CONSIDER YOUR WAYS

Introduction

-In an internet health article, health expert Sydney Loney writes about a time when she ignored symptoms of cancer on her body even though her family had a high-risk cancer with several instances of cancer, and even admitting if someone else had explained similar symptoms to her she would have told them to have it checked out. Instead, this person who should have known better ignored the symptoms of a problem, until casually mentioning it to the doctor at an appointment on an unrelated issue. It was cancer, but thankfully they still caught it in time to do something about it.

~Sydney looked into some medical research and found that it is quite common for people to ignore dealing with symptoms—some research even indicating that half of people with symptoms of something serious ignoring them because they just don’t want to deal with it.

-What is true with symptoms of physical problems is often true of spiritual problems as well. Knowing that they have strayed from God, knowing that their life is not centered on God, knowing that God’s disciplining hand might be upon them, some people ignore all that and try to muster the strength for themselves to keep on keeping on.

-But just like ignoring the physical problems will not make them go away, neither will ignoring the spiritual problems make them go away. You will always lack joy and will always feel far away from God as long as you keep ignoring the issues rather than repenting of the issues.

-And that is why revival is needed in the church. The church is filled with people ignoring that they have any spiritual problems, putting on the façade that everything is OK. So instead of earnestly seeking God, they keep on keeping on.

-But the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results—if we are far from God, it wasn’t God who moved away, and ignoring the fact will not change the fact.

-And so, if there is going to be a change in our spiritual lives, and a change in the church, and if revival is going to come in a supernatural way, then we need to take a close look at ourselves—we need to consider our ways, and return to God earnestly.

-In the passage we are looking at today, the Jews ignored the fact that their priorities got all sorts of messed up, such that they began to concentrate on self, ignoring God and His work—and in doing that they missed spiritual wholeness and fruitfulness that leads to true joy.

-My prayer is that today we will not ignore the problem, but that we consider our ways and priorities, and we make adjustments so that we do not neglect the spiritual.

Haggai 1:1–11 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? 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. 7 “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 8 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. 9 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. 10 Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. 11 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.”

-There are three points about our spiritual life that we need to consider today:

I) Beware of the neglect of the ultimate

-To give some context:

~After 70 years of captivity in Babylon, the Medo-Persian Empire took over and allowed the Jews to return Jerusalem. Under the leadership of Zerubbabel, the Jews began to rebuild the city. This included the rebuilding of the temple.

~However, due to some opposition from enemies outside the city, they halted the work on the temple. This caused them to eventually completely ignore God’s work.

-Finally, after having been ignored and neglected for 16 years, God gives this message through the prophet Haggai, in essence asking them how they could set God and His work to the side while they concentrated on their own comfort and luxury for all those years.

-Instead of being concerned that the temple (where worship and sacrifice is done) was still incomplete, they were making sure that they all had really nice homes with all the latest amenities.

-Now, I do not want us to misread this message that the big concern here is about buildings. Yes, the temple was a building, but the temple was also the chosen place where God manifested Himself and met with His people.

-But for us, God does not choose to manifest Himself and meet with His people in a building—we are told by Paul in 1 Corinthians that we as individuals and then we as a congregation are the temple of God.

~God is in us and meets with us wherever we go

-Yes, it is nice to have a building with four walls and a roof and heat and air conditioning, but God is not overly concerned about our building—God is concerned about our heart, and He is concerned with our neglecting Him in our heart and neglecting the spiritual work that He wants to do in our heart

-But, instead of prioritizing God in our lives and hearts, we prioritize self; we concentrate on self; we work for self, rather than having any concern for God

-Sure, we give God maybe one or two times a week at church, but then we go about our lives without any priority on Him who is the ultimate

-How Tony Evans puts it is that we have become satisfied of having God in the vicinity of our lives instead of knowing and experiencing God in the center of our lives

~Having God in the vicinity means God is just there and we sort of deal with Him as our schedule allows; but having God at the center means God is in the midst of all we do—so God is either on the outside or He is in the middle

-And if that which is ultimate is not in the middle, that is a symptom that cannot be ignored—the Jew’s neglect of the temple was a deeper symptom of spiritual apathy and a lack of proper priority

-We spend time and effort with that which is a priority for us—the Jews showed that living for themselves was their priority, so that is where their time and effort was spent

-To what do the symptoms of your life point—where is your time and effort spent? If self is at the center, we need to know something:

II) Be aware of the dissatisfaction of self

-God was set to the side for their own comfort and ease—they put a lot of time and effort into building a good life for themselves while ignoring God

~But Haggai points out that while they expend all that energy on themselves, they are still as miserable as ever

-They thought that the more they concentrated on self, the better their lives would become—but in v. 6 and v. 10 Haggai points out to them that they are not being very fruitful

~They plant but don’t harvest much, they eat but are never truly full, they drink but they’re still thirsty, they clothe themselves but are still cold, they work but don’t seem to earn anything, and what it has left them is a drought both physically and spiritually

-What this all indicates is that they are left dissatisfied—when you ignore God and make yourself the top priority, you will never have peace and satisfaction of mind and heart

-The people chased after all these things, and it left them as hungry and thirsty as they had ever been. They kept neglecting God—oh sure, they paid Him lip service—but they ignored Him to make their lives better, which ended up making their lives worse

-When God is on the backburner, we go through a spiritual drought, not a spiritual breakthrough—we wake up tired in the morning so we ignore God, we come tired in the evening so we ignore God and fill our lives with sports and entertainment—we spend our time building our own little empire, and then can’t figure out why the world is as dark as it is and why we have no spiritual victories and why God seems so distant

-Your spiritual dissatisfaction is a symptom—or maybe a better picture is that it is like a dashboard indicator light—when one of those lights pop up on your dashboard it indicates that there is a problem with your vehicle; the light itself is not the problem, but tells you that there is the problem and where that problem is so that you can get that problem fixed.

~If you continuously ignore the indicator light you could do some real, long-term damage to your vehicle

-As long as God is not your top priority, you will be dissatisfied, and your spiritual dissatisfaction is an indicator that ought not to be ignored but dealt with by returning to God

-This doesn’t mean that we all have to become monks and nuns that live a hermits life—this doesn’t mean that we spend every waking moment doing ministry—this doesn’t mean that we can’t have any “me time,” but when your “me time” turns into years of self-indulgence and self-centeredness to the neglect of God, there is a problem

-You see, you can go to work and still prioritize God; you can go to school and still prioritize God; you can go to a football game but still prioritize God

-It is when you do what you do for yourself, and neglect God in all that you do, that is when you learn that you will have no satisfaction whatsoever without God being there at the center of it all

-That is why Jesus pleads with us to:

seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matt. 6:33 ESV)

-When you seek God first, when you prioritize the ultimate first, then you will find full satisfaction in your heart—there will be a contentment that Christ is all we need

-So, if this is the case, what do we do?

III) Consider your ways and reprioritize

-Twice in the passage (in v. 5 and v. 7), God says to the people through the prophet: CONSIDER YOUR WAYS

~That means to think about what it is you are doing and then the consequences of your actions

~Ponder on your life and the resulting experiences that you have from your choices

-Or maybe another way of thinking about it is: stop doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results

-The Jews had ignored God and His work for 16 years—they had lived for self for 16 years—and all they had to show for it were barren fields, empty stomachs, and dry, shriveled-up hearts.

-And if that is a good spiritual description of you, then that’s a symptom you cannot ignore—consider your ways

-And after finding this to be the case, then we reprioritize our life so that God is the first in all we are and receives the first of all we do

~we reposition ourselves so that He is the first

-God being first is biblical

~Deuteronomy 26 talks about us giving God the first part of everything (our time, our resources, our heart, etc.)

~Colossians 1:18 talks about Christ having the preeminence in everything, meaning He has first place

~Revelation 2:1-4 talks about Christ being our first love

-So that means we give God our best and not our leftovers

~And when we do this we find that everything else falls into its proper place

~When God is first, your work or school has the right spot in your life

~When God is first, the entertainment and sports you watch or participate in has it proper place and its proper amount of time

~When God is first, family and friends and church all find their balance

~When God is first you find the satisfaction that you have been constantly craving for

-When you reprioritize the Lord you will find He is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all you can ask or think

Conclusion

You are probably familiar with Joni Erickson Tada who had a terrible diving accident that left her a quadriplegic. In spite of her physical limitations she became an accomplished author and artist. Over 35 years ago she married her husband, Ken. For her wedding she had planned to come down the center aisle in her motorized wheel chair. Just before her grand entrance she noticed two distressing problems. First, she had rolled over her beautiful gown and made a big grease spot and tear in it. Then, the flowers in her lap had slipped and had lodged between her leg and the chair. She was filled with disappointment, and then suddenly the doors to the auditorium opened, and she saw her husband to be.

Here was the man who was committing his love and his life to her. Joni later said, “Once I saw Ken's face, all I could think of was him. Everything else—the people in the church, the flowers that were sitting a little askew on my lap, the fact that my dress didn't fall right because I was sitting in a wheelchair, the grease marks, the rip in my gown all of it paled in comparison.”

-When Christ is seen as the ultimate priority, all the things we think are so important pale in comparison—they are put in their proper perspective.

~But when Christ is not the focus of our gaze, everything leaves us dissatisfied

-And so today you need to CONSIDER YOUR WAYS—what are the symptoms of your life showing you.

-First, if you have no assurance of heaven or salvation, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved—He died for you so that you may live…

-Christian, if your priorities are all completely out of whack, come to the altar and get it straightened out—fix your gaze upon Jesus

-If you are looking for a church home that prioritizes Jesus, you have found it…