Busy With Your Own House

June 6, 2025|Busy With Your Own House|Haggai 1:3-11

JD Cutler

Click here for the sermon audio

Last week we began looking at the book of Haggai. We examined some foundational truths that undergird our understanding of not only this book, but all of scripture.

God communicates with His people, God desires for His people to always be considering their ways, and God blesses the obedient.

It is easy to see these primary themes as we look at the remainder of God’s first message to the people through His prophet Haggai. One, God speaks to his people and their leaders, two his message is summarized in ‘consider your ways’, and three he highlights the results of their disobedience, a lack of blessing.

What we will see this morning as we really start digging into this little Old Testament book is their primary problem and therefore God’s primary condemnation of them is that they have gotten their priorities out of order.

As a way of introduction and to keep the context of God’s message in front of us, I want to just remind you of the situation we find in Haggai 1. God had disciplined the southern kingdom of Judah, because of disobedience and idolatry, by allowing Babylon to destroy Jerusalem and take them into captivity for approximately 70 years. However, after that time, he raised up the Medo-Persian pagan King, Cyrus, who is spoken of by the prophet Isaiah as the Lord’ anointed, to free the Jews and allow them to rebuild Jerusalem and their temple. Shortly after conquering Babylon, Cyrus issued a decree allowing those taken captive by Babylon to return to their ancestral homelands and to rebuild their religious places of worship. In addition, he not only returned the silver and gold vessels taken by Nebuchadnezzar, he bankrolled the restoration from the king’s treasury. Under that initial decree, almost 50,000 Jews rejected the comfort and affluence of Babylon and made the hard 900 mile journey back to a ruined city in order to rebuild. They wanted to be where God had called them to be and they wanted to worship as God had called them to worship. The first thing they did was to clear the temple court of rubble and replace the altar of burnt offerings on its base and resumed worship of God through burnt offerings and feast days. By the spring of the following year they had laid the foundations of the temple. When the Jews rejected an offer by those who had traditionally been enemies of Israel to help rebuild the temple, those who had been rejected began stirring up trouble and doing what they could to frustrate the rebuilding process, culminating in a letter to the new king asking him to stop the building process. Somewhere around 16 years passed with little or no building on the temple taking place, until God sent the prophets Haggai and Zechariah to call His people to finish what they started. For reference, all of this is described in detail in Ezra chapters 1-5. This is the situation of Haggai, an originally zealous people who had returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the city and the temple who because of difficulties and strife, shifted their priorities to their own lives and slowly grew complacent with worshipping among the rubble of the once great temple.

I wonder if anyone can identify with that. You once were on fire for the Lord, you were passionate about Jesus and His kingdom and for some reason or another, you have grown complacent or even cold in your relationship with Jesus. What once was like a bonfire in your heart is now like a flickering flame or a heap of coals. You are okay with the bare minimum in the Christian life, choosing rather to pursue other things. You are not an unbeliever, you are not even an unconcerned believer, you want to please God, but you have become a complacent believer.

I think if we are honest, we know what that is like, I know I have certainly had seasons like that in my life, my prayer is the God’s word to His people in Haggai would expose our excuses and call us to a greater desire for God and the things of God.

Haggai 1:1–11 ESV

1 In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest: 2 “Thus says the Lord of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.” 3 Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, 4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins? 5 Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 6 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. 7 “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 8 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. 9 You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. 10 Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. 11 And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors.”

It’s not hard to see the misplaced priorities God is calling out in His people. In verse 9 he says, my house lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house.

The word translated ‘busies’ in ESV and other translations like CSB is translated as ‘runs to his own house’ in many other translations. The word is used literally in places like Abraham ran from his tent door to meet the three men he saw in the distance, but it is also used figuratively in places like phrases like ‘I will run in the way of your commandments’, or describing wicked men with the phrase, ‘for their feet run to evil’.

What are you pursuing with your life? What do you spend your time, energy, and resources on? That’s why I like the word ‘busies’ in the ESV. All of our lives are ‘busy’ with something. It’s what we think about when we justify long hours or difficult work situations, it’s what we think about when we have spare time or what we spend our spare money on. For the Israelites in this time and in this place, God says it was their own homes. The contrast being while my house lies in ruins. There is nothing wrong with taking care of your home, of caring for the things God has entrusted to us, in fact we are called as Christians to be good stewards of our possessions, but the problem is when our focus is primarily on ourselves and not the things of God, which brings us to our first lesson from our text this morning.

I. GOD DESERVES OUR SUPREME PRIORITY

How does God identify himself in His messages to the leaders in verse 2 and the people in general in verses 9 and 10?

Thus says the LORD of hosts. (Jehovah Sabaoth)

Literally Yahweh of Armies

When Moses asked God by what name he should use when he told the Israelites that God has sent him to bring them out, what did God say? I AM WHO I AM.“Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.

Whenever you see the word Lord in all caps in your Bible it is the word we pronounce Yahweh, which is from the verb ‘to be’ which connects to ‘I AM’ in the previous verse.

Essentially Yahweh is ‘the one who is’.

God is the only one where ‘I am’ is a complete sentence.

If I said, I am, you would naturally either think or say, you are what? I need a modifier for that sentence to make sense. God does not, the Bible teaches that he simply is.

God is the only one where ‘I am’ is a complete sentence.

However, many times, either God adds a modifier to Yahweh or someone who worships him does in order to focus our minds on a particular aspect of God.

Let me give you a few examples.

• Abraham calls God (Yahweh jireh) The LORD WILL provide, when God provided a ram in the place of Isaac on the mountain.

• God tells his people after the Exodus that he is (Yahweh rapha) Yahweh your Healer.

• Moses builds an altar after God strengthens Joshua to defeat the Amelekites and calls it (Yahweh-nissi) Yahweh is My Banner.

  
  

God is a God who provides, God is a God who heals, God is a God who fights for His people.

So what does Yahweh Sabaoth, sometimes translated as ‘the Lord Almighty’, or the ‘Lord of Hosts ‘as it is here designed to remind us about our God?

In the early history of God’s people, it was a reminder that God was the leader of the army of Israel, we see this in David’s proclamation against Goliath. When David enters the battle field against Goliath, this is the name he declares. ‘but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty [YHWH Sabaoth], the God [Elohim] of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied’

It is also used to describe God’s control of his heavenly armies in places like Joshua 5:13–14 “13 When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” 14 And he said, “No; but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come.”

When we get to the Prophets, the titles assumes a far wider meaning and embraces all the forces of the universe. The image is that Yahweh, the divine King, commands all armies in Heaven and on Earth to accomplish His purposes, all forces both natural and spiritual, fall under his control. From the Dictionary of the Bible, it is described this way.

Dictionary of the Bible Lord of Hosts

Hence the term ‘Lord of hosts’ becomes with the prophets the highest and most transcendental title of God, and is even rendered by the LXX in a certain number of passages ‘Lord of the forces (of nature).’ It serves as a constant reminder of the illimitable width of God’s sway, and as such it acquires a close connection with the other great attribute of God, His holiness. Hence we get the summit of the OT creed in the angelic song of praise, Is 6:3, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts: the fulness of the whole earth is his glory.’

Why does God deserve our supreme priority?

First, simply because He is God. He is sovereign over his creation. He is all powerful, all present, and all knowing. If he doesn’t deserve to be the focus of our lives, what or who possibly could?

Second, he is our creator. In him we live and move and have our being, for indeed we are his offspring. Without God there is no life, no breath, nothing. If he gives us life, how could we not make him our priority? If he never did anything else for us but give us life, we would owe him everything, and yet, he has done so much more.

Third, he is love. We often give our priorities to things we love, and to the people who love us. Naturally, those that I love and that love me receive more attention and priority in my life. My wife, my kids, my extended family, my church family. But ask yourself, as well as those around you love you, can it even hold a candle to God’s love for you? Of course not. God is not someone who loves, he is love. He loves perfectly and completely, he couldn’t love any less than that or he would cease to be God. This divine perfect love of God is expressed in the sending of His only son to be the propitiation for our sins, 1 John 4:10, the very things separating us from experiencing the fullness of his love.

Fourth, he is personal. In our situation in Haggai, think about what the people were neglecting in favor of being busy with their own lives and priorities. The God of the universe, the perfectly Holy God, had given mankind a way to approach him through the sacrificial system and through the tabernacle, where he would dwell with his people, and then the temple. What a gift! Yet, they did not make his house, this wonderful gift of presence and glory a priority in their lives.

If you are a Christian, if you have surrendered your life to Christ, it was not just as a savior, someone who could redeem you and ransom you from sin, death, and the grave, but as Lord. The one whom you owe your highest allegiance and obedience to. This is what it means to be a Christian. Full stop.

While we may try and come up with categories and exceptions where a person can be a Christian and not follow Christ as Lord, there is no such thing in the Bible.

The same thing goes for our churches. The highest priority of a church is not whether or not you feel your personal wants are met, whether you like the decor, the music, or the ministries. If we are doing it right, what you think about it should be the farthest thing from the leadership’s mind. Our primary priority should be worshipping God according to his revealed will, in his revealed way, for his glory. Anything less is an indication of misplaced or inverted priorities.

Why? God deserves our highest priority because we are not our own, we have been purchased with the most precious substance in Heaven and on Earth, the blood of Christ. The church is not its own, but the purchased bride of Christ.

God addresses His people as the Lord of Hosts, or Lord Almighty, bringing our eyes away from ourselves and even our situations, to rest fully on the one who is above all and in all and over all.

The Israelites had forgotten that and God reminded them that none of their excuses were valid.

Were they scared of the king? God is over all the armies of Heaven and Earth.

Were they concerned about timing? God is completely sovereign over every second of every day.

Were they concerned about resources? God owns it all.

No, no matter what their excuses were, at the heart of the problem, it was that they had misplaced their priorities.

What about you friend?

If we were to examine the last week of your life, if we were to weigh out time spent on the things of God verses time spent on personal pursuits, how would that scale balance out? If we were to count out resources spent on God and fulfilling His purpose verses resources spend fulfilling yours, what would that look like?

Listen, I don’t say that to burden you but to awaken you. God will not settle for second place, he does not share his glory with another, not even one of his children.

God deserves our priority precisely because he is the Lord Almighty. Yahweh Sabaoth. The second lesson is that…

II. GOD DEFINES OUR LIFE’S PRIORITIES

That is to say, if God is our priority, then as God, he gets to define what making him a priority looks like in our lives.

In His message to His people through Haggai, this is what he says it will look like. Verse 7 and 8.

7 “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 8 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.

Make no mistake, these people were not lazy, in fact there are many suggestions in our text that they were some hard-working men and women.

6 You have sown much, and harvested little.

9 You looked for much, and behold, it came to little.

Upon returning to Jerusalem, the people’s primary source of livelihood would have been agricultural, which is hard enough in and of itself, but God doesn’t just say they sowed, but that they had sown much. A large amount, furthermore they looked for much. You don’t look for a large return if you have not made a large investment. The people prepared much land and sowed much seed. God does not condemn their work ethic but their life’s aim.

It is not wrong to work hard, in fact we are commanded to be diligent, to not be a sluggard or lazy.

The Israelites were commanded to observe a weekly Sabbath where they rested from their labors, and it doesn’t seem like they have violated that, but for the other six days, it was full speed ahead, nose to the grindstone.

However, if we spend the majority of our times focused on working for ourselves and to reach our goals and our agendas we will neglect God’s priorities. There is only so much time in our days. God does not tell them to stop sowing, in fact, later he tells them that he will bless their efforts in their obedience.

But what he does tell them is to stop neglecting the work he has called them to. To stop sacrificing God’s work on the altar of man’s busyness. To use their efforts and their resources to build his house and not just focus on their own. We have to ask ourselves how much of God’s work in fulfilling our purpose gets sacrificed on our busyness with our own houses?

However, if we spend the majority of our times focused on working for ourselves and to reach our goals and our agendas we will neglect God’s priorities

In my studies I was intrigued by an interesting note about God’s condemnation of the people’s busyness with their own houses. In verse 4, God says, in response to their excuse, the time has not yet come to rebuild the temple, Haggai 1:4 “4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?”

God specifically calls their houses, paneled.

You might think, what’s interesting about that, most of us grew up with paneling in our houses.

Here is the interesting thing, although Jerusalem had plenty of stone and quarries for the temple, they did not have an abundance of wood. In the building of the first temple, Solomon sent the king of Tyre this message (ESV) 8 Send me also cedar, cypress, and algum timber from Lebanon, which the king did, delivering by sea a vast amount of timber. We read this in Ezra concerning the rebuilding efforts of the people post exile, Ezra 3:7 (ESV) 7 So they gave money to the masons and the carpenters, and food, drink, and oil to the Sidonians and the Tyrians to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea, to Joppa, according to the grant that they had from Cyrus king of Persia.

Now surely some of the wood would have been used in repairing the foundation but it seems like a large amount of wood had been delivered. So why does God say to go up to the hills and bring wood?

What happened to the wood they had received from Lebanon?

Look at verse 4 again. Haggai 1:4 “4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?”

Did you catch it? ‘to dwell in your paneled houses’.

The word paneled is exactly what you think it is. The paneled houses described in 1:4 probably had walls and ceilings covered with cedar wood. Such decoration was a sign of prosperity in a land where wood was scarce. The people were spending freely on their own homes while neglecting the rebuilding of the temple.

At worse, they had seen the unused wood laying there for the rebuilding of the temple and chosen to use it on their own homes, or at best, they were guilty of splurging on their own homes while neglecting the temple.

While I know that paneling in a home today is seen as outdated, in this day, it was a sign of affluence and luxury to be able to cover your walls with cedar. The people are not just neglecting rebuilding the temple, they are busy making sure they are as comfortable as possible, spending their resources on their own comforts and for their own enjoyment and status.

What a picture of the affluent modern church contained within this rebuke!

What should their priority be? God says build my house.

Why? so that, I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified. How does God define our priorities in life?

If we take his words to His people seriously here, if we strip the contextual situation away of rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem, we are left with ‘whether we are pleasing to Him’ and ‘whether we are bringing Him glory’.

The people were wrapped up in what they were going to eat, drink, where, and live in rather than bringing glory to God and living lives that were pleasing to Him. Does that sound familiar to you?

Doesn’t Jesus address the same thing in his sermon on the mount? Matthew 6:25-33 (ESV) 25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

What is this, if not a reorientation of priority.

Everyone else prioritizes their own comforts, their own lives, but you. You who want to follow me, you seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. You aim your life at the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

This is how we prioritize God with our lives.

In our prayers- “

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”

In our labors-

Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.

I can of myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is righteous; because I don’t seek my own will, but the will of my Father who sent me.

For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.

But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father commanded me, even so I do. 

In our lives-

I glorified you on the earth. I have accomplished the work which you have given me to do.

All statements by the one who perfectly prioritized the will and work of the Father in his earthly life.

Prioritizing God in our lives is living in what we might call active obedience.

Bringing every aspect of my life under the will and reign of Jesus Christ, who perfectly carried out the Father’s will so that you and I may be united in him, we might live in him, and we might seek the Kingdom and serve God in him.

What does God’s word say God’s will for us is?

By no means is this exhaustive but it is informative.

1 Thessalonians 4:3“3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality;”

1 Thessalonians 5:18 “18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

Romans 12:2 “2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Holiness, transformation, sanctification- all of these words point to a life that is pleasing to and glorifying of God because it is a life where God is firmly at the center of.

For these Jews living under the ministry of Haggai, to reorient their lives, they need to reorient what it was centered around, they needed to rebuild the temple. For us under the new covenant, we are told the Body of Christ is the temple, and we need to make sure we are actively strengthening, edifying or building up the body of Christ through evangelism and discipleship within the context of a local assembly of believers.

You want to ensure your life is pleasing to God and glorifying to Him?

Orient your lives around Christ, His kingdom, and His bride. You may be tempted to say, of course you would say that, you work at church, but I can honestly say, having lived with other things at the center of my life, if I never received another paycheck from the church, if the Lord did not keep me serving as a pastor, I would stand here and say the exact same thing.

You want to ensure your life is pleasing to God and glorifying to Him?

Orient your lives around Christ, His kingdom, and His bride

Furthermore, we are not left to guess on what prioritizing God in our lives looks like. We have God’s word that tells us it is the pursuit of the kingdom. The second lesson is God defines our priorities, the last lesson is…

III. GOD DISCIPLINES OUR MISPLACED PRIORITIES

This is the majority of the context of God’s message to the people. Let’s look again at Verses 5 and 6, the first part of verse 9, and verses 10-11

5 Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 6 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.

9 You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away.

10Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. 11 And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors.”

Initially God is just asking them to think about the condition of their life.

Their labors are not producing what they should and what it does produce, they are finding no satisfaction in.

We talked a little about this last week. Even though we see people living ungodly, worldly lives, and it seems like they have an abundance, without God they will never have satisfaction.

Satisfaction is rarely about amount.

Someone once asked John D. Rockefeller, the world’s first billionaire, the question, how much is enough? To which he replied ‘just one more dollar’. Now whether we attribute his answer to some raw internal, insatiable greed or a sarcastic observation that fulfillment does not come from things money can buy, either way, it stands as a pretty powerful statement that highlights the inability for some amount of something to provide satisfaction.

The same goes for pleasure or fame. When we chase worldly things we never find satisfaction.

But perhaps this is not simply a condition of man, but rather a divine judgment against idolatry, putting the pursuit of anything other than God ahead of God.

In verse 9, God takes responsibility when he says he blew away what little they have. Then in verses 10 and 11, God says that in his sovereign reign over creation, he is responsible for their lack. He has called for a drought on everything from grain to their labors.

Not only are they not satisfied with what they do have, what they have is less than it should be because God is working against them.

You might say, that doesn’t sound very loving. Why would God work against His people?

Because God disciplines those that he loves.

Why?

So that they might turn back to Him and experience the blessings of being in right relation to Him.

Listen to what God says a little later in Haggai. Haggai 2:17 (ESV) 17 I struck you and all the products of your toil with blight and with mildew and with hail, yet you did not turn to me, declares the LORD.

God says he wasn’t being mean to His people, God is not a spiteful God, he says he was trying to get them back but rather to turn them back to Him through physical difficulties, and yet they did not turn to Him, they just worked harder.

In many places in scripture discipline is connected with love.

Perhaps the clearest is in Proverbs 13. Proverbs 13:24 “24 Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.”

Proverbs goes on to detail the connection. Discipline drives out folly and it can lead towards and gives wisdom.

If we truly love our children, we want them to be able to live wise lives and not foolish ones, so we discipline them while they are under our authority so that they will become wise adults.

In fact, if we do not discipline them, the scriptures imply we do not love them.

The author of Hebrews picks up on this connection and draws a direct line to the discipline between God our father and our earthly fathers.

Hebrews 12:7-11 (ESV) God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Is all hardship, discipline from the Lord?

No, the book of Job shows us that difficulties in life doesn’t necessarily indicate discipline.

Jesus also refuted this idea in John 9 with the man born blind when his disciples asked him if it was his sin or his parents sin that caused him to be born blind.

But that does not mean that hardship or difficulties are not ever the disciplinary hand of the Almighty Father.

Warren W. Wiersbe comments on this passage in Haggai by saying ‘Nothing makes God’s people examine their priorities faster than suffering!’

C.S. Lewis said it this way in his book, The Problem of Pain “We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

God often uses difficulties to get our attention and turn our hearts back to Himself.

Whether or not your trouble is discipline is not something that I can easily say, but what I can say without hesitation is that God will not leave those who belong to Him in active disobedience and living with misplaced priorities.

He can’t, he loves his people too much to leave them experiencing some half-life. Jesus came so that we might have life and have it abundantly.

We also have to remember that God’s discipline is not always immediate apparent.

We are not told how long the difficulties lasted for these people. Was it the whole sixteen years, was it 10 years, 5, 2?

We do not know, but we do know that God specifically tells them that both their lack and their unsatisfied lives were a direct result of their misplaced priorities.

We also know that God tells them the purpose of his discipline was to turn their hearts back to Him and His house.

God disciplines those he loves when their priorities are misplaced.

Three lessons from God’s first message to His people through His prophet Haggai.

God deserves our supreme priority.

God defines our life’s priorities.

God disciplines misplaced priorities.

If God disciplined his people for neglecting His house, a structure made by human hands, how much more should we expect him to discipline those who have been brought into Christ as the temple of God made without hands?

The seriousness that God addresses his people in Haggai, should cause us to all examine our own lives and walk with Christ. James Montgomery Boice succinctly gets to the point when he says. …the failure to proceed with the temple was the result of inverted priorities, and in the final analysis all inverted priorities are idolatry. They put the creation before the Creator.

The seriousness that God addresses his people in Haggai, should cause us to all examine our own lives and walk with Christ.

If you are a believer, we are called to center our lives on Christ, his kingdom, mission, and ministry, that reflect the glory of God in the world, in a similar way the temple reflected God’s glory in the Old Covenant. Our priorities in following Christ shape not only our lives but the lives of those around us.

If you would say, that following Christ, that pleasing God and glorifying him is at the center of your life, I would encourage you to listen to the following question.

Mark Dever, in a sermon on Haggai asks this. Consider this: what would your life look like if you got what you really wanted? (If everything you are working towards came true, what would your life look like?) Get a picture in your mind. Now ask yourself, would God be there? Is he at the center of your desires, or he is repeatedly neglected by the true center of your heart’s desire.

If you do not know Christ and you have never come to faith in Christ, I will not say that coming to Christ will improve your life. In some ways, your life will get much harder.

But I will say, that everything you long for in the deepest parts of who you are, real satisfaction, lasting peace, security, love, belonging, hope: none of it will never come into your life apart from a restored relationship to your creator, and the Bible says that’s not possible apart from surrendering to Christ as your Lord and Savior.

In a moment we are going to stand and sing one more song in praise to the Almighty God.

During that song, if you are a believer, ask God to give you that clear picture we talked about in Mark’s question and if God is not at the center of your desires, the invitation this morning is to repent. To turn from the created to the creator, who is worthy of your undivided priority.

Reorient your life, knowing that fullness of joy is found in the will and way of the Father for your life.

If you are not a believer, the invitation this morning is for you to think about who or what has your highest loyalty. What is your life aimed at? Then ask yourself if that thing is producing satisfaction, peace, security, love, and hope.

I pray that you would not settle for something less than God, who not only created you but created you for fellowship with himself. Something he made possible through the obedience of the Son, applied to our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Let us pray.