What Am I Living For? Haggai Overview

Call to Worship

Psalm 107:4-9

Prayer of Adoration

O Lord of Heaven and Earth, You are not sustained by our worship, yet You graciously call us to it. You are not enriched by our gifts, yet You delight to dwell among Your people. You are the God who keeps covenant, who restores what sin has broken, and who remains faithful even when Your people grow distracted and weary.

You are worthy of more than what is left over. You deserve our first love, our highest loyalty, and our deepest joy. Your presence is better than comfort, Your glory greater than success, and Your kingdom more lasting than anything we can build with our hands.

So we gather now, not to fit You into our lives, but to order our lives around You. Receive our praise, shape our hearts by Your Word, and be glorified among us, O LORD of hosts.

It’s in Jesus’ name that we pray,

Amen

Pastoral Prayer

Sermon

Introduction: When Good Means Replace the Main Thing

If you have your Bibles turn to Haggai chapter 1. If you don’t have a Bible, there are some available in the seat back in front of you.

There’s a story about a small church that’s popular in Texas.

The church wanted to support its ministry and reach its community, so they started selling barbecue.

Which as I learned in embarrassing fashion the first year I lived there, BBQ means smoked meats, not burgers and hot dogs thrown on the grill.

It began as a fundraiser with good intentions, modest goals. The food was really good. People showed up. Word spread.

Over time, the barbecue became wildly successful. So successful that it began to demand more time, more energy, more attention.

Eventually, the church stopped gathering for worship—not because they rejected the gospel, not because of scandal or heresy—but because they decided to close the church and operate as a full-time barbecue restaurant.

Now, whether every detail of that story is precise or not, the reason it sticks is because we recognize the pattern.

No one woke up one day and said, “Let’s stop being the church.” They said, “This is working.” They said, “This supports the mission.” They said, “We can always get back to the main thing later.”

And slowly—almost without anyone noticing—the means replaced the mission.

That story feels especially fitting at the beginning of a new year.

This is the time when people naturally take stock of their lives. We look back at what we spent our time on. We think about what drained us, what satisfied us, what we poured ourselves into. We make plans. We set goals. We decide—sometimes without saying it out loud—what deserves our energy in the year ahead.

But here’s the danger: we can evaluate everything except the most important question.

What Am I Living For?

This morning we are completing our 12-part journey through the Minor Prophets with Haggai.

When Haggai steps onto the scene, God’s people are doing fine by most visible measures. They’ve returned from exile. They’re busy. They’re surviving. Life is functioning.

Homes are being built. Fields are being worked. Families are settling in. The instability of the past exile is behind them. There’s a sense of progress—maybe even relief.

But there’s a problem.

The temple—the place of worship, the visible center of life with God—sits unfinished.

Not destroyed. Not rejected. Just unfinished.

And no one is asking about it anymore.

Life is full—but worship is marginal.

That’s why Haggai is such an uncomfortable book. It isn’t written to people who hate God. It’s written to God’s people when life feels reasonable, responsible, and busy.

Haggai is a book for moments like this—when a new year begins, when plans are forming, when priorities are quietly settling into place.

And it presses one unavoidable question:

What am I living for?

That question runs through this short book and refuses to stay theoretical. It reaches into homes, schedules, budgets, discouragements, and hopes. It forces God’s people to stop and look at the shape of their lives.

As we walk through Haggai together, that’s the question we’re going to keep returning to:

What am I living for?

Because if we don’t ask it intentionally, life has a way of answering it for us.

And Haggai begins by asking:

I. Am I Living For Comfort or Worship?

Let’s read Haggai 1:1–4

Haggai 1:1–4 ESV

1 In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest: 2 “Thus says the Lord of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.” 3 Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, 4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?

Haggai begins with words that sound reasonable on the surface.

The people say that the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the LORD.

Notice what they do not say. They don’t say the temple doesn’t matter. They don’t say worship is unnecessary. They don’t say God is unimportant.

They say, now is not the time.

That phrase should make us uneasy, because it is one of the most spiritually dangerous sentences a believer can speak. Not “never.” Just “not yet.”

God’s response is pointed. He doesn’t debate timelines or logistics. He asks a question that reframes everything.

Is it time for you to dwell in paneled houses, while My house lies in ruins?

That word—paneled—is not very common so it should trigger a flag to pop up in our minds as we read.

This isn’t emergency shelter. This isn’t bare survival. Paneling is finish. It’s care. It’s comfort. It’s the difference between getting by and settling in.

This paneling was probably cedar, which was not cheap in a region that did not produce much wood.

God places two projects side by side: One is finished, refined, and enjoyed. The other is left exposed, unfinished, and neglected.

And that contrast reveals something important.

They didn’t necessarily reject the worship of God. They just postponed it.

And while they waited for a better time to do it, their lives quietly declared what they were living for.

Comfort.

At the most basic level, this is a failure of mission.

Christians have long summarized our purpose with a simple answer: we exist to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.

Glory and joy together. Worship that leads to delight.

But what happens in Haggai is a subtle reversal of that purpose.

God’s people are still enjoying things—but they’re enjoying their own comfort more than the Lord. They’re still building—but they’re building their own stability rather than God’s dwelling place. Without ever saying it out loud, they’ve shifted from glorifying God to securing their own sense of arrival.

They are living for personal comfort while public worship becomes optional.

And this is where the text confronts us.

Obedience delayed, even in the name of responsibility, is disobedience with makeup on.

We often tell ourselves that once things settle down, we’ll refocus on the things of God.

Once the house is finished.

Once the schedule eases.

Once the finances stabilize.

Once life is less demanding.

But “later” has a way of becoming “never,” and comfort has a way of quietly becoming a rival to God.

So the question here is not whether God is rejected, because they never outright reject him (and in most circumstances, neither do we).

The question is whether He is prioritized.

Because what we most carefully finish,

most fiercely protect,

and most deeply enjoy

often reveals what we believe life is really for.

Haggai doesn’t accuse the people of hating God.

He calls out their disordered loves.

He calls them them to remember why they exist—and to ask again the question they’ve stopped asking:

Am I living to glorify God and enjoy Him… or am I living to enjoy myself, with God pushed to the margins?

He can come in so long as he keeps me comfortable.

Comfortable is one of the most dangerous positions to be in as a Christian because we have an innate instinct to protect our comfort. EVEN if that means we put the commands of God off to the side.

Comfortable is how a church stops growing, and settles into the refrain that kills churches, “but that’s the way we’ve always done things.”

So if we live for comfort we can get a church that we finally think is perfect enough for us and then settle in as we join their march into oblivion.

But if we live for worship we will find that, though God calls us into some very difficult, very frustrating, very hurtful endeavors in building up and growing his church, He is with us — and that brings so much more comfort than our own perfect ideals.

What are you living for? Comfort or Worship?

Haggai continues by asking if the Israelites are living for:

II. Filling Up or Fulfillment? (1:5-11)

Haggai 1:5–6 ESV

5 Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 6 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.

After exposing their priorities, God presses further. He doesn’t let the people shrug and move on. Twice in this passage He commands them to consider their ways.

That command is not about surface-level reflection. It’s a call to slow down and trace the shape of their lives—to look honestly at what they’re filling their days with, and what it’s actually producing.

And when God walks them through their lives, a pattern becomes painfully clear.

They fill their lives with work—but nothing feels complete. They fill their fields with seed—but the harvest disappoints. They fill their stomachs—but never feel satisfied. They fill their purses—but the money seems to disappear.

They are busy people. Productive people. Responsible people.

But they are not fulfilled people.

God explains that this is no coincidence.

Their frustration is not random. It’s intentional.

God directly links their emptiness to their misplaced priorities. This is covenant discipline—not punishment in the sense of wrath, but loving correction. God is teaching them something about themselves.

They are filling up their lives—but not being fulfilled because they will never be fulfilled if they expect fulfillment from anything other than him!

They are living for activity rather than alignment, productivity rather than pleasure in God.

Comfort has quietly become the finish line—and it’s a terrible finish line for the people of God.

And this is where Haggai speaks directly to our lives.

We are very good at filling things up. Calendars. Schedules. Closets. Garages. Even church programs.

Many of these are good gifts. Necessary things. God-given responsibilities.

And yet we still feel restless, thin, unsatisfied.

But Haggai’s answer is revealing: when God gets sidelined, even His gifts stop satisfying.

Work still matters—but it’s never fulfilling. Provision still comes—but it never settles your soul. Progress still happens—but you never arrive.

God will not allow His people to mistake being full for being fulfilled.

And that is deep mercy.

Because if filling our lives with lesser things could truly satisfy us, we would never return to the One we were made for.

So God allows a holy dissatisfaction to linger. Not to crush us—but to wake us up.

This passage reminds us of something we easily forget:

You can be full and still be empty.

And God, in love, will not let His people find deep rest in shallow goals.

Mission drift doesn’t look like rebellion. It looks like reasonable people doing responsible things for too long—without asking whether those things are still aligned with God’s purposes.

So the question presses again—more personally now:

Am I living to fill my life with more busyness and more stuff… or am I living to be fulfilled by God Himself?

Because no amount of activity can replace the joy of a life rightly ordered around Him.

Haggai continues in verses 12-15 by asking Am I living for:

III. Fear or the Presence of God? (Haggai 1:12–15)

At this point in the book, something changes.

Up to now, Haggai has exposed priorities and explained frustration. But here, we see how God’s people actually respond.

They listen to Haggai as He speaks for God.

When the people hear the word of the LORD, they obey. But notice what God gives them next. He does not threaten them. He does not negotiate. He does not raise the bar.

He gives them a promise: “I am with you.”

That is the turning point of the entire book.

God knows what has driven their drift. It was not open rebellion—it was fear. Fear of scarcity. Fear of instability. Fear that if they stopped building their own lives long enough to rebuild God’s house, everything would fall apart.

The people had good reasons to hesitate when they originally stopped building.

We see in Ezra chapter 3 that opposition was real. Resources were limited. The task was daunting. Fear wasn’t imaginary.

But God doesn’t remove the difficulty. He removes the uncertainty that matters most.

He assures them of His presence. He is with them!

So God does not simply demand obedience. He answers their fear with His presence.

Friends, this is the gospel.

God’s people do not obey in order to make God come near. They obey because God draws near first.

That has always been the pattern. And it finds its fullest expression not in a rebuilt temple, but in Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the true and better Temple. In Him, God does not merely promise, “I am with you.” He becomes with us. Immanuel. He takes on flesh. He steps into our poverty, our instability, our misplaced priorities, and our fear.

Where Israel failed to order their lives around God’s dwelling, Jesus perfectly delighted in the presence of His Father. Where we have lived for comfort and control, Jesus lived in complete obedience—even to the point of the cross.

And at the cross, something astonishing happens: The judgment our disobedience deserves falls on Him.

Because of Jesus, God does not say to repentant sinners, “Fix your life and then I’ll come near.” He says, “I am with you—now rise and follow Me.”

This changes everything.

Obedience no longer flows from fear of loss, but from assurance of love. Sacrifice is no longer about earning favor, but about trusting presence. God Himself becomes the reward.

So the question is no longer, “What will happen if I obey?” The question becomes, “If God is truly with me, what do I have to fear?”

And it is that promise—God with us—that turns duty into devotion and realigns a people to live not for self-protection, but for His glory.

What are you living for? Fear or the Presence of God?

The next question Haggai confronts us with is are we living for:

IV. Immediate Results or Lasting Glory? (Haggai 2:1–9)

By the time we reach chapter two, the work has begun again. The foundation is being laid. The structure is rising.

And almost immediately, discouragement sets in.

Haggai 2:3 ESV

3 ‘Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes?

Some of the people remember the former temple. They remember Solomon’s glory. And when they look at what they’re building now, the comparison is painful.

This doesn’t look impressive. This doesn’t feel glorious. This feels small—almost embarrassing.

God doesn’t ignore that discouragement.

He knows their hearts. He knows the temptation to think, If this is all there is, what’s the point?

So God reframes their understanding of their work.

Haggai 2:4–5 ESV

4 Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts, 5 according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not.

He addresses their civic and religious leaders and then the people themselves.

He doesn’t deny the smallness of the present moment. He anchors it in something larger than their sight—His sovereign plan.

What they are building is not the final structure. It is part of a story much bigger than their generation.

God tells them that the glory to come will surpass what came before—not because of better architecture or greater wealth, but because of what He is going to do.

The point is not that their work looks glorious and magnificent now. The point is that their work belongs to a future that God is faithfully bringing about.

They are not living for immediate results. They are living for lasting glory.

Friends, our faithfulness is not validated by visible success.

If it were, most of God’s people across history would look like failures.

But God measures obedience differently. He measures it by trust, by perseverance, by alignment with His purposes—especially when the results are modest and the progress feels slow.

This speaks directly to weary saints.

God’s work often looks small before it looks glorious. It often feels disappointing before it proves faithful.

And Haggai exposes a great danger for us: when we live for immediate results, discouragement will eventually paralyze us. However, when we live for God’s future glory, faithfulness becomes possible even when joy is thin.

So friends, especially those tempted to quit:

Am you living for what you can measure right now… or for what God has promised to accomplish in His time?

Because the God who commands faithfulness in small things is the same God who guarantees that none of it is in vain.

Do not lose heart because you’re unimpressed. You already know that God is working all things to his own good ends.

Haggai continues with the challenges from God in verses 10-19 by asking Are you living for:

V. Possession or Trust? (Haggai 2:10–19)

In verse 12 God asks:

Haggai 2:12–14 ESV

12 ‘If someone carries holy meat in the fold of his garment and touches with his fold bread or stew or wine or oil or any kind of food, does it become holy?’ ” The priests answered and said, “No.” 13 Then Haggai said, “If someone who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean?” The priests answered and said, “It does become unclean.” 14 Then Haggai answered and said, “So is it with this people, and with this nation before me, declares the Lord, and so with every work of their hands. And what they offer there is unclean.

This is the most uncomfortable section of the book—and maybe the most revealing.

God asks the priests a theological question about holiness and defilement. The point is not academic. It’s diagnostic.

Holiness, God says, is not contagious. You don’t become clean by proximity. But defilement spreads easily. What is unclean transfers its corruption to whatever it touches.

Then God applies the principle to the people themselves.

Their work is defiled. Their offerings are defiled. Even their worship is defiled.

Why?

Because their hearts are defiled.

They assumed that a few religious acts—occasional sacrifices, partial obedience, delayed faithfulness—could sanctify a life fundamentally oriented around self-protection and comfort.

God dismantles that illusion.

Generosity, He shows them, is not about isolated acts. It is about settled patterns. It is revealed not in what we occasionally give, but in what we consistently guard.

Their kept comforts—the things they would not surrender, the priorities they would not disrupt—expose where their trust truly lies.

They profess faith in God. But they live as though security comes from what they possess.

They are living for what they protect, not what they profess.

And We so often measure our generosity by what we give. God measures it by what we hold back for ourselves.

The budget line we won’t touch. The lifestyle adjustment we won’t consider. The comfort that is off-limits—even to God.

Those untouchable things quietly become functional gods.

Not because we praise them, but because we trust them.

God has never been interested in percentages; He is after the heart that trusts Him with everything.

Think about your own life, what are the things you hold back from offering up?

Let me give you a very ordinary example.

Many Christians would say, without hesitation, “Of course I trust God.” But then we build a life that only works if God never asks for anything costly.

We choose a house payment, a lifestyle, a calendar, and a level of comfort that leaves no margin for generosity, no margin for hospitality, no margin for obedience that might disrupt us.

We are not refusing God outright. We’re just arranging our lives so that obedience stays theoretical.

And then when God calls us to give, to serve, to sacrifice, or to step into something uncomfortable, we feel resentful—not because the call is unreasonable, but because it threatens the life we’ve already decided we deserve.

That’s not stewardship. That’s possession.

Trust says, “Everything I have is Yours, and I will order my life accordingly.” Possession says, “I trust You—as long as You don’t rearrange what I’ve already built.”

God’s warnings, like the one here, are always given in mercy. He is exposing a false sense of blessing before it hardens into idolatry.

And He does something gracious at the end of this passage.

He calls them to look forward.

From this day on, He says, things will be different—not because they’ve earned blessing, but because repentance has begun. Their loves are being reordered.

The issue was never that God was stingy. The issue was that their trust was misplaced.

So ask yourselves:

Am I living to possess and protect… or am I living to trust and obey?

Because what we hold most tightly is often the clearest indicator of what we are really living for.

VI. My Lifetime or God’s Kingdom

(Haggai 2:20–23)

In the final words of the book, the LORD speaks not to the people as a whole, but to one man—Zerubbabel. He is the governor, the builder, the descendant of David. And God makes him a promise that sounds far bigger than his own lifetime.

God calls him His signet ring—the symbol of royal authority and covenant legitimacy. This is not accidental language. It is a deliberate reversal. Generations earlier, God had declared that He would tear the signet ring from the hand of a Davidic king because of sin. Now, in Haggai, God places the signet ring back on the line of David.

The message is clear: the covenant is not dead. The promise has not failed. God is not finished.

And yet—Zerubbabel never becomes king. The throne is not restored. The nations are not shaken in his lifetime. Which means Zerubbabel is not the fulfillment. He is the signpost.

This is where the gospel comes into sharp focus.

God often advances His greatest promises through faithful people who will never see their completion. Zerubbabel’s obedience mattered not because he would see the kingdom, but because God was building a kingdom through him.

And that kingdom comes in Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the true Son of David, the final signet ring—the One who bears God’s authority not temporarily, but forever. Where Zerubbabel governed under Persia, Jesus reigns over heaven and earth. Where Zerubbabel rebuilt a small, unimpressive temple, Jesus becomes the dwelling place of God with man.

This means the people of Haggai—and the people of God today—are called to live for something that outlasts them.

Obedience is never wasted, even when results are delayed. Faithfulness is never small, even when it looks ordinary. God uses quiet, unseen obedience to advance eternal purposes.

So the question that has echoed through this book lands here with final clarity: Am I living for glory in my lifetime—or for the promised Glory in God’s Kingdom?

Because when your life is anchored to God’s kingdom, even unfinished work becomes holy ground.

Conclusion — Consider Your Ways

“What am I living for?”

This is a question that presses it into our homes. Into our work. Into our worship. Into our money. Into our future.

A new year has a way of inviting reflection. We think about goals, habits, resolutions, hopes. But Haggai pushes past surface adjustments and asks something deeper.

Not what will I change, but what will I live for?

The catechism answers that question plainly:

What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

We often go wrong because we try to flip it. We seek our own glory through comfort. We seek enjoyment apart from God. We fill our lives to the brim and wonder why we’re empty.

Haggai’s message cuts through that illusion.

Comfort or worship? Control or the presence of God? Immediate satisfaction or lasting glory? My lifetime—or God’s kingdom?

God does not ask these questions to shame His people. He asks them to bring His people home.

To call them back to joy that actually satisfies. To work that actually matters. To worship that re-centers the soul.

So as this year opens, the call is not to do more. It’s to realign everything.

Consider your ways. Consider what you are living for. And then—by grace and with confidence—live for what will last.

All Glory Be To Christ.

Let’s Pray

Confession and Repentance

Holy and faithful God, You have called us to consider our ways, and we confess that we often avoid the question You place before us.

We confess that we have lived for comfort more than worship. We have filled our lives with work, activity, and possessions, while giving You what is left rather than what is first. We have delayed obedience, calling it wisdom, when it was really self-protection.

We confess that we have trusted what we can see, save, and control. Our generosity has been cautious, our priorities divided, and our hearts too easily satisfied with lesser things.

Forgive us, Lord, not because we deserve it, but because You are gracious and faithful to Your promises. Turn our hearts back to You. Reorder our loves. Teach us to live not for our own small kingdoms, but for Your unshakable one.

We ask this through Jesus Christ, the true Son of David and the glory of Your house forever. Amen.

Scriptural Assurance

Hear the good news of God’s promise:

“Return to Me, says the LORD of hosts, and I will return to you” (Zechariah 1:3)

And again:

“I am with you, declares the LORD” (Haggai 1:13)

For those who turn from self-seeking and trust in the mercy of God, this is our assurance:

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9)

In Jesus Christ—the true Temple, the faithful Son of David, the fulfillment of every promise—your sins are forgiven, your guilt is removed, and your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

Lift up your heads. You are forgiven. And the Lord is with you.

Benediction

Go now, having considered your ways, and live not for what is passing, but for what endures.

May the LORD of hosts be with you, establish the work of your hands, and fix your hope on His unshakable kingdom.

And may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ—the true Temple and promised King— keep your hearts faithful, your labor steadfast, and your lives ordered for His glory. Amen.