GIVE CAREFUL
THOUGHT TO HOW YOU LIVE
Haggai 1:1-11
INTRODUCTION:
Did you ever get lost because you
weren’t paying attention while you were driving? It is easily done.
Back when Sandy and I were in
college, we both were fulltime students, we worked our way through school
and in addition, we had a weekend youth ministry about 40 miles away. On
Sunday nights, when we were driving back to Lincoln, we would both be VERY
sleepy. Many times one of us would ask the other, “Did we pass route 122
yet?” “Did we pass Emden?” Maybe even, “Did we pass Lincoln?”
It’s easy to get lost while we
are driving if we don’t pay attention. It is easy to be lost while we are
living, too. Twice in the first eleven verses of Haggai, God told the
prophet to tell the people, “give careful thought to your ways.” Would you
please listen for that phrase while I read?
1
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 Jehozadak, the high priest:
2
This is what the
Lord Almighty says: “These
people say, ‘The time has not yet come for the
Lord’s house to be built.’”
3
Then the word of the
Lord came through the
prophet Haggai: 4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to be
living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?”
5
Now this is what the
Lord Almighty says: “Give
careful thought to your ways. 6 You have planted much,
but have 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.”
7
This is what the
Lord Almighty says: “Give
careful thought to your ways. 8 Go up
into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I
may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the
Lord. 9 “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 his own house. 10 Therefore, because
of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops.
11 I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the
grain, the new wine, the oil and whatever the ground produces, on men and
cattle, and on the labor of your hands.”
“Give careful thought to your
ways.” That’s good advice while driving and while living. Give careful
thought to you ways; give careful thought to how you live, otherwise you may
end up someplace you didn’t want to go.
In our text for this morning,
Haggai specifies three aspects in which we ought to give careful thought to
our ways.
I. GIVE CAREFUL THOUGHT
TO YOUR PRIORITIES (1:1-4)
Four friends went deer hunting.
They paired off into two groups of two. When it was time to meet back at
their rendezvous site, one of the fellows came staggering in dragging an
8-point buck. His friends congratulated him on his deer but then asked,
“Where’s Harry?” “Oh, I had to leave him back in the timber. I think he
had a heart attack.” “You left him in the woods because you thought he had
a heart attack?” his friends asked. “Yeah. It was either Harry or the
buck; I couldn’t carry both. It was a tough call but I figured no one would
steal Harry.”
Most of us would think that
reflected misplaced priorities. Haggai 1:1-11 is written to people with
misplaced priorities. The Jews had been held captive in Babylon for seventy
years. Cyrus, King of Persia, had defeated the Babylonians and thus got
control of the Jews that Babylon had taken captive. Cyrus decided to allow
these Jews to return to their ancestral homeland and he sent them under the
leadership of Zerubbabel.
Under Zerubbabel’s leadership,
the people settled into the land of Judah. Under Zerubbabel’s leadership,
they laid a foundation for a new temple and began to build. But their
Samaritan neighbors harassed them and the Persian overlords pressured them
so the work on the temple stopped. For sixteen years it stopped.
Cyrus passed away and was
succeeded by King Darius. In the second year of King Darius, God raised up
the prophet Haggai. God raised up Haggai to stir up the Jews to resume work
on the temple.
God spoke through Haggai, and
told the Jews that their priorities were messed up. The people were saying,
“This isn’t the right time to rebuild the temple.” And I’m sure they had
reasons for saying that. Their reasons may have made sense to them but God
knew they were just excuses. God told them that something was wrong when
they were living in their fine houses while God’s house was in ruins. If it
was the right time to build houses for themselves, it was the right time to
rebuild the temple.
It is a fact that we can always
find “reasons” for not doing what God has called us to do. Often, we have
not said we won’t do His will – we just put it off…until we forget that it
needs done and then we don’t do it at all. Procrastination is one of
Satan’s most effective tools to keep us from obeying the Lord.
Your priorities are not what you
say is important to you; your priorities are what you show is important to
you. Let me see your datebook and your checkbook and I will tell you what
your priorities are. Jesus said, where your treasure is, there you heart
will be also. And where you invest the most of your time reflects what you
value the most. If you say the Lord and His work is your highest priority
but He just gets your leftover time and your leftover money, then He is not
really your priority, is He?
These Jews, recently returned to
Judah, had invested their time and their money in themselves and had
neglected the work of the Lord. So what about you? What [or who] is most
important to you?
II.
GIVE CAREFUL THOUGHT TO YOUR EFFECTIVENESS (1:5-6)
A second aspect of our lives to which we
must give careful thought is our effectiveness.
Here’s a simple principle but it
applies in almost all areas of life:
“if you do what you’ve always
done, you will get the results you’ve always got.”
Now that seems very obvious,
doesn’t it? But it is surprising how often we delude ourselves into
thinking it is not true.
I was speaking with a minister in
our area about a certain church ministry. He said that the people who lead
in that ministry are trying to find out how to make it more effective so it
will reach more people. But when he, or others, have suggested some changes
that could be made to increase the effectiveness of the ministry, the
leaders resist, dig in their heels and argue that they shouldn’t have to
change the way they’ve done things for the past 50 years. Doesn’t it seem
obvious that if we want a different result, we need to change our methods?
That is also the principle behind
a discipline in psychology called “Brief Counseling Therapy.” In Brief
Counseling Therapy, the counselor asks the client to identify the problem
that has brought him there. If it is guilt, if it is addiction, if it is
marital discord…whatever it is, identify it. Then the counselor asks, “What
have you tried before in an effort to resolve this?” The counselor writes
down those attempts. Then the counselor asks, “What can you think of that
might work that you haven’t tried?” He writes those down. Then the
counselor asks the counselee to pick one and try it, come back next at the
next appointment and tell the counselor how that worked.
What is startling is the number
of times that people have tried something, it hasn’t worked but they keep
doing it.
·
A husband has used sarcasm to try to change his wife’s
behavior and it just makes her more resentful. But he keeps using sarcasm
anyway.
·
A wife nags to get her husband to do some jobs around the
house and all that happens is that he withdraws and becomes sullen. But she
continues to nag anyway.
·
Parents try to modify their children’s behavior by blaming and
shaming but the kids just become more rebellious. But the parents keep
right on blaming and shaming.
·
An employee gets passed over for a promotion because he is
abrupt, rude and dismissive with his colleagues. His boss tells him that.
But he keeps right on treating other people that way.
Do you see? If we keep doing
what we’ve always done, we will keep getting the results we’ve always got.
A church with declining
attendance, declining membership and declining giving that steadfastly
refuses to change the way it does the work of the Lord is going to continue
to decline. If we do what we’ve always done, we will get the results we’ve
always got. Or, if a church only does what it has always done, it will only
win the ones its already won.
God told the Jews to carefully
consider how effective their ways have been up to now:
You have planted much, but have
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.
What you are doing is not
working. You plant much but harvest little. You eat but are still hungry.
You put on more clothes but you are still cold. You earn money but you
still don’t have enough. What you are doing is not working…so change what
you are doing.
So may I ask you: is the way you are
living getting you closer to the goal for your life? The goal for the life
of a Christian is to be like Jesus. Is the way you are living helping you
to be more like Jesus? If not, you’d better change your ways.
III.
GIVE CAREFUL THOUGHT TO YOUR GOD (1:7-11)
In our lives, we must also give careful
thought to God. In the midst of all the other demands on your time, your
energy, your money…your life, are you being intentional about your
relationship with God?
Karl Laney, in his book Marching Orders,
writes about the last painting by the German realist painter, Adolf Menzel.
Hanging in a Berlin art gallery, this unfinished painting was intended to
show Fredrick the Great speaking with some of his generals. Menzel painted
generals and background but left king until last. He drew the outline of
Fredrick in charcoal, but died prior to finishing it.
How typical of many people…even many
Christians. They come to end of life without ever having put God in his
proper place at the center of their lives.
God told the Jews:
7
This
is what the Lord Almighty
says: “Give careful thought to your ways. 8
Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house,
so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the
Lord. 9 “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 his own house.
The body of David Livingstone was
buried in England where he was born, but his heart was buried in the Africa
he loved. At the foot of a tall tree in a small African village the natives
dug a hole and placed in it the heart of this man they loved and respected
and who loved and respected them. If your heart were to be buried in the
place you loved the most, where would it be? At the bank? In your office?
At the lake? In front of the television? At a state park, a ballpark or a
theme park? Where is your heart?
You had better be giving careful
thought to your God because one day, after your last day here on this earth,
He and He alone will decide where you spend eternity. If you want to spend
eternity with Him in heaven, you’d better be spending time with Him here on
earth.
CONCLUSION:
When I was young, a popular party
in our church was a “Destination Unknown.” Adults, youth and children would
pile into cars in the church parking lot and we’d follow a leader who would
take us through the streets of Tuscola in a seemingly random manner until we
finally ended up at a place where the party had been prepared. Not knowing
where we were going, even while we were on the way, just added to the
excitement. “Destination Unknown” makes for a great party but it is a
terrible way to live your life. Are you aware that the Bible teaches that
you can know that you are saved and thus where you will spend
eternity? Will you let me show you how to know?
INVITATION: #132 – “Is My
Name Written There?”
