Christian Priorities

I'd like to invite you to return to Haggai chapter 1 with me this morning. You have officially made it to your first Sunday of 2026. And so your attendance record's 100% so far, so you've got a great batting average. Um And with the new year in mind, comes all those exciting New Year's resolutions that I'm sure you've been spending seconds coming up with. And if you're like me.

You get an exciting twinge of optimism and freshness in your stuff when the new year comes around. It maybe motivates you to pursue some exciting new goals. And if you're like me around April, you're going to look back and you'll find yourself back in your old steps again. And it doesn't really happen all at once, at least for me. It's like a slow trickle back into unmotivated normalcy.

And with that in mind, I think that it's worth noting And it's relatively easy for us to drift. as people. For instance, one day you might think you're crushing it in your fitness goals. You've counted your calories. You've ran or walked your mile for the morning.

You've done your weightlifting. But all of a sudden a few weeks or months have passed and now you look back and you haven't done any of those in a while now.

Now, while this famously happens to us physically, it happens spiritually far more than we would like to admit. We uh We've prayed, we've read our Bible, we've even attended church that morning. And it's not like we're just going through a simple checklist, we're genuinely enjoying the service and worship of the Lord. But slowly over time we begin to lose steam and other things begin to trickle in into our life. And before you know it, things like work or relationships or the gym or hobbies come in and they become the new priority of our life.

And thankfully, since that is a reality for many of us, the book of Haggai is aware. of this reality and it confronts it head-on for us today. You see the people of Israel. had been returned from exile. And a few decades beforehand, they had begun reconstructing the temple.

But at this point, the work has stalled for over a decade now. And they have began to go on with life as normal. They have been building nice homes, working jobs, planting a bunch of crops, expecting a great harvest. And they did all of this while the temple of the Lord lay off to the sides in a heap of ruins. The reason for this, according to Haggai.

Is it because of politics and it's not because of a lack of resources in their lives, but rather it's because their priorities have shifted? And so, in our text today, Haggai 1 is going to show us that because God draws near to us, We must correct our disordered priorities. And we must make the presence of God in Christ the centerpiece of our lives.

So, as we look in this passage, the first thing that I want us to notice is that. Our priorities drift when God is not preeminent. Our priorities drift when God isn't Preeminent. Verses one through four. in the second year of King Darius, In the sixth month, on the first day of the month, The word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel, the son of Sheeltiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Jehosedek, the high priest, saying, Thus speaks the Lord of hosts, saying, This people says, the time has not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built.

Then the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet, saying, Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses and this temple lie in ruins?

Now, therefore, thus says the Lord, consider your ways.

Now in this Introductory passage. God's primary point Yeah. Eliminating excuses. And peeling back the curtains to reveal that the issue at hand is not politics, it's not money, it's not time that is hindering the rebuilding of the temple. Rather, it's their hearts.

God is confronting them head on by revealing that they have priorities, all right, but your priorities are disordered. And what I want us to get here isn't that God is calling you to prioritize a lavish building project at the church, it's deeper than that. The question that holds the key to your understanding this whole chapter is. Why is the temple such a big deal? Anyway.

And the answer to that question is that the temple is the dwelling place of God in the most intimate sense in the Old Testament. You might remember in 1 Kings, David has passed off the scene. He had a longing to build the temple of the Lord, and he compiled resources for it. But the Lord told him, no, you're a man of war. There's too much blood on your hands.

And so the Lord passed this on to Solomon.

Now Solomon has now built the temple. And as he's constructed the temple at the ceremony, God's glory fills it. And here's what Solomon says in 1 Kings 8:13. The Lord has said, That he would dwell in thick darkness. I have indeed built you an exalted house, a place for you to dwell in.

Forever.

Now this does not mean the fact that God dwells in the temple. That he is not omnipresent, that God is not everywhere at once. Rather, you should understand the temple as God's special. manifestation to his people. It was there that he was to be worshipped.

It was there that he invited Israel to make sacrifices to him. And it is there that the Jews could look. and they could find a physical reminder. That God is with Me. God is with us.

And so By procrastinating in the book of Haggai, Essentially, what Israel is claiming by refusing to prioritize the building of the temple. It is That they're saying, yeah. We know it's important. But your presence isn't the most important thing for us right now. And now as New Testament Christians, we've got to ask, well, what does this mean for us?

And the answer to that is clearly everything. It's got everything to do with us because the presence of God in the temple is a mere prefiguring of Christ. Who is Emmanuel, God with us? Remember Jesus in John 2? How he talks about.

That they could destroy the temple, and in three days he's going to rebuild it. And they hear that, and they think. It took our fathers 46 years to build this temple, and you, some carpenter from the middle of nowhere, are saying that you can rebuild the whole thing in three days? And here's where John interjects with some commentary, and he says he was speaking about his own body and the resurrection. Of it.

And so the reason this matters is because this is a prefigurement of the way in which we tend to deprioritize the pursuit of Christ's presence in our life. But it doesn't end with the fact that Christ has come to be Emmanuel God with us. In 1 Corinthians chapter 3. Paul is rebuking the Corinthian church for sectarianism. They've all got their favorite preachers, and they're separating in the cliques.

And here's what Paul says. Do you not know? that you are the temple of God. and that the Spirit of God dwells in you. And then, in the tell us, in the end of all things, in the book of the Revelation, John says that he is in the heavens.

but he does not see the temple. And then he points to the Father and to the Son, and then he marks that they are one. the temple. and that we have been invited to gather together with them. them the danger.

That we face today isn't refusing to put on our hard hats, church. Rather, the mistake that we make. Is assuming that since we are the temple of God, we simply do not have to prioritize the presence of God in our lives, and that just is not true. It's not true. As Christians, We must seek to Zealously pursue a rich and a vibrant relationship with Christ.

We must Seek to exude the heart of Christ and the fruits of the Spirit. We must seek To it, that we pursue the presence of God in our lives. And when I say that, I'm not saying that God is distant from us as his people. What I'm saying is that since we are in union with Christ. God is always with us.

So, when I say that we must pursue the presence of Christ, I mean that we should live our lives corum deo. We should live our lives before the face. We should live our lives, as it were, With a conscientiousness that I am present before the Lord of glory even now. I mean that we should pursue a life that is filled with an awareness that the glorious presence of God is always and forever with me as his child. It's a life that seeks to be reoriented by the word of God and living with an awareness of God being with me.

Now. The The issue, however, that many of us face today is is discontent. And that leads to a disordered of our priorities. We want our houses to be fancier. We want our checks to be bigger.

We want our cars to be faster. And as a matter of fact, we want the Joneses to want to keep up with us. And what we've got to understand is your house being nicer is not a problem. And a nicer check is not a problem. Unless the pursuit of your life becomes the pursuit of this life becomes the priority of your life.

Do you see how the issues flesh out there? There's a discontentedness stating that I'm not pleased with where the Lord has put me. And then there's another that seeks to say, I'm before the Lord's face and I will work diligently. I will steward what I have. And if prosperity comes, praise the Lord.

But there's a contentedness in where we're at. And we see this all the time. The pursuit of riches or a nicer home becomes the priority of our lives. We see it all the time, don't we?

Someone begins to get traction at work, and now they're going more distant from the body of Christ.

Someone begins to set their eyes on a new toy, and so maybe they've decided they're just not going to give to missions for the next few months. And, beloved, we must decide that in this life, We are not going to allow the gifts of God to become our gods themselves. And it's unbelievably easy for us to do this. And if that is us today, I think that as we look at Haggai, we're going to find in verses 1 through 4 a few cures for those people whose priorities are disordered. Here's the first one.

In this text, God eliminates Your excuses. God eliminates our excuses. Look in verse 1. In the second year of King Darius, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by. Hag Eye.

Now stop there. In verse 1, Haggai is highlighting the date, he's highlighting his commission, he's highlighting his audience. And and In one sense, the dating is very helpful because what Haggai is doing is he's validating his prophecy and he's kind of giving you a timestamp to see that God is working through his prophecy. He utilizes time stamps a lot in here. But we need to understand that by this time, Israel has been delivered into captivity.

They have been returned by King Cyrus the Great. When Cyrus allowed the Jews to come home, he also encouraged them and allowed them to rebuild their temple. And right when they finished the foundations, some disturbed neighbors of Israel went to the king and they told him, Hey, if you allow them to rebuild Jerusalem, they're going to revolt against you. And so the king says, Stop. And so they do.

They do stop.

Well, by the time of Of Haggai, things have changed. Cyrus is dead, and so has his son, King Cambyses.

Now after King Cambyses has died, an imposter named Gomada has risen to the throne. And while Gomada is beginning to reign, we find King Darius the Great rise to the challenge, and he overthrows Gomada. And at this time, you've got to understand the Persian Empire is unlike anything the ancient world had seen. It stretches from northern Africa all the way up to southern Russia. It stretches from Asia Minor all the way over to India.

This is a massive empire. And so when Darius rises up and overthrows Gemada, there's these little pockets of rebellion that he's quelching. And so, when they state in the scriptures that God has established his reign, that means that there are no enemies who are going to be able to touch the throne of God. And so by the time we get to Haggai, we found that the revolts have been squelched. They've been stopped.

Darius has established his rule. And the reason that this is relevant is that it put a stop to the Jewish concern about political tumult. interfering with their work efforts.

So, in short, their delay is shown to be coming not from limitations due to politics, but from a place of procrastination.

Furthermore, You'll notice that Haggai tells us that it is the first day of the sixth month, and there's something for us there.

Now, in your calendars, that would be August 29th of the year 520 BC. That's exactly when this is taking place. But in the Jewish calendar, it's the first day of the sixth month. And the reason this is significant is because In the Jewish calendar, the first day of the month was a sort of a holiday of sorts. It was to be a day where we were invited in to make special offerings to the Lord and to have a day filled with celebration and rejoicing.

However, instead of rejoicing, Haggai is highlighting the temple that you should be sacrificing in, the temple that you should be rejoicing in is over there and it's in ruins. And so there's this sense of tension, this sense of conviction that should fall immediately because as they look at this, The introductory verse of this book eliminates. any excuse over political concerns, and it convictingly shows that their cold and procrastinating hearts have turned a day of worship into a day of emptiness and gloom. and sadness.

So, if our priorities as Christians are disordered, and we blame our circumstances. I think that we must recognize That are Our circumstances are rarely as restrictive as we claim that they are. Your circumstances are rarely as restrictive as you claim that they are. I think oftentimes we utilize excuses or circumstances as a cloak, a cover for us to hide behind, and they're not as restrictive as we think that they are. And if that's us this morning, God is providing this, I believe, as an example, as a means to get you thinking about what excuses you may be hiding behind.

The second thing we find is that God reminds them. Of who they serve. God reminds us of who we serve when our priorities are disordered. Verse 2: Note with me, it says, Thus speaks. The Lord of hosts.

The Lord of Hosts That could also be translated The Yahweh or the Lord of armies.

Now The The expression Lord of hosts appears throughout the Bible, and it really describes God as the commander of heavenly armies. But we are now post-exilic. They have returned back from exile, and that's going to change the way the Jews think in some ways. And in post-exilic literature, like Haggai, the expression here seems to rather emphasize not God's command over heavenly armies, but rather God is sovereign.

Now that's the way that Haggai is going to use the phrase Lord of hosts. It's emphasizing that God is sovereign.

So in the book of Haggai, the expression is used here to remind Israel that of your God's transcendence and over his control over all human affairs. And so when they hear that the Lord of hosts is speaking to them, that should cause a little bit of disturbance. It's not Adonai that's speaking to them. It's not a provider that is speaking to them. It's the commander of armies, it's the sovereign.

Who's speaking? And then notice what he says. This People. says This people Says You've got to think about how convicting this must have been for them. The Lord of hosts says, You're not my people.

You're just this people. When God calls Israel my people all throughout the Old Testament. He does this to remind them of his covenantal faithfulness to them. And so by calling them this people, we feel that things are not right. There's a sense of coldness that has developed in the covenantal relationship between Israel and their God.

It's not because of God, it's because of the mindset of this people. In essence, when the people of Israel refuse to make the presence of God a priority in their lives. They're not living like his people. And that's the problem. when they refuse to make the presence of God the priority of their life, They're not living.

like his people. And so if we likewise Christian. Are we living with disordered priorities in our life? God reaches out to us to remind us that, hey, you're not living. Like you should.

If God has been knocked down a few rungs on your list of priorities, God is reaching out and kind of grabbing you warmly and saying, Your priorities are not priorities that should be. Fitting of a Christian. This is the focus of Paul all throughout his New Testament writings. As he encourages us to remember what Christ has done for us, and then he says, Hey, put off the old man. and put on the new.

And so the Christian must have rightly ordered priorities. As God reminds us of who we serve, as God seeks to remove the excuses of our life, and then, thirdly, God cures our priorities as He exposes our priorities. For what they are. He gets down to the nitty-gritty. There is no room for excuses here.

This people say in verse 4: The time is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built. And then you can feel the Almost the sass of the Lord as he's beginning to speak back to them, as he says. Oh.

So it's time for you to dwell in paneled houses. But it's time for my house to sit in ruins. The final cure I want us to notice here is that God wants us. to see our disordered priorities for what they are. The word for paneled houses, paneled there in verse 4 is a word for luxuriousness.

These people would have been building these these stone wall structures And then they would go and cut down wood and they would refine it and they'd bring it into their house and they're going to decorate their walls. They're going to have wood paneling. It was apparently stylish back then too. And so, what God is saying here is: so, oh, so it's not time for my temple to be. Built But you've got time to focus on.

Everything else. And that's convicting. The word for ruins, my temple is in ruins, it gives the idea that the temple would have looked like an abandoned farmland. It would have looked like an abandoned farm with weeds and tall grass and trees and rubble from the destroyed temple sitting there. And your houses look pristine.

But the work of the Lord. is destroyed. In essence. What this passage seeks to teach us is that we can and will, beloved, find ourselves coming up with any excuse in our life to soothe our conscience into letting us get by with disordered priorities. One commentator states that the saying, the time has not come, must have in their time become a sort of a slogan like the 60s and 70s here when we used to say, no more war.

It would have just been something that they would have just habitually said anytime that they looked at the temple to soothe their conscience. The time's not come. The time's not come. And we, if we are not careful. We'll begin to look at the Lord and we will begin to knock him down a few rungs on our priority list and say, It's just not time.

It's just not time. And so here God peels back the veil. To show us what's really going on, God is reaching into our hearts and He is wanting us to realize that it's not an issue of circumstance, beloved, it's often an issue of the heart. We may not be guilty, you may not be guilty, of abandoning God outright. But I believe that if we took an honest look this morning, we'd admit that we are often guilty of demoting him in our list of priorities.

And think about it this way: you would never. Most of you would never say that prayer does not matter. You would never say that the preaching of the word does not matter. You would never say the reading of the word does not matter. And yet, our lives often tell a different story.

And so Haggai does not end there. In the case of the people of Israel, they don't in case they don't get it, Haggai wants them to consider their hardships as a lens through the lens of their behavior. And so, first, what we've seen today is that there is an expulsion of excuses that our priorities are disordered in our lives when God is not preeminent. And so the question I have immediately is. What are your priorities?

What are your priorities? Is the Lord chief On your priority list? Or is he someone that you wait to get to later? That is the convicting question, the chief penultimate question of the book of Haggai, chapter one. Where do your priorities lie?

Second. In verses 5 through 11, we find that when our priorities drift, God will use difficulty to get your attention. Look with me in verse 6, it says, You have sold, well, verse 5 says, Consider your ways. You've sold much and you bring in little. You eat, but you don't have enough.

You drink, but you are not filled with drink. You clothe yourself, but no one's warm. And he who earns wages earns wages to put into a bag. with holes.

Now, so far, God's made it clear: hey, your priorities are wrong. And in this next portion, he is going to reveal that the root of their economic difficulties is rooted in their spiritual apathy. In verse 6, there is an abundance of hardship. Being discussed. The farmers are hoping and working for a big harvest, but it doesn't come.

They're scraping together what they can for meals, but they can't be filled. They're clothing themselves, but they can't stay warm. And then that final thing is it's Says hey. You're working and your wages are falling through. your purses.

That final bit. Is probably not referring to men clumsily carrying beat-up wallets and losing a few pennies. It's probably referring to to inflation. These workers are laboring, but all they're getting paid with are these coins that are tiny enough to slip through a hole. There's economic distress in Israel.

And furthermore, in verses 9 through 11, we find that the root cause for their failing harvest and for their dying livestock is rooted in their unwillingness to prioritize the temple. of the Lord. Verses 9 through 11 reads. You look for much. But indeed it came to little.

And when you brought it home, I blew it away. And that phrase for blew it away would be referring to the grinding floor where the wind would blow the chaff away. Like those husks, those empty husks carried by the wind. It would just blow them away. And you're working and you're bringing your food home.

You're bringing home what you've got, and it just is gone. Says the Lord of hosts, why? Because of my house that is in ruins, while every one of you runs to his own house. Here's the conclusion: Therefore, the heavens above you withhold the dew, and the earth withholds its fruit. For I called for a drought on the land and the mountains, on the grain and the new wine and the oil, on whatever the ground brings forth, on men and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands.

The punishments that we are reading of here are what we would call covenantal punishments. God has made a covenant with the people of Israel. It's unlike the covenant He has made with us. This is a covenant which is also tied to the land. If you are faithful to me, I will let you dwell on the land, there will be prosperity.

But if you forsake me, I'm going to chastise you, and if you forsake me, I'm going to send you into exile. These are Old Testament. covenantal punishments.

Now what we learn In this passage. is that God uses difficulties in our lives to correct us. What's not clear here is In English, the word for ruin in verse 9. It says, because of my house that is in ruins. And then go down to verse number.

Let's see if I can find drought. Where is it? Verse 11, for I called for a drought. The the word for For ruins is Harev. In Hebrew, and then the word for Jeral is Horev.

And so Horev and Horev, they're right there. And how guys is essentially, in case it's not getting through to you, I'm going to do a word picture here, and you're going to be able to tie it together. We're suffering because our priorities are wrong. That's what he is saying. At the end.

Hagai does a play on words, so there's no mistaking for them. You're suffering. because you have disordered priorities. And in the midst of the section in verse 8, God makes things clear. He says Go up to the mountains, bring wood, Build the temple that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified.

God makes it clear. Hey, obey me. Build the temple, I'm going to be pleased, and I'm going to be glorified in you. Beloved dish Does your life feel like an endless rat race right now? Do you feel like you're doing nothing but burning rubber?

It feels like you're getting knocked back every time you think you're finally making progress. If that's you, it could be, could be, but God is sending difficulty into your life to get your attention. To get your attention.

Now, don't misunderstand me. If you're suffering. If heartache has befallen you, that's not the only explanation. That's not the only explanation. For instance, you may suffer for righteousness' sake by being fired for refusing to do something that is unethical at your job.

Or you might be like Job, living righteously. And the Lord allows a trial to come into your life for a greater purpose. And so what I'm not saying is that, hey, if you have any difficulty in your life, it's because you don't prioritize the Lord. But what I am saying is that while those categories for suffering are certainly right, I don't want us to always assume that when we suffer, we're suffering innocently. There is a way in which God sends heartache into our life as an alarm to wake us up, to shake us, and to say, Your priorities are messed up.

Your priorities are messed up. And so we need to pray, like James teaches us, for wisdom to discern these trials of our life, to discern what the purpose is for these things. We need to pray for God to give us wisdom to discern whether the trials that surround us are, as it were, bumper rails on the bowling alley of life to guide us down to the lane of a life that is focused on God's presence. When we try to run here or there, the Lord may put a blockade up. bounce you off to get you to go for it.

to the place where he wants you to be. It's the job that you have prayed for and wanted. And long for finally Coming to pass, and yet you have it, and things are just falling apart, and it seems it may come to an end. Perhaps the Lord, beloved, is loosening your grip. on that job.

so that you might once again see that he is your sufficiency. Is the bank account that you have obsessed? Over Suddenly running dry through an unexpected expense. Perhaps the Lord is teaching you to glory not in the things stored up on this earth, but to rejoice in your unsearchable riches, which are in Christ Jesus in heaven. It's the relationship that you have quietly leaned on for some time now in shambles.

Perhaps the Lord is reminding us. that true nearness to one another is only found as we move towards him. ourselves. The Lord will send heartache, difficulties, problems into our lives as a way to provoke us to examine, Lord, where are my priorities? And a way I think that it works is is there's almost a thermometer that gives a reading.

is that when these difficulties invade our life, Where does our mind go? Does our mind hyperfixate? On the things that have been taken or the problems that are there. Or do our minds tend to rest in the sovereignty of God and to say, Lord, I'm not enjoying this. Lord, this hurts.

But but Lord, you're the priority. And I trust that you, being the sovereign superintender of all things, you are working this for my good. Where does our mind go in the midst of heartache? And I think that's going to be a good way to tell. Where are my priorities?

Now this leads me to To my final point. I finished at 7 o'clock on Sunday night. And I feel like I'm doing okay this morning on finishing on time. And the reason is, is because I've noticed my last two sermons have blown out Pastor Bartman's own length. And so I figured that if I can get shorter, I get more grace from you guys.

So I'm doing my best to do that today. It's a hard text, so I figured this will absorb the brunt of the storm for you. All right.

So we find that in our lives, our priorities drift when God isn't preeminent. In our lives, God will eliminate our excuses. In our lives, God will send difficulties in to reorient our priorities. And then finally, when our priorities are disordered, When they, excuse me, where did I find my notes at? Where'd they go?

When our priorities drift. The spirit must. Rekindle our hearts. The Spirit must rekindle our hearts. This is going to lead me to that That last bit, verses 12 through 15.

Then's a rubbable. The son of Sheeltio. The son of Joshua, the son of, and Joshua, the son of Jehosedak the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God. Isn't that what it Isn't that what every Christian wants to see in their life when they speak the word over someone, when we evangelize someone, that they would hear the word of the Lord, when we take the word to bear on our friends, that they would hear the word of the Lord? Haggai, if you're going to choose a prophet to want to be like, Haggai is the one.

He had a three and a half month-long ministry, and it was a very fruitful one at that. It says furthermore. They 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 presence of the Lord. Then Haggai, the Lord's messenger, spoke the Lord's message to the people, saying, I am with you, says the Lord.

The Lord.

So the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, the son of Sheeltiel, governor of Judah. And the spirit of Joshua, the son of Jehosodek 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 host There. God.

They're gone. on the 24th day of the sixth month. and the second year. of King Darius. This passage communicates to us that when our priorities are drifting The spirit must rekindle.

Our hearts. We will see here that the people of God respond positively to the message of Haggai. And they commit to fearlessly serving the Lord, fearfully serving the Lord. Verse 12 tells us that they obeyed and feared the presence of the Lord.

Now Verse 14 is where I want you to look because verse 14 is going to make it clear. This is not a revival caused by. Haggai's great speaking abilities. It's not a revival that is caused by the leadership of Zerubbabel or Joshua. It is a revival.

done by the power of God through the Word of God. The word for stirred up that you see there in verse 14, it's a. It's a word that draws on the imagery of sleepiness. of sleepiness. It's like a A man being woken up to participate in something that he would have missed otherwise.

Uh next month The 15th is my wife's due date for our third child, and that has me thinking about when Silas was born. All of our children like to come. In the middle of the night. And then they don't ever sleep at night again. And Silas was no exception there.

And so it's like 3 a.m., I don't know, 3 a.m., 4 a.m., and I am unconscious on the couches.

Something every dad has to suffer through is those couches. In this life, brothers, you will suffer hardship. for righteousness' sake. And I am over there and I am slumped and I'm an ugly sleeper. And the doctor's over there and she says, Hey Dad.

You want to come get in on this? And I come over. And Silas is like already almost completely into the world at that time. And that's essentially what the Spirit is doing here. The nurse stirred me up to something that, because of my sleep, I would have otherwise missed.

And that's what's happening here. He's saying, look, there is a mission for your life to serve the Lord. to see the glory of God present in Israel. And you're asleep at the switch I've called you for a time like this, and you're asleep. And so the Lord works through this message of Haggai.

He awakens them up. He wakens these people from spiritual lethargy to get to work on the urgent project that is before them. What we see here is, we are a people. prone to coldness. But the Spirit is present for us as his people.

to rekindle our affections for Christ. I can't tell you. Being completely authentic. How many times over the years I will go and I will have to pray honestly. Holy Spirit, you know my appetite for your word is not where it should be.

Please. Please rekindle my affections for your word. And he's faithful. He's faithful. He's faithful because he is the one that makes you aware of that lethargy.

And he is also the one who is faithful to spark and rekindle a desire for his. Word. The next thing I want you to notice is that the Spirit works through the Word here, and that's. That's still the normal way that he functions today. That's the way that the Spirit works today is through His Word.

One thing that I hope will define my ministry and I know has faithfully defined the ministry of our elders here is that we are a word centered people. I grew up in a tradition which was rather known for esegesis or very taking a lot of liberties with our preaching. And the way that the Lord pushed me into exegesis is essentially, I wasn't creative enough to come up with stuff that wasn't there. He's gracious, right? I'm just not creative enough to come up with stuff that's there.

And the Lord blesses the preaching of his word. We don't have to come up with gimmicks. We don't have to come up with new shows. We don't have to come up with multi-million-dollar drama plays to try and win people. We just preach the word.

And it's been faithful. The word has been preached over me, and it's won my soul. It's won the soul of my wife. It's the word that we preach over our children day in and day out. The Lord is faithful to use his word.

And for all of you that are here and you have known us for any time, the same can be said of you. The Lord has saved you through the preaching of His Word or the reading of His Word, and He has sanctified you. Not rapidly, but it's just this slow trickle, this nourishment that God has put into your life through a steady diet of the Word. That is the centerpiece of a faithful ministry: where do we put the Word? That's the reason we put our pulpits as Baptists in the middle of the stage.

It's because, as Luther said, the pulpit is the throne for the word of God. And by putting it in the middle of the platform, we are stating one thing clearly: this is central for everything that we're doing here. And when our minds begin to get distracted by other things and projects and pet things that we want to work on, the Lord calls us back to look into His Word, and it's through His Word that He will begin to rekindle our affections for what really matters: it's Christ at the center.

Now, furthermore, I want us to notice that. Even though they begin to obey the Lord. And they do. They do obey the Lord. It says that they obeyed his voice and they feared the Lord, and then it kind of backs up and it gets underneath.

It kind of peels back the clock and it shows you what's going on behind the watch face. Why did they obey? Why did they fear? It's because the Spirit is at work in them. And one thing I want you to notice is: did they obey?

Yes. Did they fear? Yes. Did their problems go away? No.

The problems were still there. The problems did not magically change. There is still a drought. There is still financial difficulty. And the difference now, however, is It's all found in verse 13.

It's the most precious Passage in Hi guy. Then the then Haggai. The Lord's messenger spoke the Lord's message to the people, saying, I am with you. You. says the Lord.

I am with you, says the Lord. This this must have been Just a joy for them to receive. At the beginning, what do they hear? I am the Lord of hosts, and you are not behaving like my people. Who is this people?

And now, as the Lord by His Spirit has worked in them, He speaks over them and He says, Hey. I'm with you. I'm with you. And the Lord loves to say that. The Lord said it to Jacob.

When he was fleeing from Esau, At Bethel he says, I'm with you. When Moses was being commissioned at the burning bush, the Lord said, I'm with you. I am with you is what God told Joshua when he took lead of Israel and began to storm the Promised Land. I am with you is what he told Gideon as he began to face the Midianites. I am with you, is what God told David when he made a covenant with him.

That would be fulfilled in Christ. I am with you, is what God told this commission group in Haggai, and I am with you to the end of the age, is what the Lord of glory said as he resurrected from the grave and he commissioned us as his church. He says to us today, you've got a job, and look. I'm with you. I'm with you.

And what a blessed thing that is for us to know. that the Lord is with us. Do we face a task unfinished? Yes. We do.

Has the gospel reached all ears? No, it hasn't. Does the Lord commission us to live on mission to spread the gospel? Yes, he does. Is that a humbling and humiliating thing?

Yes, it is, but the Lord says, I am with you. Yeah. I don't get to preach the whole book.

Okay. But you'll find later they kind of become Sad. Because they remember the glories that were told of them of Solomon's temple. And as they come and they begin to build this measly temple, They're disappointed because it's not as glorious as the temple that Solomon erected. And the Lord says, I am with you.

I will be pleased. I will be worshiped. And beloved, the Lord calls us to a wonderful life of service. There may not be many big things taking place in your life. I spoke to my children about this last night for family devotions.

You're just a little child. And the Lord calls you to a life of regular, ordinary obedience. And the Lord says it's not much. But I am with you. And I take glory in it, and I am present, and I will be worshipped in it.

That's a gracious award.

Furthermore, God's presence with his people is no longer tethered today to a building or a land, but to a person. It's in Christ Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us. It's this Christ. Who has borne our curse, who has endured the drought of divine judgment. It's Christ who has risen in triumph.

As his people, we are called to and can obey in hard circumstances with confidence, knowing that the promise spoken in Haggai, that he will be with them, is the promise that is fulfilled in Christ and present with us forevermore. I am with you. Looking back at verse 1, we find that it was a day to be filled with special sacrifices and joyful worship. And in verse 8, God says that if they will get started on the temple, he will take pleasure in it. The word for pleasure there is the same word used throughout the Old Testament for God taking delight in the sacrifices that they gave.

Was the temple erected? No. Could they give physical offerings? No. And the Lord is summoning them.

Bringing into an awareness that the temple is gone. And he is essentially saying That your obedience It's a sacrifice. in which I take The light. This tells us that God views our obedience to His command as an offering that delights Him. In other words, when the people rebuild the temple, they're not just constructing a building, they are worshiping the Lord, and He regards this faithful labor as a pleasing sacrifice.

This reminds us today that obedience itself. is worship. The Lord delights not in the ease or the comfort or the wealth of your life, but in the hearts of those who put him first. Romans chapter 12, verse 1, Paul writes, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God, which is your right. Reasonable.

Service. And this is what they do. And and Haggai. And the Lord is pleased in it. When our labor, when our very lives are done with hearts that are focused on living before the face of God, He is glorified in us no matter how.

Small the task. And in conclusion, I want to leave with three things to think about. First, I will hurry through this first. Our Christian lives must be one Oh f of conscious prioritization. Conscious prioritization.

You we will never wake up. 10, 20, 30 years from now, in a vibrant walk with the Lord Jesus and go, hey, How'd that happen? It just doesn't happen. Same with your marriage. Hey, how'd that happen?

You endure the storms together. It's a devotion, it's a discipline. We must discipline ourselves to seek His face daily. We must cling to Christ daily, and by His grace, we must kill our sin ruthlessly. We must say, Lord, I want Christ.

Christ. I want Christ. I want Christ to permeate my life. I want Christ to be expressed in my speech. I want Christ to be seen in me.

And Lord, help me for not wanting Christ more. Forgive me for where my priorities are disordered. I just want Christ and make me want Him more. Make me want him more. Our children will never grow up knowing that mom and dad take the Lord seriously unless we make it a priority now.

Our children should know, and I think they do today by your example. That we take the Lord's Day seriously. There's no question: are we going to church tomorrow in our home? Sunday is not Saturday 2.0. It's the Lord's Day.

It's the Lord's Day. They should know that their parents pray for them and long to model Christ before them. They should know that when dad comes home, we are going to be prayed over and he is going to lead us in teaching us about Jesus. Beloved, the elderly men and women in the Lord, whose faith you admire, they did not get to that place by waiting until they were aged to begin walking with the Lord seriously. Neither should we.

Neither should we. Second. Our contributions must be a conscious prioritization. Verse 14 says, The people came and worked on the house of the Lord their host. Uh Now, while this text is not calling us to engage ourselves in a building project, I think it does allow us to consider how we are engaging in the building up of Christ's body.

When you joined this assembly, you signed a covenant. And among it we have committed ourselves to praying for one another. Are we praying for one another? We have committed ourselves to evangelizing the lost. Are we evangelizing the lost?

Are we correcting our brothers and sisters when they fall in sin with a word of grace and love? Are we making use of our time and talents for the glory of God and the good of His church? Are we contributing financially to the progression of Christ's kingdom? These are things that we should be consciously doing.

Now, I'm a mutt. I think they call my generation the Zelenials because we're like right on the dot of the shift. And I understand. That an excuse that you're going to hear often is the climate of our economy when it comes to contributing to the work.

However, I don't buy that to be a valid excuse. That frees us from giving if our lives are filled with purchasing $7 lattes and financing new vehicles. Is the Lord a priority? If you come to me and you say, Pastor Strength, I can't even afford two-ply toilet paper.

Well, I think there's definitely room for discussion there. Right? But there's a sense in which our priorities must be focused on the Lord's work. The Lord has granted us the money that He has given us to steward for the good of His kingdom. There's liberty to buy $7 lattes.

You can do it. Most of them taste bad anyway. There's liberty to do that if you think it's wise.

However, if those decisions are the reason you won't fund mission work, for instance, that may be a sign of a spiritual issue. I've said it before in my Sermon on Contentment. I'll say it now. Our wallets are great diagnostic tools for where we are spiritually. And that's all I'm going to say on that point.

I'll finish with this. Finally, I want you to leave, knowing that while the law is heavy, the Lord is present. You are called to a great task, but the Lord is with you as his people. We are but a weak and sinful bunch. Our priorities become disordered regularly, and we begin loving the things of this world.

I know you're tired. I know it's hard. I'm so tired of killing sin. I hate sin. I'm tired of it.

Marinath the Lord Jesus. It's just a daily life of mortification. You don't get vacation from this. It's a daily life of slaughtering sin. I know you're tired.

I am too. But also know That even though the task is big, The Lord who is greater is with you. He speaks over us and says that our obedience is something in which he is glorified. And he is worship through. And we praise the Lord that he has called us to this task.

Amen. Let us pray. Most kind and gracious Heavenly Father, you have been gentle with us in allowing us to come before your presence today and to worship you. as a weak and needy band, And yet in Christ Yet in Christ, your banner over us is love. You are glorified in us.

And for that, we say thank you. Thank you. Lord, our priorities have a tendency to be so discombobulated, so disordered. Help us to make Christ number one. May may our wives Our husbands, our children see Christ in us.

May our priorities be focused on Christ. May our homes be led in the worship of Christ, in the study of Christ, in the prayer to Christ to be more Christ-like. Help us, Lord, I pray. to kill Sen. and to be more like you this year.

It's in Jesus' name we pray. Yeah.