Haggai – Finally Going Home

Haggai 1:1-11

In the second year of King Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jozadak,[a] the high priest:

This is what the Lord Almighty says: “These people say, ‘The time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord’s house.’”

Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai:  “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?”

Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways.  You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”

This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways.  Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the Lord.  “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?” declares the Lord Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house.  Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops.  I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the olive oil and everything else the ground produces, on people and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands.”

`Today we move to prophecy after the Babylonian exile.  Babylon does indeed fall to the Persians.  The Persians allow the Hebrews to return to their Jerusalem if they wish and many, called a remnant, do return.  This is seventy-five years after the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 586 BC.  The city and the Temple still lie in ruins.  When the people return, they become focused on rebuilding their homes.  Haggai begins his prophecy by speaking to them about the problem with their self-centeredness.

God is not upset about them rebuilding houses.  Obviously, they need places for their families to live.  But Haggai points out that that should not be their single focus.  They are making space for themselves but no space for God. He points out the problem:

Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways.  You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”

Notice how eerily similar it is to Jesus’s words in the Sermon on the Mount:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[e]?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?  So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.  But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:25-33)

Haggai and Jesus are both talking about priorities.  To their credit, Haggai’s audience listened.  Work on rebuilding the Temple begins.  We will talk more about how it went tomorrow.  But for now, the question for us is, are we able to hear the call to make sure our priorities are where they should be?  Is there any chance that we have focused too fully on our own life and spaces that space for and focus on God has been crowded out?  Do our calendars and our checkbooks/ledgers reflect the priority of God in our lives?  Spend some time today asking yourselves those questions.

Prayer:  God, we know you should be first in our lives, but so often we get distracted.  Show us the actual priorities of our hearts so that we may return our focus to You and the Kingdom.

Prayer Focus:  Pray for the leadership of our church today.

Song:  Seek Ye First