Consider Your Ways
Introduction
The Book of Haggai has a very powerful message about the decisions we make. It was written to people, just like us, who would have told you that God must come first. If you were to ask the Jews of that day, “What is the number one priority in your life?”, they would have said, without hesitation, “God is”, just like we would. God comes first. But they had drifted into a way of life where their claim that God was most important was not reflected in the way they were living. They said that God was their top priority, but the reality was, there were other things that came before God. You can say whatever you want about what the most important things in your life are, but we all demonstrate what the most important things really are by basically three things – 1.) What we like to talk about, 2.) What we spend our time doing, and 3.) How we spend our money. The Jews of Haggai’s day were not focused on the things that should have mattered most. So, God sent this prophet, Haggai, to help His people get their priorities in line. And that’s why the message of Haggai is so relevant for us. Someone once said, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Our struggle with keeping our priorities straight is nothing new. It’s always been a struggle for God’s people, and there’s always been the need for someone to stand up and remind us every now and then of where our priorities ought to be.
- BACKGROUND
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Right away, we notice something different. So far, almost every prophet has delivered their message before the Jews were carried away into Babylonian exile. The message of just about every prophet was the same – You are living in sin and if you don’t repent and do what’s right, God is going to use the Babylonian armies to punish you. But, sadly, they didn’t repent, and God did bring the Babylonian armies in and destroyed the city of Jerusalem, along with its temple, and carried away the Jews into captivity. It was during this time that Haggai spoke to the people. The people of Haggai’s day were guilty of having their priorities all mixed up.
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Committed to following God The people to whom Haggai was speaking were committed to following God. They had all made the difficult decision to leave their established way of life in Babylon and make the dangerous journey back to the city of Jerusalem. They knew that God’s purpose for His people involved the Promised Land. Because of their faith in God, they made the choice to go back to Jerusalem, And they committed themselves to the difficult task of getting re-established in that land that had been devastated by war.
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Opposition Shortly after returning, they started to rebuild the temple, but there was some opposition that stopped the project. Gradually, over time, the Jews lost their vision and they drifted into a lifestyle where God’s house was no longer the priority. But the temple was the center for worshiping God. It represented the heart and soul of the Jewish religion. Even though God is everywhere, the temple was that place on earth where God dwelt in a very special sense. So, for the temple to lie in ruins was to neglect their worship of God.
- THE PROBLEM
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Not The Right Time Haggai started preaching 16 years after the Jews returned to Jerusalem, and after all that time, the temple had still not been completed. In Haggai 1:2… We do the same thing today.
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Lord got a little bit sarcastic with the Jews Haggai 1:3-4. The house of God stood in their midst in ruins. Meanwhile, they had put a lot of time and effort into building their own houses. Haggai mentions the paneling to show that their houses were not just basic shelters. These houses were paneled houses. Paneled houses indicated they were living in comfort and elegance, while the temple lay in ruins.
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God’s house lies in ruins What is wrong, is spend your money on selfish needs and wants while ignoring the things of God. It is wrong is to spend all your time on selfish pursuits while the things of God get left undone. God is not against our providing for our families, but the Israelites were using that as an excuse for not doing God’s work. The question God raised to the Jews is a question we would all do well to ask ourselves, “Where do I fit into this picture?”
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The Jews could not get ahead “Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways.” (Haggai 1:5). It’s God’s way of saying, “You folks need to stop and think about what you’re doing.” Haggai 1:5-6. As hard as they worked, they couldn’t seem to get ahead. It was like getting their paycheck at the end of the week and putting it into a bag with holes in it because they turned around the next day and there was nothing left. The hard times meant that they didn’t have any extra to give toward the temple building fund.
- THE SOLUTION
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God orchestrated circumstances What they didn’t see was that God not only understood their circumstances; He caused them! They were working harder but getting further and further behind, but they never stopped to consider that God was trying to tell them something. Haggai came along and he said, “Hey, folks, it’s God who controls the rain and the harvest. He is withholding his blessing from you because your priorities aren’t right! Put his house first and he will bless you.” You see, the Jews made the same mistake that we often make; they took care of their own concerns first and then they gave God the leftovers. They were required to give God the very first part of the crop they brought in. That was an expression of their faith in God. God said, “I want the first fruits, I want the very first crops you bring in, and I assure you that if you will give me that, then I’ll take care of the rest for you.” Folks, we’ve got to start putting God at the top of our responsibilities instead of the bottom. “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33).
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Haggai’s Harsh Rebuke Haggai didn’t pull any punches with his sermon. It was a harsh rebuke to the people for building their own houses and looking to establish their own material prosperity before looking to their spiritual obligations. Haggai made it clear that if God isn’t put first in a person’s life, everything else that he tries to do is eventually going to fail. It was strong language, but Haggai’s preaching got results. “the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel [he was their governor, the highest-ranking political official] … and the spirit of Joshua [he was the high priest, the highest-ranking religious official] … 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.” (Haggai 1:14).
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They repented and got to work After Haggai delivered his message, the people repented and set about the task of restoring the temple the way they should have years before. But, before they could do that, they had to do what God told them twice – “Consider your ways.” The people needed to do some serious self-evaluation. Haggai wanted the people to stop long enough in their busy schedules to evaluate their life in light of God’s Word. Self-evaluation is a good thing, and it’s something that we as Christians all need to do. Either God is our top priority or something else is. We would all do well to “consider your ways.”
THE PRIORITY TEST
Webster defines priority as “regarding one thing as more important than the other.” So how do we really know what’s most important to us? The answer is found in the decisions we make because whenever we make a decision between two things, that tells us which one is most important to us. I said earlier that our priorities are determined largely by three things – what you like to talk about, what you spend your time doing, and what you spend your money on. So, I’d like to close out by briefly looking at those three things.
The Conversation Test ~ What Do You Like To Talk About Have you ever been around someone who can’t stop talking about one topic, maybe football. He’s always talking about who’s playing who this afternoon, and did you see the scores from the games yesterday, and what about these statistics. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that football is a very high priority in that person’s life. Football is very important to them. Which raises the question – if God truly is the most important thing in our life like we say he is, then how many of our conversations revolve around spiritual things? If God is our top priority, there are two conversations that need to be happening on a regular basis in your life. First of all, you need to have a lot of conversations with God, and second, you need to have a lot of conversations with others about God. So, as you “consider your ways” and think back over the past week, have you spent much time talking with God? And can the people you’ve talked with, tell from your conversation how important spiritual things are? It’s hard for us to say that God is the most important thing in our life if he never comes up in our conversation.
The Calendar Test ~ How Do You Spend Your Time I can look at your calendar and identify pretty quickly what’s truly most important to you. So, what does your calendar say about your priorities? What does your daily planner say about what is most important to you? What does your daily routine look like and what does that say about you? That doesn’t mean that we don’t all have a hundred different things that we need to get done in a week. But take a look at your schedule over the past week and ask yourself, “If someone looked at my calendar, would they be able to figure that God is my number one priority?” It’s hard for us to say that God is the most important thing in our life if we never have time to serve him.
The Checkbook Test ~ How Do You Spend Your Money This one is a touchy subject and some of you are thinking, “Preacher, don’t go there.” But, if you’re going to make God top priority, then God has to get the first and best of everything — including your money. Show me how you spent your money this past month and I’ll tell you what’s truly most important to you. I’m a firm believer that we always find the money for those things that are most important to us. If going to the movies is important to you, then you will always find the money to go to the movies. If having the latest iPhone is important to you, then you will always find the money to get the latest iPhone. And I’m not saying those things are wrong or bad. I’m just saying, we always find the money for those things that are most important to us. So where does God fit into the picture? The Jews of Haggai’s day said, “We don’t have any money to put into building the Lord’s house because there’s nothing left over after we spend money on ourselves.” Show me how you spend your money and I’ll tell you what’s truly most important to you.
Conclusion:
It is essential that we focus first on what we consider to be the biggest rock in our lives – serving God. We need to put that as our top priority and build the rest of our lives around it.
