Priorities in Order

When King David was first established in his city of Jerusalem, living in a permanent dwelling after years on the run, what was his first impulse? He wanted to build God a permanent house.

And it's noteworthy how he expresses that. 2 Samuel 7 says, “Now when the king lived in his house and the Lord had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies, the king said to Nathan the prophet, ‘See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent’” (2 Samuel 7:1–2).

And he doesn't even have to say anything more. Nathan gets it. It's not a good look for Israel's king to be living better than Israel's God. If David has a house, God needs a house.

How different things were centuries later when David's descendants returned from their own exile to the city of Jerusalem. Because that's where we are as we begin to open the book of Haggai. We've moved another six decades or so into the future, where the Jewish exiles have finally been allowed to return home to Jerusalem after years away.

A lot has happened since we last checked in with Obadiah and Habakkuk. In the second year of Darius the king, Babylon has finally been kicked to the curb, replaced with the new Persian empire. Cyrus, King of Persia, reversed Babylon's foreign policy and sent the Jews home to rebuild their temple.

Which they did begin with. You can read all about this in the book of Ezra—how they came back and rebuilt the altar and laid the foundation for the temple.

But then the work stopped. Ezra 4:4 says, “Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah and made them afraid to build and bribed counselors against them to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia” (Ezra 4:4–5).

This was about 13 years of stalled work. Thirteen years in which their initial zeal disappeared, and in which the passion of David for the house of God was nowhere to be seen. And after thirteen years, God spoke to His people through the prophet Haggai. And what he said to them is preserved for us here in this book today.

What Time Is It? (vv. 2-4)

What did God say to His people? It begins in verse 2: “Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord’” (Haggai 1:2).

"Not yet," they were saying. "We'll get to it, eventually, when the time is right." Like most people throughout history, they aren't outright saying no to God, they're just saying "not yet. Not right now."

Maybe when the opposition cools down a little. Maybe when we don't have so many enemies standing against us. Maybe when it's not going to feel quite so hard. Maybe when we're not so discouraged. Then we'll get back to it. Then the time will be right.

God has heard them say that the time has not yet come. And then he asks them a very pointed question in verse: “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?” (Haggai 1:4).

Note the repeated use of the word "time" there. It's not hard to miss the cutting edge of this question. "So, it's not time for you to build the house of the Lord, but it is time for you to fix up your own houses?"

Talk about an awkward question. Not only had the Lord heard what they had been saying, but He'd been seeing what they'd been doing in the decade plus since they had stopped working on the temple. They hadn't been idle. They'd been working. They'd just been working on their houses, instead of God's house. And some pretty nice houses, by the sounds of it.

Wood panelling is a nice feature in any age, but it was quite the sign of luxury in a day before electric saws and industrial production. Wood panelling is what Solomon used for his house and throne room.

So these people didn't just have homes. They had luxury homes, kings’ homes. Now, we're not certain that everybody lived in a place like this. We're going to find out that a lot of the people were dealing with pretty severe poverty. Maybe it was just Zerubbabel and Joshua who lived in mansions like kings.

Still, even if it was just the two of them, the people had decided it was a good time to build them houses like that, but it wasn't a good time to do anything about God's house that lay in ruins. They were putting up new development around a lot filled with rubble and ashes.

Things were even worse than in David's day, because God didn't even have a tent. Just rubble. And yet the people, unlike David, don't see any problem with this.

How Haggai Speaks

And we don't want to miss, before we get to the meaning of Haggai's words, the method that God through Haggai uses here. Haggai's words have the ring of mild sarcasm here. "So it's not time for my house, but it is time for your house?" And this would have made the people uncomfortable. Probably even made them feel a little bit guilty.

Haggai's words challenge an assumption that we tend to have as modern Westerners, that making people feel bad or feel guilty is something you should never, ever do. "We don't want to guilt people into something" is a phrase that gets repeated like it's gospel truth. We assume that if someone has made us feel bad, they have done something bad.

And I don't think God agrees. Because in the Bible God has no problem saying things that make people feel guilty, if they actually are guilty of something. Because if you are guilty, you should feel guilty so that your feelings actually line up with reality. If you have done something bad, you should feel bad.

Not that you should stay there, of course. And that's one of the big differences between the way that God convicts us of sin and Satan condemns us for our sin. Satan wants us to feel guilty and stay there. God convicts us of sin in order to move us to repentance.

And if we really know our hearts, in the light of God's word, should it ever surprise us at all that we've done something wrong, or that we're guilty of something? We know how deceptive sin is. We know how much of a wreck we'd be without God's grace.

Christians should be the last people in the world to get offended when we're corrected. We should be the last people in the world to get defensive. As the people of God, we should welcome correction from our brothers and sisters because we know that we are capable of far worse sins than anything they've seen.

And Haggai's words show us that God is certainly not afraid of asking us the awkward question. Because no, it was not the time for them to be dwelling in panelled houses while the house of the Lord was in ruins. They should not have been doing this.

What Haggai Means

Which brings us to the real point of Haggai's words here, which was that the people had a case of misplaced priorities. It's not like they didn't care about the temple at all. They were just going to get to it later. And in the meantime, they were making nice homes for themselves.

In other words, their priorities were mixed up.

And it's not hard to imagine how this might happen.

It could be an issue of visibility. They saw their houses every day. They only saw the temple whenever they walked in that direction. It's easy to forget what's not in front of your face and focus on what seems more urgent.

Maybe they used theology to justify it. Yes, God's temple needed repairing, but He's God, right? Remember that God doesn't actually live in a temple. He doesn't need a house—unlike us. Surely God wouldn't want us poor shivering embodied people to go without while we build him something that He doesn't actually need, right?

And then there's the issue of resources. We're going to find out soon here that in general, the people weren't doing great financially. They were constantly struggling to make ends meet.

How they managed to do nice renovations in the midst of that shows just where their priorities were at, but surely, they might have thought, God wouldn't want us to struggle to make ends meet while we focus on a temple that isn't really a necessity, right? I mean there isn't even an Ark of the Covenant to go inside.

Whatever their reasons were, they kept putting off the temple and taking care of themselves in the meantime. They were making themselves a bigger priority than God.

And it's not like God did need them to build him a temple. It's not like he needed a house to live in. The problem, though, is that their priorities revealed what they believed their God was worth.

They were telling the world what kind of a God they thought they had by the poor attention they were paying to his house. And the situation needs to change.

First Things First (vv. 5-11)

And so God addresses the people about this situation, and the first thing he does is turn the spotlight on how they're doing. As they ignore Him and focus on themselves, how is that working out for them?

That's one of the questions that my mentor Marv will ask people when he's talking to people who aren't Christians. He'll ask them about their beliefs, and when they tell him all the things they think, he'll then ask, "How's that working out for you?"

Here, God invites the people to consider how their course of action is working out for them. Verse 5: “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” (Haggai 1:5–6).

In other words, even though they are focusing on themselves, it's not working. They don't have enough for themselves. Everything they do isn't enough.

So what's the solution?

Verse 7: “Thus says 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” (Haggai 1:7–8).

Note the repeated "consider your ways." Think about what you're doing. And here's what you need to do: go work and build the house.

To what end? "That I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified." There it is. There's the missing piece. The people had been focusing on pleasing themselves—not God. They were thinking about their own wants, their own needs, their own comforts, instead of what would increase the fame of God's name.

And the Lord says to put Him first. To aim to please Him. To bring Him glory, which is to say, to draw attention to how great He is.

And if you were one of Haggai's hearers, you might wonder how this is going to work. You're already not doing great in your resources, and God wants you to take time away from your work to go into the hills and bring wood and build His house?

Aren't you going to get even further behind?

And that's where the punchline comes. Verse 9. You know all of that struggle that you're having? All of the not-having-enough? That was God's doing.

“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” (Haggai 1:9).

God was the one making the people's resources so limited. He made sure that, as they busied themselves with their stuff instead of His stuff, it wasn't going to work out for them.

“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, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors’” (Haggai 1:10–11).

I wonder if this sounds excessive to you. I wonder if this sounds even petty, like God is just being mean in making sure they don't have enough until His temple is built.

But how wrong that would be. See, going all the way back to when Israel came out of Egypt, God had been teaching them that He was their life. He was their everything. If they served and obeyed Him, He would make sure they had more than enough.

They never had to worry: should we serve the Lord or take care of ourselves? Because as they loved the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, and served and worshipped Him alone, He would provide and care for them.

And He had told them this. They should have known. And they did know, which is why they started with the temple when they first got back to Jerusalem. They had been doing so well! But then things got hard, and they started to lose the plot and make fancy houses for themselves.

A Great Response (vv. 12-15)

And that's what makes verse 12 so great: “Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him. And the people feared the Lord” (Haggai 1:12).

Isn't that encouraging? So often this doesn't happen. So often it's nothing but disobedience. So often the prophets got ignored. But here, they get the point, and they listen, and they obey—because they fear the Lord. They tremble before His word.

And in response, they get encouragement. Verse 13: “Then Haggai, the messenger of the Lord, spoke to the people with the Lord’s message, ‘I am with you, declares the Lord’” (Haggai 1:13). The encouragement that God was with them followed their response of obedience.

And it wasn't just them. God was at work. Verse 14: “And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, 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 twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king” (Haggai 1:14–15).

God was at work, so they God to work. And they worked on the temple.

Building the House of the Lord Today

And if we were living in Haggai's day, that would be the end of it for us today. We wouldn't have to ask, "What does this mean for us?" We'd say, "Let's pack up the tools and get to work."

But we don't live in Haggai's day, and so we do need to ask what might this passage mean for us today.

And one way we could answer that question is to take the shortcut, and make some assumptions, and say: "They were supposed to build the house of the Lord, and so we should work on our church building." I've heard sermons like that.

And honestly, some of us joked this week that with a roof that needs repairing in the near future and walls that need painting, it might be tempting to make that the application of the sermon. Stop fixing up your homes and let's get this place fixed up.

But I hope you know that's not how this works. Because this building is not the house of the Lord.

Since Jesus came and tabernacled among us, and poured out His spirit upon His people, what is the temple today? What is God's house here in the New Covenant?

Or, maybe better yet, who is the house of God in the New Covenant?

“Do you not know that you [plural] are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16).

“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:19–22).

Who is the temple? We are.

So, would it be fair for us to apply the truths from Haggai 1 to our situation? And to say that our great priority should be building up the people of God?

I think that's exactly the right way to take these words.

“And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:11–12).

“Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and 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” (Ephesians 4:15–16).

God is building His temple today as He builds His people. And He is building His temple through His people, to whom He has given the responsibility of building up His body.

Okay, fair enough, but can we really apply Haggai's prophecy straightforwardly? Can we really say that building up the people of God should be our number one priority, even more so than fixing up our own homes?

I mean, maybe if you're a pastor or a missionary, but all of us? Really?

You bet.

“Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:31–33).

See, we live in the New Covenant, and God hasn't promised us riches and wealth and abundance here on this earth. But God still does keep the books. God is still in control of our economies. And just like in Haggai's day, God has promised to take care of our needs, according to his standards, if we seek first His kingdom and His righteousness.

And friends, let's just acknowledge that this is countercultural. Not just in the world we live in, but in the church climate that we often live in here in North America.

It is very, very normal here for people who call themselves Christians to pursue the things of the world and give God their scraps and their leftovers. Whether it’s our time, our money, our resources, we choose the things that please us and work out well for us, and later on—once we've finished the renovation project, once hockey season is wrapped up, once our kids are grown up—then we'll give God first place.

And God is not impressed. “…We make it our aim to please him” (2 Corinthians 5:9) said the Apostle Paul. And far too often, we make it our aim to please ourselves and toss God a few crumbs to keep him off our back. We're like the people he spoke about when he said “they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 2:21).

Now I know how this might be coming across right now. Some of you might be thinking, "Here's the pastor, putting pressure on us to give more to the church. To give more time, more money, more everything. Easy for him to say—it's his job. Some of us have real lives to live, you know."

Evangelism

And guess what? That's not where I'm going first. We've been called to build up the household of God. To be a part of putting more bricks in the wall. Those bricks are people who have come to know their saviour.

Which means that the first place we should apply this truth might not be to think about what we do here together on Sunday mornings or wherever else we gather. The first place to think about applying this truth is to think about all of the people you know who don't know Jesus.

People who, like bricks lying around the ruins, need to be picked up and added to the glorious temple that God is building.

Which means that for some of you, the call from Haggai 1 to make temple-building a priority might actually be a call to spend less time with your Christian friends, and to get to know your neighbours instead. Have them over for a BBQ or a board game night.

Ask them what they believe and how it's working out for them. Invite them to read through the gospel of Mark with you or to come to church with you.

Get involved in building the temple. And yes, make this a priority. A priority that shapes what kind of activities you do and what kind of money you spend.

And sometimes this might show up in counterintuitive ways. I know that some of you this year chose to put your kids in soccer, which meant pulling them out of Faith Night a month early, but that was so that you could get to know people who need Jesus. And I don't think that was a bad decision for some of you to make.

See, ironically, building up the household of God might mean spending less time around church.

Families

Some people might need to be reminded that building up the household of God means paying attention to the bricks at home—their own immediate families. Discipling our children is a part of building up the body of Christ, and Christians can't use church ministry as an excuse to neglect our families.

The Church

But of course, it does involve church, because Ephesians 4 says that one of the ways we build up the church is by also strengthening and speaking truth to one another. It involves both evangelizing those who need to hear the gospel and establishing and equipping those who have believed.

So yes, your relationships with your fellow brothers and sisters should also be a priority. Your involvement at church should be a priority. And to tie something back in, parents, one of the greatest gifts you can give your children is to train them to build up the household of God by bringing them with you and getting them involved in your ministries from a really early age.

And so it is worth asking: is investing in the body of Christ a priority for you? Or are you living to please yourself and throwing God the leftovers?

Do we believe that we don't need to be anxious about taking care of ourselves, but that if we seek God's kingdom first, He really is going to provide all that we need?

Do we even hear the strong warning of 1 Corinthians 11, where we hear about people who were using the church, particularly the Lord's Supper, to satisfy their own gluttony, and how God struck some with sickness and even death? Just like in Haggai's day, God is zealous for his house.

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple” (1 Corinthians 3:16–17).

Now these words actually bring me joy this morning as I know that, for so many of you today, building up the body of Christ is your life priority. So many of you have and are making major life decisions built around the priority to seek first God's kingdom.

But just like the people of Haggai's day, we need to stay alert, lest the cares of this world do choke out our pure-hearted faith in God and get our priorities out of order.

So let's wrap up here with two key thoughts.

Look back at verse 8. Remember that there is a real God, a real person capable of experiencing pleasure. We get to make it our aim to please Him. We get to make it our aim to draw attention to His greatness.

The call to build the house of God is not a call to a morbid life of painful sacrifice. This is a call to a joyful walk with a happy God who we love to see more and more people worshipping in deeper and deeper ways.

And finally, as we turn to the Lord's table, let's hear the call to discern the body. The Lord's supper makes the invisible church visible. This is where we see the body and remember that, because we all eat from the same bread, we are one.

So as we do this, let's pray. "Lord, where specifically might you have me re-align my priorities? Are there 'panelled houses' in my life where I've pursued kingly luxury instead of your pleasure? Set me straight for your pleasure and glory and for our great joy."