Set Your Heart on what Matters!

Haggai 1:1-11

(Ezra 5:1)

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 Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, saying, 2 "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."'"

3 Then the word of the LORD came by Haggai the prophet, saying, 4 "Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?" 5 Now therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts: "Consider your ways!

6 "You have sown much, and bring in little;
You eat, but do not have enough;
You drink, but you are not filled with drink;
You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm;
And he who earns wages,
Earns wages to put into a bag with holes."

7 Thus says the LORD of hosts: "Consider your ways! 8 Go up to the mountains and bring wood and build the temple, that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified," says the LORD. 9 "You looked for much, but indeed it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why?" says the LORD of hosts. "Because of My house that is in ruins, while every one of you runs to his own house. 10 Therefore the heavens above you withhold the dew, and the earth withholds its fruit. 11 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."

Haggai was used to being the stern message to the complacent people of God to build God’s house.  It was a call to consider their ways, to literally set their hearts on what really matters.  Jerome commented on this by saying it meant to “consider both what you have done (actively, Lamentations 3:40) and what you have suffered (passively), that they were to ponder earnestly whether they have gained by seeking self at the sacrifice of God.”  It meant that they had put their own interests above those of the LORD by not rebuilding His house, just their own.  We can make the same mistake by putting our interests above those of the church of God in Christ when our priorities are more for ourselves than our brothers and sisters of the Body.  These things should not be!  We should make our main business to be about our Master’s business which is the building up of the body (Colossians 1:28-29, Philippians 2:3-4, Ephesians 4:7, 11-12, 13-14).  May we not repeat this error to think that it is not time to build up God’s spiritual house as we busy ourselves with our own alone first.  Like the people of God that Haggai spoke to, we are not to let the house of the Lord lie in ruin while we sit in comfort.  We also need to consider our own ways in light of this example written for our edification (1 Corinthians 10:11, Romans 15:4) as we learn from bad examples to do the right things.  May we then set our hearts on what really matters for eternity with the goal of Christ in view as Paul reminded us in Philippians 3:12-14 as we run their race to the finish line.  Then what we sow will hear true fruit and we will have our needs met as well by the God who tends the lilies and feeds the sparrows each day.  If we do not put the spiritual house of God first, our money bags of what we earn will have the holes spoken of here.   There will be no eternal gain if we seek only our own.  Haggai commanded in the name of the LORD that the people therefore should gather each other together to finish work on building the physical temple that the worship and sacrifices could resume to praise and honor the LORD.  Unfruitfulness would be all they reaped otherwise.  May we learn this lesson not in order to build grand brick and mortar buildings to worship, but as we keep up the physical meeting places that we may build one another up as the Body stone by stone (1 Peter 2:5) until we come to be the mature church (Ephesians 4:13) of Jesus Christ in worshipping Him through serving one another.  Let us consider our ways and set our hearts on what truly matters!  Amen.