IS IT TIME FOR YOU?
BIBLE PASSAGE: HAGGAI CHAPTER 1
Picture taken from Google
Lesson Prepared by: Krisha of
Solomon’s Wisdom FB page
Lesson ideas
taken from: https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-1-putting-first-things-first-haggai-11-15)
/tonyEvansSermon
MEMORY
VERSE
Is it time
for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste? Now therefore thus saith
the Lord of
hosts; Consider your ways.
HAGGAI 1:4-5
INTRODUCTION:
I am sure every one of us have an
alarm clock or we use our phone; we set the alarm for a specific purpose. It
has a major assignment and that’s to let us know that it is time to get up.
They are set at night to go off in the morning and telling us we should no
longer be sleeping or slumbering.; it’s time to wake up. Alarm clocks can go
off at the most inconvenient time. They can go off when you’re not ready to get
up. They can go off when you don’t want to get up. They can go off and resist
them; you can snooze them; That’s where you’re resisting the call of the alarm
that’s demanding a response right now. That means the comfort of the bed must
be left, the convenience of the covers must be rejected because you’ve got to
get on with your day. The alarm clock is critical if you want to accomplish
something in life. God had an alarm in the Bible, and they were called
“prophets.” Our theme for this month is revival and regularly throughout the
Bible God would call the people to a revival through to an alarm system called
the prophets. Now let’s look one of the prophets whose name is called “Haggai.”
He is known as a minor prophet. Haggai
has only two chapters; you flip the page, and you’re finished. Though he’s a
minor prophet with a great message.
Let’s see the context of this book. Israel has been
under the judgement of GOD in Babylon for 70 years. They rejected the earlier
prophets like Jeremiah and others. For 70 years, they have been living in this
foreign place; it’s not home, they’re unhappy, miserable and wanting to come
out of judgement. At the end of 70
years, God’s grace and mercy intervened and God brought them out of captivity
from Babylon. The book of Haggai is written to the returning Jews who are now
returning back to Israel. In fact, they have now been back in Israel for over
15 years. When the book of Haggai and when the prophets come on the scene
they’re back in Israel for 15 years. Let’s see what this prophet has to say to
these returning Jews. In verse 2 says,
Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, This
people say, The time is not come, the time that the Lord's
house should be built.
So, these returning people who have been back home now for 15
years, have not started to rebuild the temple which was destroyed when the
Babylonians came many years earlier to take them in captivity. The temple has
been left in ruins. When asked why, the people said, “WE DON’T HAVE TIME TO
REBUILD THE TEMPLE.” We know that one of the reasons that they don’t have time
because it is recorded in the book of Ezra.
Let’s read from chapter 4 verses 4 and 5,
4 Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of
Judah, and troubled them in building, 5 And hired counsellors against them, to frustrate their purpose,
all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of
Persia.
The people had become discouraged, they had some opposition, they
had some resistance, they had some inconvenience and said we’re not fooling
with this temple because we don’t have to go all this inconvenience so rather
than deal with inconvenience, they said, “we don’t have time for this” so they
left the house of God on hold. So now, not dealing with the temple was major.
It was major because in the Old Testament the temple is the hangout of the
manifest presence of God. In the temple was where the glory of God came where
God sat in the midst of His people. So, when they said we don’t have time for
the temple, they were not saying we don’t have time for this temple but also,
they were saying is, it’s not that a big deal not to have God in our midst.
Let’s look not at the temple as the building merely it was a
building, but it represented something deeper. Zechariah chapter 1 verses 2-4
urging the Israelites to return to the Lord. In verse 3 says,
“Therefore say thou unto them, Thus saith
the Lord of
hosts; Turn ye unto me, saith
the Lord of
hosts, and I will turn unto you,
saith the Lord of
hosts.”
IS IT TIME FOR YOU… TO BE BUSY WITH SOME OTHER THINGS (verse 4) AND
YET NO TIME TO RETURN TO THE LORD? We always say or hear these words, “I’m
Busy” and that’s sad. Don’t say I go to church and that’s enough, sometimes
going to church is just a kind of obligation and your heart is not there. You
just want to show you’re attending so that the pastor won’t bother you or ask
you something personal about your time. It might be that you don’t say these
words, “it’s not time” but your action speaks and sometimes, it pops in your
mind. Even you’re signed up for commitment, you are not that Christian who are
visible in the church, but you see to it that once in a while they can see your
presence. Another question, how do you
know you are returning to God?
LESSON OUTLINE:
1. WHEN YOU PUT GOD FIRST (HAGGAI 1:2)
In
terms of our sin, we know if we are returning from sin if you’re not doing it
anymore so we can measure that. You know
you are returning when you put God first. When God is first, you are returning
because that means you have now reprioritized Him and you have now repositioned Him
in your life regardless of what your emotions are at any given moment.
Let’s
look at what is “first” mentioned in the Bible: you ought to bring your
firstborn to the Lord – Deuteronomy 15:19, Jesus Christ is the firstborn of
many brethren that he might be first place in everything– Col. 1:18, you have
left your first love which mentioned in Revelation 2:4. When you put God first,
once He becomes the priority, now you’ve not only turned from your sin, you are
returning to your first love. You are putting God first and now calling God in
your midst. Our problem is, we are satisfied with the left-over relationship with God, and we are satisfied with leftovers, but we’re
satisfied spiritually with is giving God leftovers which means we are not returned
to Him.
How
you know you’re not putting God first? First you have no time for spiritual
matters.
Next,
let’s look on verse 5, “Now therefore thus saith the Lord of
hosts; Consider your ways.” Tingnan ninyo ang kalagayan ninyo
(Tagalog). You have so much work hard and
harvest little, you eat but no have enough to be satisfied… let’s read verse 6,
“Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat,
but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe
you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it
into a bag with holes.”
How to know you’re not putting God first? Second,
you are living in a dissatisfied life.
The money can’t satisfy you, having a nice food can’t satisfy you, having nice clothes can’t satisfy you. Why are you living in unsatisfied life? God
says, “I will make sure that all your hard work does not satisfy.” It won’t
satisfy and be enough for you. And I will make sure that what you get and put
in a pocket full of holes. Soon as you get it, you lose it. Soon as you pay off
one thing, something else break down and so it keeps going up and you keep
trying to get more and more. Like our pastor said, there’s nothing wrong in
accumulating money but the problem is, you leave God behind. Bible says, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his
righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matt.
6:33)
Philippians
4:11 says,
Not that I
speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am,
therewith to be content.
Paul had learned
to be chill whatever situation he was in, whether the economy is high or low. God
will not grant contentment without Him in our lives but if we return to Him
which means we put God first, then we’ll have contentment. Don’t say I go to
church that means you put God first because you can come to church every week
and still not put God first.
2. RETURNING TO THE LORD HAS TO BE
DEMONSTRATED ON WHAT YOU DO NOT ON WHAT YOU SAY (HAGGAI 1:8-9, EZRA 3:7)
In verse 8
says, “Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build
the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith
the Lord.”
Go in the
mountain and bring wood to make God happy. It’s good to prioritize God and make
Him happy first before anyone else. Going up in the mountain and chop wood
makes you sweat. It’s inconvenient to go up in the mountain; it’s uphill. So,
returning to the Lord has to be demonstrated on what you do not on how good you
sound. Nice to talk with good words but go up to the mountain and bring wood to
build the temple. Now the problem with that request is that the Bible says in
Ezra 3: 7 that when the people went back from Babylon to Israel, the king of
Persia gave the Jews the wood to rebuild the temple. It says,
“They gave money also unto the masons, and to the carpenters;
and meat, and drink, and oil, unto them of Zidon, and to them of Tyre, to bring
cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea of Joppa, according to the grant that they
had of Cyrus king of Persia.”
Why they
had already the wood, but God still told them to go up in the mountain to bring
wood. What happened? The truth is the wood they got when they left Persia, they
used in their homes.
They took
the goodness of God and used it for themselves rather than for the glory of
God. They got it but nothing came back for God.
We are all
prone to put our prosperity above God’s house. If we give no thought to how we’re living, we will naturally live for our
agendas, not for God’s. All of us who have trusted Christ as Savior know
(intellectually) that it is foolish and vain to live for the things of this world. We know that these things never
deliver the satisfaction that they promise. We know that we will not find true
happiness apart from God. And yet we keep drifting towards loving the world if we don’t fight against
it. Note three things about those who put their prosperity above God’s house:
·
Those who put their prosperity
above God’s house have “Reasons” (Excuses) for their lifestyle. They were
saying,
“The time has not come, even the time for the house of the Lord to be rebuilt”
(1:2). If you had asked them why the temple had
not been built, they would have responded, “Don’t get me wrong! I’m all
for rebuilding the Temple. It’s a great cause. But the timing just isn’t right.
We’re in an economic downturn right
now. Everyone’s pinched for money. There aren’t enough good jobs. It’s all I
can do to provide for my family. But times will get better, and then we’ll rebuild the temple!”
· Those who put their
prosperity above God’s house are blind to God’s chastening hand. The people in Haggai’s day were having problems. They sowed plenty
of seed, but there was a drought, and the crops didn’t yield as much as they had
hoped. That meant that they had less to sow the following year, even though
they needed to make up for the previous bad year. No
matter how hard they tried, it’s still the same, nothing left. They were
working harder but going behind faster, but they hadn’t stopped to consider
that God was trying to tell them something. Haggai came along and said, “Hey,
folks, it’s God who controls the rain and
the harvest. He is withholding His blessing because your priorities are not
right! Put His house first and He will bless you. Seek first His kingdom and
all these things will be added unto you.”
·
Those who put their prosperity above God’s house never get
what they’re after. Some
of these people had a measure of material success. They lived in fine, paneled (ceiled)
houses (1:4). But the point of verses 6 & 9-11 is, even if you get what
you’re working for, it never satisfies.
CONCLUSION:
There’s
a story of the time management expert who was speaking to a group of business
students. He pulled out a large, wide-mouth jar and filled it with fist-sized
rocks. When he couldn’t put any more in, he asked, “Is this jar full?”
The
class responded, “Yes.” He said, “Really?” Then he pulled out a bucket of
gravel and poured it in, shaking it down through the cracks. Then he asked, “Is
the jar full?”
The
students were onto him, so they said, “No.” “Good,” he replied. He dumped in a
bucket of sand. Once more he asked, “Is the jar full?” “No,” they shouted.
Again, he said, “Good.” He poured in a pitcher of water until the jar was full
to the brim.
Then
he asked, “What is the point of the illustration?” One student ventured, “No
matter how full your schedule, if you try hard, you can always fit more in.”
“No,” the speaker replied, “that is not the point. The
point is, if you don’t put the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at
all.” (First Things First, by Stephen Covey, Roger &
Rebecca Merrill [Simon & Schuster], pp. 88-89.)
What should your “big rocks” be? God and His house! Put them into your life first!
(https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-1-putting-first-things-first-haggai-11-15)
