be with God’s people. If worshiping God matters to me, I’m going to find time. I’m going to make time to make sure I’m worshiping God. If scripture, revealed word matters to me, I’m going to find time and make time to make sure I understand what God has revealed to me.

These are choices that we make. And let’s be honest, we have all kinds of time and we use that time in all sorts of wasteful ways when we want to. Particularly in our day and age where we have devices that research shows many people spend six to eight hours a day scrolling on. Time is not our problem. It is the way we use our time. The choices we make about time that are issues. So, in in my mind, if I’m saying it’s not yet the time for whatever it is I know I should be doing or I think I should be doing, the problem probably has to do with a priority in my heart.

What am I deciding I’m going to spend my time on? And there are all sorts of things that we can do among God’s people to be helping. I think there are the ones that we think about the most maybe from a setting like this like oh I could I could teach I could help teach in the children’s classes or help teach adult classes but it can there’s all sorts of things if we look at Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12 and and how we should be working together as a body and involves things like opening our homes being hospitable being kinder prioritizing the fellowship of God’s people together being someone who serves someone who does acts of mercy these are direct quotes from Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12.

These are things that God’s people can do for each other. And not everything’s going to look exactly the same way. But the real question is, am I setting this first in my life? Is it a priority? That whatever it is that I can do as part of God’s people, I see the value in that and the importance of making that a priority in my life. The obvious reality in the text, I think the center point of what’s happening here with what Haggi is trying to help these people understand is kind of gaining awareness, right?

There is seeing the discouragement and the apathy and understanding how that affects us. But then there’s also opening our eyes to the reality of who we are, which is very hard to do. Sometimes we need a good friend to help us with that or a spouse to point out this is what you’re really putting all your attention into. I need to help you see that. Right? We don’t always see things as clearly as we would like. And part of what Haggi is doing with these people is opening their eyes to reality. And he’s saying, look, what you’re building shows what matters to you.

It’s like Jesus words in the sermon on the mount. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be. Also, the things that you’ve stored up, the things that really matter to you, that shows you where your heart is. And for them, they had turned their attention to the things of the world. And I don’t again I don’t mean worldliness. I don’t mean wickedness and evil. I just mean they had turned their attention to sewing their fields and reaping and making clothes. And that has become the focus of their attention.

You know, running their family, making sure everything’s provided for. This has it’s taken number one spot in their hearts. Haggi tells them. And ironically, you see the result of what happens there. When we begin seeking self first rather than God, all the things that we’re seeking after that we think are going to bring us fulfillment leave us empty. This is what he’s telling them when he says, “You have sown much and harvested little.” Don’t you see what’s happening here? You eat and you’re ne it’s never enough. You’re never satisfied. You clothe yourselves, but no one’s warm. It’s the image here that they’ve put all of their attention on the wrong things as the number one priority.

And I think so much of this is subtle. These people are not bad people. They’re not evil people. They they initially came here to fulfill the purposes of the Lord, but they allowed some of the things of life to creep in to realign their focus in the wrong direction on the sewing and the eating and the drinking and the clothes and the wages they were earning and improving their homes. You know, we got obstacles. We got people writing letters to the king and telling us we shouldn’t build the temple. So, let’s just go build our own homes and we’ll do this for a long time now.

15 plus years they’ve spent building up their own things to honor themselves rather than seeking what pleases the Lord and brings him honor. They have essentially reversed the words of Jesus in Matthew 6:33. They’re seeking after all of these things rather than the will and the kingdom of God. What’s interesting and I think actually uh is pretty applicable to maybe many of us is that these people are not inactive. Uh it’s not like they just sit around and don’t do anything.

They actually are are pretty busy. They’re busy doing even what we would think are are good things. I don’t think any of us would say that working hard in the field and making clothes for your family or improving your home, I don’t think any of us would say, “I can’t believe someone would do that. That’s so wicked.” No, those are those are good things and they’re very busy in those things. The problem what Haggi is pointing out is the misdirected effort, the amount of effort, the priority of effort.

And and so the the natural application for them and for us is to consider what you’re putting first. What are you building most in your life? Because that is revealing where your heart is. It’s revealing what’s coming first in your life. Good things can still become disordered. Whether it’s your career or your home or family responsibilities or your finances or recreation or the comforts of life, none of those things are inherently wrong. But they become wrong when they receive our best and the things of God are left neglected.

This is the way Haggi reasons with them here in this text uh in an interesting kind of way. There is kind of this measure formeasure result. I think some of this is just kind of natural. It could be um a sense of divine judgment coming upon them. He at least expresses it that way. um twice in the text in verse four and in verse nine he points this out. He says, “You have left this house in ruins.” Twice he makes that statement in Hebrew. It is the word horb. Um it is a word that’s used for a mountain you’re probably familiar with.

It kind of carries the connotation of destruction or emptiness. And so they’ve left the house of God in ruins. And then in verse 11 he says, “So I have called for Horeb on the land. It’s measure for measure because you’ve neglected the things of God. Now you’re getting exactly what you’ve asked for. You’ve left the important things empty and dry. And so now I’m leaving you empty and dry. God’s not trying to be ugly or mean here. He’s trying to call their attention to the realities of what happens when you get rid of the priority and you put something else in its place.

When you forget the source of blessing, when you begin to neglect the the one from which the blessings come and you start focusing on the blessings themselves, then you get left empty and dry in the end. And so we can be busy with all kinds of things, fill our schedules with all sorts of good things and beneficial things in life, but if we allow that to then misdirect our efforts primarily to those things instead of the things of God. It’s time to be considering our ways.

What is most important to us? What am I building when I look at my life? What kind of influence am I having on my children? What do they see as valuable? Right? As parents, this may be a good indicator of of where we are, what’s most important to them. And of course, children, and I don’t mean this in an ugly way, it’s just part of life, are immature, and they’re going to grow and they’re going to develop their own thoughts and their own ideas. Children are amazing and they they are extremely smart, but they are influenced by us.

And we can see sometimes as a mirror the things that we are putting emphasis on then comes out in our children even in the smallest ways. I’ve looked over at uh little Titus this morning. Mine’s big Titus over here, but little Titus and I saw he’s tying his tie just like his daddy, right? It’s just the little things of life. That’s not a big thing, but why does he want to do that? Or why does what do they want? It looks like his dad and we love that we have these little influences that make a big difference.

And Haggi wants us to stop and to slow down and consider what we’re putting in first place in our life. Sometimes looking at our children helps us see that very clearly. Is their attention on the things of life filling the bag that’s going to just be a bag of holes that’s going to leave it empty? Maybe that’s because it’s what I’ve taught them. Maybe that’s the priority I’ve I’ve given them in life. And so they’re acting in ways that are just kind of following dad and following mom.

And it’s very easy to lose sight of what’s most important and begin emphasizing all of the other things that from the mouth of Jesus, he tells us those will just be added if we’ll seek first the kingdom. The goal, the goal of building these post-exelic people and what God wanted from them and building the temple is that God would be pleased in it and it would give him glory. Haggi chapter 1 and verse 8. Build the house that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified.

Is God taking pleasure in my house? Is he glorified in the things that are happening within the walls of my home? And the deeper question is not merely what are we accomplishing, but whose glory is being elevated by what’s happening. I think that’s the big issue with what’s taking place in Haggi 1. Again, it’s not that these things are just inherently wrong or bad, but in the process of 15, 16, 17 years as they’re doing all this and they’re sewing and they’re reaping and they’re building their houses, whose glory are they building for?

while they’re leaving the things of God neglected, while they’re building the things that point to them and to their own glory. I I referenced earlier this concept of that we are the temple. And when you go from the Old Testament to the New, you’re you’re kind of getting closer to the reality of many things. And one of those is the physical temple is just this earthly representation of a greater idea. It’s the presence of God and God dwells among us.

This is a theme that’s all through scripture. And he says, “I’m going to be here in the Holy of Holies. I I dwell between the cherubim above the ark of the covenant.” And so in a representative way, God dwells with his people through the tabernacle and then the temple. And when we get to the New Testament, we see this imagery pulled forward to the people of God, what we call the church, God’s people coming together. There are living stones being built into a spiritual house.

And we become a household. And so the temple that we’re talking about building is not a physical building. It is God’s people being built together for God’s purposes. This is covered in a couple of different places in the book of Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 2 talks about this reality of uh we are a household for God and we are a place where his spirit dwells. And he’s talking about the body, the church, the congregation, right? We’re being built together. And he has various reasons he’s talking about this in Ephesians 2.

One of those is that it’s Jew and Gentile. People from all backgrounds can come to Christ and they come together as one. And now these people are now a temple in which God dwells. When he gets to Ephesians 4, he’s talking again about a variety of things, but one of them is the way all of this functions. How is this church supposed to function? How is the congregation supposed to function? And so he says this, we’re supposed to be speaking the truth in love, and we’re to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.

He’s the head of the body. We’re supposed to be growing up into him. And we are held together by every joint with which it is equipped. When each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. Have a lot of building language going on there. It’s using the body as the main metaphor, right? We have Christ as the head and then all the parts make up the body of Christ, which is the congregation or the church. But he’s also using some building imagery there that we’re growing or we we’re building up.

And this is both growth, I think, in strength, maybe in number, but also growth in love. Right? That’s where he finishes this statement. And the key element that I want us to get here is that the Lord’s body is a participatory body. It is not something where you just observe. It’s not something where you just sit on the sidelines and you watch other people do things. No, it is every joint and every member. Everyone is involved. And when everyone is involved, that’s when growth happens.

What is my part? What am I supplying? I think we understand this in other realms of life. Uh if I were to talk to you about your job, for instance, I’d said, “What’s your role at work? uh you may give me a title which could tell me some things but also uh unless your company is very disorganized um you know more about what your actual role is than just what that title says. You you have a purpose. There’s something you’re doing dayto-day to fulfill something that’s needed for that company.

That’s your part each person. And if you’re if you’re not doing your part or if there really is no part for you to do, what happens? they don’t really need you anymore, right? And so we understand that from a business standpoint, we work for someone, there’s a there’s a a purpose we are fulfilling in that company, there’s something that we’re we’re a joint, we’re a part of that body within that corporation, and we’re doing something to help the end goal, whatever that might be.

Or maybe at home, what’s your role in the home? Even for our children, they they we we’re given roles. You know, our littlest ones, they unload the dishwasher and they put the dishes away. They have various tasks and functions that they do. And Katie and I have various tasks and functions that we fulfill. And the same thing happens in your home. And generally speaking, we could probably say, “Here’s what I do in the home. Here are the things that I do as part of the home.”

Or what about your team? This is a really easy one. Whatever sport you play, whatever activity you’re in, you know your position. I’m shortstop. I’m a midfielder. I’m a running back. We know our role and this is how things function. What I want us to do is to think about if we’re considering our ways, if we’re talking about the growth of the church, my job is not to ask what everybody else is doing. What is your part? What joint are you? It’s to think about what my part is.

What am I supplying? What what purpose am I fulfilling within this body? How am I giving so that the body will grow? What work am I doing to build this temple both in its growth and in its love? As Paul says in Ephesians 4 and verse 16. But what I love about this text in Haggi 1 is that it’s not just the negative. He points out the negatives, but what we see actually is a reaction that is what God would want. The intended reaction of prophecy, the purpose of prophecy is to get people to change.

That doesn’t always happen. Jeremiah, Ezekiel, they face a lot of people who are unwilling to change. Haggi and Zachchariah, they get to work with people who are willing to see their faults and change and begin working. And so while the first part of this is about recognizing apathy and discouragement about being aware of their situation that they’re they’re not giving God what they he really should be getting from them, there’s also the hope that comes at the latter part of this chapter where all of these people, these names keep getting mentioned, right?

It’s Zubable and Joshua, but not just them. It’s all the remnant. They’re all involved in this. And it says they obeyed the voice of the Lord in verse 12 when they heard the words of Hagwe and when they heard this message and he said you’re not focused on the right things. They said you’re right. We’re not. And they don’t argue. They don’t give excuses. They don’t try to explain why they built their houses and did all the things they did. There’s none of that. They just said, you know, you’re right. And now we’re going to go build the house.

And amazingly, God is so gracious. He’s so merciful. And in direct response to this in verse 13, he says, I am with you. There’s no probation. He doesn’t say, you know, I’m not sure I trust you yet. So, we’re going to see how this goes. No, God is with them in their building. He says, I will be with you. You take on this task and I’m going to be there to support you. And he stirs up the spirit not just of Zerubbable and Joshua, but of all the remnant.

And now they all are turning and they’re ready to work for the Lord. Realignment begins with honest response. Being honest with myself about where I am. When I look at scripture and I see what God reveals to me and then I evaluate or I examine my own heart, my own thoughts, my own motivations. Am I in step with God’s expectations? Consider your ways. It is more than a rebuke. It is an invitation to recognize disorder and return to faithful action.

And so I want us to understand seeking first the kingdom of God doesn’t mean you do it all right all the time. That you look at your life and you haven’t ever made mistakes. That your priorities have always been in alignment. That you’ve never missteped and put something before God. That that’s that’s an impossible expectation. That’s not going to happen. And as we live in this life, there’s there’s fluctuations and we get out of balance. But what it does mean is that I’m willing to evaluate that and I’m willing to look within and say, “Am I doing this the right way?”

And when I see I’m not, I react like these people and say, “Yes, my goal is to seek first God’s kingdom, and I see how this has gotten a little bit out of alignment. I’ve been focusing too much on work, or I’ve been focusing too much on recreation and hobbies, or I’ve been whatever it might be.” and I say, I’ve got to get back to what matters most in my life and let these other things take care of themselves. And so I just want to leave you with one question, just a very practical thought or idea to think about through this week.

That’s about how long, not even probably that long a sermon like this matters. You know, we don’t think on this typically for a month. If I came to you a month and said, “What did I preach a month ago?” You probably couldn’t I couldn’t remember. I don’t remember what I preached last week. I have to like think about that. But we can for the next few days think over this this idea or this thought. What is one thing I can change in my life today or tomorrow sometime this week?

What’s something I can change in my life that helps me put things back in right priority? That helps put God first in my life again? Just one thing, right? Let’s just start small. Small things matter. That’s the message of Haggi and Zachchariah. Don’t look down on the on the small things as if they aren’t important. Just one change. And sometimes something like one change leads to many other changes. I I can’t tell you what that is. You can’t tell me what it is for my life. It involves considering my ways and you considering your ways.

What is something each of us can do and think through that can help us in our effort to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness? Maybe for you this morning that involves making the first step. The first step in aligning yourself with God. If you’re out of alignment with him, he’s given us a way to fix that. He sent his son, Jesus Christ. Tagi and Zachchariah both point to that ultimately that God is going to reign supreme and there’s going to be one who’s going to come and he’s going to make everything good and right and that is the one we should follow.

And he’s talking ultimately about Jesus. He is king and we need to submit to our king and do the things he’s told us to do. And maybe you’re ready to do that this morning. You realize you’ve been submitting to the ruler of the world, doing things in the world’s ways and you realize that has left you empty and discouraged. It has not fulfilled you or given you any satisfaction. But you can give yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ this morning. You can die to self. You can be buried with him in baptism, be resurrected to newness of life, ready to walk with him and serve in his kingdom and join the effort of so many others to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

Can we help you do that this morning? Why don’t you come now as we stand and we