Turn with me to the book of Haggai, the small book of Haggai. Only two chapters, it's easy to miss, toward the back of the Old Testament. It's right after Zephaniah and right before Zechariah. And the book of Haggai, This is a story of God's people who were focused on their own satisfaction. And because of that, they failed to flourish. And so I wanna speak to you this morning on this subject, failing or flourishing, failing or flourishing. and sort of examining from Haggai chapter one, and we'll work our way through this chapter, some of the priorities that we need to get straight in our life. I think this is a message this morning really for Christians in America. And then not just for Christians in America, but we need to make this more personal, bring it down to our own lives. I think this is for us this morning. I think this is for our families, for our church. We'll see that as we go through here this morning. But in this sort of sea of prophetic books at this point in Scripture, they continued to kind of focus on the disobedience of God's people over and over again. God's people were disobeying him. And every time the man of God would come and warn the people of God, you're disobeying God, you need to repent, you need to turn back to God. The people of Israel kind of brushed off that admonition and would continue on in their sin. And so they're kind of almost, depressing books to read through as you see the sin of God's people at that point as you go through it. But the book of Haggai, this prophet, it stands out as an encouraging light in the midst of kind of those dark messages at this time in Israel's history. And it's an encouraging light and shows us an example of what happens when God's people listen to God's word and then they do what God's word says. And so there's an encouraging message for us in this book this morning. Before we jump into the passage, I'll tell you the short story. Some of you have probably heard this before. If you've heard it, you just act like it's the first time. I enjoy this story, and it kind of goes with what we're talking about this morning. But there was this church that had four people in it, and their names were Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. And the church had some financial responsibilities. And so everybody was asked to help and participate in the financial aspect of the church. And when everybody was asked to do it, everybody was sure that somebody would do it. I mean, after all, anybody could have done it. But you know who did it? Nobody. And everybody blames somebody when nobody did it. That's kind of a sad story, isn't it? Well, the church grounds, they needed some work done around it. Like we got Dustin and some of his guys, they do some of the church work around here for us. They do a wonderful job on it. Well, this church, they needed some work done around the church grounds. And so when they needed people to step up, somebody was asked to help, but somebody got mad because anybody could have done it. After all, it was really everybody's job. And in the end, you know who did the work? Nobody. And let me tell you, nobody did a fine job at it. They did a wonderful job. And on and on it went. Whenever work was to be done, nobody could always be counted on. Nobody visited the sick, nobody gave his time, nobody shared his faith. In fact, you know who the most faithful member of the church was? Nobody. And finally the day came when somebody left the church. And he took anybody and everybody with him. And you know who was left behind at the church? Nobody. Anybody, everybody, somebody, and nobody, they had their priorities out of order. They were pointing the fingers and they were shifting the blame to everybody else. They weren't doing the work of God. That's kind of what was taking place here in the book of Haggai. And the church today, I think, faces the same issue that Haggai did in his time. The people of God had convinced themselves it just wasn't the right time yet to get busy doing the work of God. It needed to wait. Other things were more important. And so they put off work on God's house to focus on their own lives, on their own homes, on their own wants, on their own needs, on their own desires. And just like in our little story that we're told, you know who ended up doing the work there? Nobody. Nobody did the work. And so it's a story of God's people, and it's really kind of the story we see all throughout Scripture. We see the story kind of told over and over and over again. And God's designed the world to work in a specific way. His creation, when we choose to disobey God by sinning and we don't do what He's called us to do, what He's created us to do, we fail to flourish in our lives because of it. So this morning I want to ask you a question. Are you failing or are you flourishing in life? Is our church failing or flourishing? In your home, are you failing or flourishing? In our nation, are we failing or flourishing? I think we'll see some connections to this all throughout this morning. But the context and the background of this book, I always kind of like to know, how does this book plug in? What was going on? What was the background of what's happening here? Well, I've got a little timeline to kind of show you that I think this helps get it solidified in our mind what's happening at this point. Haggai is one of the shortest books in the Bible. This is one of the minor prophets. What is a minor prophet? Well, they weren't as important as the major prophets. No, that's not what it means. It just means that it was a short book. You have the major prophets at the beginning. There was all the big books, Isaiah, Jeremiah, books like that. Then you have the small books. This book, two chapters. This was a collection of a few messages that Haggai was given by God to preach to the people of God. This book takes place over about the span of three and a half months, not a very long period of time that this book covers. but it is incredibly detailed in its dates. And because of that, we can really figure out where this book fits into history. And Haggai's burning desire at this point was to stir the people of God out of sort of the apathy that they were in, the lethargy that they were in, the materialism that had overtaken them. I think that's a big problem in Western Christianity today is many times we get so consumed with things and stuff and materialism, that we neglect the things of God. And that's what had happened here. So how does this book take place? Where does it fit in? If we look at the timeline, Israel had been carried captive. They spent 70 years out of the nation. After 70 years, the Persian government rules over the people of Israel at this time, and about 50,000 Israelites have returned home. And they are excited. There is energy. There is zeal. There's urgent concern that the temple is immediately rebuilt. And so you can see here where King Cyrus decrees that the Jews can return to Judah. A man by the name of Zerubbabel, we'll look at him some this morning and see him. They begin work. The temple altar and the foundation of the temple is laid in 536 BC. And then do you notice what it says next? Temple construction is stopped. And you see those dates, 535 to 520. For 16 years, what happens? Absolutely nothing. That faithful member of the church we talked about a few minutes ago, nobody was very faithful at this point in Israel's history. Nothing is taking place. Now the foundation's been laid, but then everything comes to a screeching halt. Ezra tells us that they attack the building of the foundation very quickly. They rebuild it. There is that excitement. There's that energy. There's that zeal. There's that fervor. They've come out of captivity. They're excited. They're renewed. We just came out of our Renew conference having a week of revival services and some of you were excited about some of those things. And at the end of the building of the foundation, they throw a great party. And many of the older Jews, they stand back and they look because this temple is finally being rebuilt. And they remember what the former temple was like. And so they are shedding tears and they're crying for joy over this. I think it's possible, you can read in Haggai chapter 2, I think that it's possible that Haggai might have been, we don't know really very much about this man at all. But I think some of the things he says in chapter 2 might indicate that he was present before they went into captivity. And so maybe Haggai remembers what the temple was like, and so I think he might have been present when the foundation was laid. And he may have been one of those who was crying for joy to see the temple of God resumed. And it's a very moving moment. But you know, it doesn't take very long in our lives for our zeal, for our excitement to kind of cool off. We can be excited, you know, we can come out of a Renew conference, we've heard great preaching for four or five nights in a row, our hearts have been stirred, we're ready to do something for God, but then it doesn't take long to kind of cool off, to fall away. to say, you know what, there's other things that are important, I need to be working on those things. You know, that week was good, but I can't be that involved all the time, so I need to cool down a little bit. And especially it's easy for that to happen when opposition begins to come against us. Because when you get excited, when you get renewed, when there's a fervor about what God is going to do, I can tell you that there's going to be opposition to that. And that's what happens right here. The construction stops because their neighbors, the Samaritans, they don't like seeing what's going on and so they begin to slow down what's happened. You can read in the book of Ezra what happens here and how they go to the king and everything just kind of, progress halts. There was some opposition and so they stop. And one day turned into a week and it turned into a month and it turned into a year. And before long, it's been 16 years and nothing's happened. And in that period of time, they've gotten very busy with their own lives and their own things and their own priorities. And the things of God began to slip away. And that's one of the things that's so dangerous when we miss church. I saw somebody posted this on Facebook. One of the dangers of missing church is that eventually you don't miss it anymore. When we begin to slip away from God, you know, it's on our mind, yeah, well, I got to get back to that. That needs to be important. But then this comes up and that comes up and all these other things begin to happen. And before long, we don't even realize how far we've slipped away. That's what happened here. The temple lay unfinished for 16 years from 535 to 520. A man by the name of Haggai, a prophet by the name of Zechariah. His book is right next door to this. They're prophesying at the same time, they're preaching at the same time. And they brought God's message to a man by the name of Zerubbabel that we talked about, a man by the name of Joshua. Because of all the dating, we know that this first message that we'll look at as we go to verse number one, this was preached by the prophet Haggai on September 1st. of 520 B.C. Look with me there in Haggai chapter 1, verse number 1. In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the word of the Lord by Haggai, the prophet, unto Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Josedec, the high priest, saying... Now, we know that this is not just Haggai's message. What is he preaching? The word of the Lord came to Haggai. So he's preaching God's message. And then verse number two, thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, this people say, referring to God's people, the people of Israel, this remnant, this 50,000 that is returned, this people say the time has not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built. Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying, Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your sealed houses, and this house lie waste? Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, Consider your ways. That's an important phrase to note there. We'll see that several times in this short book. Ye have sown much, and bring in little. Ye eat, but have not enough. Ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink. Ye clothe ye, but there is none warm. And he that earneth wages, earneth wages to put it in a bag with holes. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. Go up the mountain and bring wood and build the house. I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord. Ye looked for much, And lo, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why, saith the Lord of hosts? Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house. Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruits. Failing or flourishing? Let's pray and we'll get into the heart of the message. Lord, we thank you for this opportunity to gather this morning as your people around your word. Lord, we ask that you would open our ears, open our hearts, open our eyes, allow what we see this morning in the pages of your word to stir us, to change us, to cause us to leave different because we came. Lord, I pray that we would look at this message that you had for your people in Haggai's day, that we would take it and we would learn from it this morning, Lord. I pray that you would help us to prioritize serving you above everything else in life. We pray that you'd fill us with your strength and with your power. Allow us to say only what you'd have us to say this morning. In Jesus' name, amen. First thing I want you to see this morning, we'll spend most of our time, I've got three things I want you to notice out of this passage and we'll spend most of our time on this first one and that is God's challenge to these people. God's challenge to them was about some of their misplaced priorities. their excuse for not building the temple, what was it? They said, well, it's just not the right time. And that excuse, Haggai, through God's word, is going to kind of just lay bare this excuse. It's going to peel the skin off of that lie. I've heard it said that an excuse is just a skin that has a lie stuffed inside of it. And so the people are making excuses why God's house was neglected. But what was the truth? The truth was that these people have become self-centered. They've become self-absorbed. Does that sound much like the society that we live in? A self-absorbed, self-centered society? Even in Western Christianity, that's very much true. And they've forgotten about the priority of doing the work of God, so they give the excuse, it's just not the right time. But even though it wasn't the right time to move forward with building God's house, it was time for them to move forward with building their homes, with their lives, with their businesses, with their priorities. It just wasn't time to do God's work. You see, when they show back up, the temple's gone, the cities are destroyed, and so they've got to rebuild everything kind of from the ground up. Now, was it important that they had homes? Yeah. Was it important that they had business? Yes. But are any of those things in life more important than God's work? And the answer is no. And that's what Haggai is rebuking them for. In the middle of living life, the most important thing is the work and the worship of God. And that's what these people had neglected. That's what Haggai is rebuking them for. And it reminds me very much, it wasn't that those were bad things. He's not condemning them for building homes and for getting the commerce of the city going again. He's condemning them because they ended up prioritizing that way above serving God. For 16 years, God's work sat alone. And it's got a very striking similarity to when Jesus went to the home of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. You remember that story? He showed up to have dinner with them one night. And these were some very dear friends of Jesus. And while he's there, Martha is, she's absorbed with trying to make sure that the dinner gets put on, that everything is just right for the Lord. I mean, it's important. Jesus was in their home for dinner. I mean, if Jesus showed up at your house, you'd probably want to do all of those things as well. And so she's very busy doing all of these other things. And while this is going on, she happens to notice Mary has disappeared. Mary's not in the kitchen helping. She's not peeling the potatoes. She's not doing any of the work. And so she looks around, where's Mary at? Well, Mary's sitting in there in the room, sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening to what Jesus has to say. And so Martha gets a little bit incensed by this, and so she speaks up to Jesus. She says, hey, Jesus, why don't you rebuke my sister for not helping? Look at all these things that need to be done. Were any of the things that Martha was doing, were they bad things that she was absorbed with? No, they were good things. But instead of Jesus rebuking Mary, who does Jesus rebuke? He rebukes Martha. And he says, Martha, Martha, he says, you're troubled and cumbered about with much care and much serving. He says, look, Mary has chosen the best part. Well, that's not what Martha was expecting. She was doing good things. She just wants her sister to get involved and help. And she says, look, I'm not always going to be here. She's chosen to come sit at my feet and to listen to what I have to say. She's chosen the best thing. Sometimes God's people can get consumed with putting good things above the best thing. And that's what had happened in Haggai's day. And that can happen in our day. That can happen in my life. It can happen in your life. We forget about the worship of God. And so here comes the voice of the prophet Haggai in verse number two. He says, this people say the time has not come that the Lord's house should be built. And they were guilty of making excuses. We ever been guilty of making excuses? Yeah. I'll get around to it. That may be where some of us are right now. You know, we're making excuses in life. Well, you know, I want to be involved. I want to serve God. I want to I want to do something for God. It's just not the right time yet. I'm going to get around to that when this happens and that happens and everything in my life lines up, then I'm going to serve God, then I'll get involved, then I'll do what he wants me to do. But it's just not the right time right now. I don't know, that's kind of code sometimes for, you know, I have better things to do. I have better things to do with my time. Yeah, that's important and all, but let me tell you what's going on in my life. Let me tell you what's happening for me. This is going on in my business. This is going on in my personal life. And so Haggai is rebuking the people for their selfish indifference and their negligence because they built their own houses while refusing to rebuild the house of the Lord. And the prophet warns them to take very careful thought about their priorities. He says, consider your ways. And he then reveals to them why the house of the Lord is still sitting there in ruins. He says it's because you're centered on your own homes, on your own wants, on your own needs, on your own desires instead of God's wants and God's needs and God's desires. And we can be very guilty of that in our life too. Sometimes we get our priorities mixed up and out of order, other things becoming more important to us. Reminds me, I heard the story the other day, Dustin was out deer hunting with a group of his friends, and they'd gone off in pairs of twos for the day. You didn't know I was gonna tell this story about you, did you, Dustin? Yeah, they went off in pairs of twos the other day to hunt, and the end of the evening, Dustin showed back up without his buddy Harry that he'd gone to hunt with in the day. Dustin shows up, instead of with Harry, he's got an eight-point buck. That's pretty impressive, wasn't it, Dustin? He shows up with his eight point buck, and everybody else in the group, they looked at Dustin, they said, Dustin, where's Harry at? He said, well, I got this deer. We were coming back, dragging it out. Harry had a stroke or something. He's two miles back down in the woods. I said, Dustin, you left Harry back there with a medical emergency and drug this big buck all the way back up here. He said, yeah. He said, I didn't figure Harry was in any danger of being stolen. Dustin had his priorities right where they needed to be. You gotta get that buck back. We gotta save that meat. No, I don't think that actually happened. He did go deer hunting this week and only saw a squirrel. So let's pray for Dustin that he'll find that eight point buck. Sometimes we get our priorities upside down and sometimes we don't see the danger of that happening. especially in the beginning. But over time, it becomes a problem, and our focus drifts away from God. And so Haggai says in verse number four, look at it again, he says, is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your sealed houses? And this house lie waste? Now therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. That term sealed house, that refers to the luxurious paneling that would have adorned the houses. It wasn't time to build the Lord's house, but what were they spending their energy? They were spending their resources on building up really nice homes for themselves. I don't know, they'd been over to Pier 1. No, not Pier 1. That one didn't get anybody riled up. They was over at Hobby Lobby. They were over at Hobby Lobby getting all the stuff out of there to fix their homes up and make it look nice. They'd been watching that Fixer Upper show with Chip and Joanna Gaines. They were focused on that. God's house is over here. Nothing's happening to it. And Haggai wasn't condemning them again for their comfortable living. It's okay to have a nice house. It's okay to have those things. But not at the expense of putting off the things of God. He says, this house lies in waste. It's lying in ruins. You know, sometimes we want to get the best things for ourselves and we just kind of give God whatever's left over. If there's anything left, God, you can have some of that. And the Israelite people, they have an obedience issue. They have a behavior issue. But I really don't think that the biggest thing that Haggai wants to see corrected in their lives is just their behavior, because we can change our behavior, can't we? There was a deeper problem that was going on. It was in here, in their heart. There was a heart issue that needed to be corrected, because when we don't love God the way that we're supposed to love God, our behavior reflects that. So you can try to modify your behavior. You can do some of the right things on the outside, but if on the inside you still don't love God the way that you're supposed to, we haven't really got to the root of the issue. We haven't fixed what the problem is. And so that's what Haggai wants to see. He wants to see their hearts warmed back toward God. That's what revival is. That's what renewal is. It's not about behavior modification. It's about getting our hearts warmed up and on fire for the Lord again. That's what Haggai wants. And when they returned from that Babylonian captivity, that's where they were. I mean, they're praising the Lord. Hey, we're coming back to the homeland. Let's get busy. Let's build the foundation. Let's get the temple going. They were excited and they went to work and things are happening fast. Until that opposition began. And then their hearts began to get a little bit cold. And they began to choose their own things. And before long, they loved themselves more than they loved God. It kind of sounds like the time that we're in where men will be lovers of their own selves. Are we failing or flourishing? Because they chose to love themselves rather than loving God the way that they should, because His house sat in ruins, they began to fail in their lives. And they were no doubt discouraged when that opposition came up. And because of that opposition, they began to rationalize in their mind, It's not the right time. It must not be the Lord's will for me to do that. We're good at rationalizing things in our minds. When we know that we ought to be doing something that God wants us to do, but we'll try to rationalize why it's okay not to do that. There's a message in these verses for us today. We need to evaluate the misplaced priorities in our life. Is anything more important to us? than the work of God. And so the Lord exhorts the people to reflect on their conduct and he says, consider your ways, set your heart on your ways and Haggai uses that phrase or talks about setting their heart, giving careful thought to it four times. He says you've got some perverted priorities. And God doesn't have the right place in your life that He should have. They needed to give preeminence to God and their relationship with Him. That's what we need in our life. We need God to be preeminent in our lives. He needs to have first place. What does Paul write in the book of Colossians, chapter 1, verse number 18? Paul says, he's the head of the body, the church who's the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He might have the preeminence. I like what John Phillips wrote in his book. He said, you know, some people give God place. God has a place in their life. Well, that's important. God should have a place in our life, shouldn't He? We need God in our lives, but some people just give God place. They open their hearts to Him, they've accepted Him as Savior, but that's as far as it goes. And then you have other people, they give God prominence. Well, God should be prominent in our lives. I want God to be prominent in my life. I want him to be important. I mean, he's my Lord. He's my Savior. I've been forgiven. I'm going to let him have general control of my life. But there may be certain areas of my life where he can't have that. He's prominent, but he doesn't have first place over everything. We're going to reserve the right to kind of do as I please in this area of my life. So you got those who give God place, you have those who give God prominence, then you have those who give God preeminence. He's the King of kings and he's the Lord of lords to them. They're gonna do what God wants them to do. They're gonna follow God's will. They wanna be in God's path. This is what we talked about in our teen class on Wednesday nights. We want God to lead us. We went over to Genesis chapter 24 and we talked about how God was preparing a bride for Isaac. And Abraham sends his servant Eliezer 500 miles away to find a wife for Isaac. And Eliezer, along the trip, he's praying, God, I want you to send the right woman for Isaac. And when I get there, I want this woman to be the one who offers me a drink, and then she offers to water my camel. Well, it wasn't just one camel, it was actually 10 camels. I want this woman to offer to water my 10 camels. It's said that camels, after a trip like that, they drink about 25 gallons apiece. 25 gallons of water times 10 camels. Anybody want to do the math? That is 250 gallons of water. So Eleazar, praise Lord. I want you to send a woman out. I want her to offer to bring me some water. And then I want her to offer to bring 250 gallons of water to water the camels. Now in this day, they say that the water pitchers held about two and a half gallons of water. Anybody want to do the math for two and a half gallons of water for 250 gallons? It'd have been about a hundred trips. Lord, send a woman for Isaac. Let her bring me a drink of water. Let her offer to bring 250 gallons of water for the camel so she'll make a hundred trips back and forth. And God, if that woman shows up, I'll know that that's the bride for Isaac. And the Bible tells us that before Eliezer had even finished saying all of this and praying it to God. Here comes Rebecca out and she says, hey, you look like you might be thirsty. Can I get you a drink? Man, your camels look kind of parched. Can I bring them some water? And Eliezer stops and he has to reflect, has God already answered my prayer? And so as he's recounting this entire event, he says this. He says, I being in the way, the Lord led me. When we get in the way, we want to get in God's way. Now, some of you get in God's way. But we don't need to get in God's way. We need to get in God's way, you know, the path, instead of being a stumbling block. We need to get in the path. The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. We want God to lead us. We want God to guide us. We want God to direct us. That doesn't happen if we just give God place in our lives, if God's just prominent. It's for those who say, God, you are preeminent above all and everything else. I want you to guide me, to lead me, and to direct me. The Apostle Paul said, set your affections on things above, not on things of the earth. The Apostle Paul said in Philippians 2, verse 21, for all seek their own. That's the world system. We're seeking material things. We're seeking tangible things that we can touch. We're seeking our own desires, our own wants, our own needs, not the things which are Jesus Christ's. And then the prophet Haggai in verse number six, look at what he says, it goes right with this message. He says, if you want God to do something, you gotta put God in first place. But what are you doing? You've sown much and you bring in little. You eat, but you have not enough. You drink, but you are not filled with drink. You clothe ye, but there is none warm, and he that earneth wages, earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. What is Haggai saying? He says, hey, people of God, you need to do some self-examination. Take a look on the inside. The message of God is clear. When things start going wrong in your life, when pleasure doesn't seem to satisfy you, when your finances are faltering, when you're looking for enjoyment and pleasure everywhere else, you're not going to find it. Enjoyment is only found in God. Something we talked about to the teens just a few weeks ago. What was the message of the book of Ecclesiastes? It was written by King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived. But what happened in his life? He allowed some pagans into his life. He married some women that God didn't have for him, and they turned his heart away from God. And he began to look for pleasure and enjoyment in all of these other areas of life. I mean, this is the wealthiest man on the face of the earth, and he's looking for pleasure. He's looking for enjoyment. He's looking for satisfaction everywhere. And this wealthiest, wisest man that's lived stands around. You know what Solomon's message was? He says, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. And when you get to the end of the book of Ecclesiastes, he leaves young people with this message. He says, Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, when the evil days draw nigh. He says in Ecclesiastes 11 verse number eight, he says, there's going to be dark days in your life. What does he mean? He's saying when you're young, it's easy to get caught up in living for self and pleasure and enjoyment and money and all of these things and forgetting about God. And he's not have a place in your life. He's not prominent in your life. He's not preeminent in your life. God is kind of out of the picture. You can look for that everywhere, but you won't find it because God designed life to have joy and fulfillment and peace and blessing all in him. And so he says, remember thy creator in the days of your youth. He says the dark days, the evil days, the difficult days, there's going to be enough problems that come along in your life. And if you don't have a solid foundation built in your life, you're going to drift away. Your heart's going to be turned away from God. How does Solomon know that? Because it happened in his own life. And when he says, consider thy creator in the days of age, he's not just saying, you know, sit back and think about it. He's using the same words that Haggai used. He says, consider your ways, give careful attention to with the intention of obedience. Don't just think about it. Obey God. Do what God wants you to do. Seek first the kingdom of God. And it's easy to neglect the Lord when you're caught up in all of that. And I think that's what happened to the people in Haggai's day. They just got caught up in all of this other stuff. I like how Adrian Rogers says it. He says, God gave them a commission, and God gave them a plan, and God said, now go to work for me. But rather than going to work for God, they went to work for themselves. And they got busy doing their own thing. And the harder the people worked, the less that they seemed to have. Now, this isn't some version of prosperity gospel where, you know, if you scratch God's back, He'll scratch your back. No, there's just sort of an economic principle that runs throughout the scripture that if we're stingy toward God, He's stingy toward us. We can't have the blessings of God. We can't expect God to be neglected in the spiritual realm and then bless us in our secular realm. It just doesn't work that way. There were some consequences to the sin of the Israelites. The prophet Isaiah, he said in Isaiah chapter 59 verse number 2, he said, Your iniquities have separated between you and your God. Your sins have hit his face from you that he will not hear. What's the message? A sin builds barriers between you and God. It's hard for the blessings of God to fall on your life when there's sin involved. And all of our behavior has consequences, but sin has serious consequences to it. And it's starting to happen to the people of Haggai's day. Notice in verse number six, notice that there was inflation. Any of you heard of anything about inflation recently in the country? He that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. Not only was there inflation, there was a slowdown in productivity. The grass-nutritional product was down. Verse number 9, you looked for much, and lo, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I did blow upon it. What is God saying? He says, you know, you were expecting a lot, and you got a little. And even what you brought home, I saw to it that it didn't last. I blew on it, and it went away. I didn't want it to last. Verse number 10, God says, don't blame a drought, don't blame this, don't blame that. I'm the reason all this is happening. Therefore, the heaven over you is stayed from due and the earth is stayed from our fruit. God says, I'm going to put a blight on the harvest. You're going to neglect me. You're going to push me away. You're going to put other priorities in your life ahead of me. There's going to be some consequences. Warren Wiersbe, he said, they sowed abundantly and reaped a meager harvest. When they ate and drank, they weren't filled or satisfied. Their clothing didn't keep them warm. Their income didn't cover their expenses. As supplies became scarcer, prices got higher, and a shopper might as well carry his wealth in a wallet filled with holes. Well, that sounds a lot like our nation that we live in, doesn't it? We put other things in front of God. Western Christianity has. Maybe the reason that America's going through some of the things that it's going through is because God's people here haven't been doing God's business. What we have doesn't go as far as it did. That's why we need renewal. That's why we need revival. We need our hearts warmed back to doing something for God and get our priorities in order. And the Lord Jesus stated the great principle in the book of Haggai, Matthew 633, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. He was talking to the disciples. They're saying, hey, what are we going to eat? What are we going to wear? What are we going to do for our daily necessities? And Jesus tells them, look, that's going to take care of itself. You put the things of God first. Seek Him first. Seek His kingdom first, and all these things will be added unto you. God will supply your needs. That's what Paul wrote in the book of Philippians, but my God shall supply all your needs. And when God is first in our lives, all the other things take care of themselves. It's a very simple message. Sometimes the simple things are what we miss. Now very quickly, I told you we were spending all of our time on that first point. Let me give you the last two very quickly. Here's God's command. His challenge was, you've got some misplaced priorities. Then he has a command, he says, return to serving. Look at verse number eight. The solution's simple. There's only three things they need to do. Go up the mountain, bring wood, and build the house. Get back to working for the Lord. Other things, put that behind. Put God number one. Get back to the plain hard work. And that's what we need to do in our lives. Roll up our sleeves and let's get busy serving the Lord. It's got to be important to us that we're not missing services at church. It's got to be important to us that we're looking for ways to serve him inside these four walls and outside these four walls. Christianity, it's not a spectator sport. Haggai's telling these people you can't sit on the sidelines. You've got to get busy. You've got to get involved. You've got to do something for the Lord, showing that you mean business. Don't sit on the sidelines and wait for that person we talked about in the beginning, somebody. Don't wait for somebody to do it. You get involved and you do it. And he says, build the house. God delights in the obedient service of his people. That's what he wanted to do. Obey and serve. And he wanted all of them to do it. It shouldn't just be a few. The work of the church should be shared. There shouldn't be four or five or six people in a church that has to do everything. Every single one of us, if you're a member of Liberty Baptist Church, you've been called to serve. Don't just sit in a seat. Get involved. Ask, what can I do? How can I help? What can I do to advance the work of God? Can I teach a Sunday school class? Can I help in the kids ministry? Can I help with the grounds work? Can I help clean? What can I do? Can I help in the sound booth? We always try to get people in the sound booth. What can I do? Can I serve in the music ministry? Can I help in the nursery? What can I do? It's not a spectator sport. It's not just a few people that should be involved in it. It should be the load that is shared by everybody that calls this their home church. And praise the Lord for those in our church that have a passion to work. But we're saved to serve. And so if you've cooled off from service, if you find yourself that, man, I'm not in church as much as I was, I'm not serving as much as I was, warm your heart back up to God, get back involved. And then lastly, notice the people's response. God gives them a challenge. Hey, get back to work. Well, here's their response. They obeyed. Verse number 12. Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Jezidek the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, 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 did fear before the Lord. So in response to God's words being preached, the people of Israel repented. Hey, in these other books around us, the prophet of God preaches to them, but they don't change. That's the blessing of the book of Haggai. They repented. They completely changed. And it wasn't just their behavior like we talked about earlier. It wasn't behavior modification. They completely reoriented themselves around the nature and the character of God and they repented and they got revived and they got renewed and they got busy and they went to work for the Lord. And when God speaks to us through his word, you know what? There's only one acceptable response to it. That's to do what we see God's told us to do. You don't sit back and bargain and negotiate. Well, you know, I do know that I should be doing more and yeah, I probably should this and that, but you know, it's just not the right time. I got more important things to do. No, when you see it in God's word, the only acceptable response is to do what God says we should do. And notice what happens when the people get back to obeying God. Look at verse 13. Then spake Haggai, the Lord's messenger, in the Lord's message unto the people, saying, I am with you, saith the Lord. When they began to obey God, they experienced God's presence. Now isn't that what we want in our church? Isn't that what you want in your life? Isn't that what we want in our country? Don't we want God's presence? There's nothing more important than God saying, I am with you. We sang that song a couple weeks ago at church. Our God will go before us from the book of Exodus where Moses says to God, hey, if you're not going with us, I don't want to go. God's presence, that means everything. If we're going without God's presence in our lives, in our church, in our homes, in our country, we're on the wrong track. So they began to experience God's presence when they got their priorities right. And when they began obeying, they felt a right and a renewed relationship with God. And so the lesson is very clear here. Obey first and then experience God's presence. Obey first and then experience God's presence. And then notice with me the result of everything in verse number 14. And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua, the son of Josedec, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people, and they came and did work in the house of the Lord of hosts their God. You know what? Too many times today, We want to be burdened and stirred by God's presence before we obey. We say, God, I really want you to stir me about this. God, stir me about missions. Stir me to give to missions. Stir me to have a heart for the people around the world that need to be saved. Stir me to be a tither. Stir me to be a Sunday school teacher. God, stir me to want to work with children. God, stir me to be involved with helping in the bus ministry. God, stir me about this. Stir me about that. And then when you stir me up, God, then I'll do it. That's not how it worked. They obeyed, then God's presence fell, and then they were stirred up about it. You want to get stirred up about missions? Start giving some money each week for faith promise missions. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. What do we say today? Put your money where your mouth is. Give to missions. Because when you start investing money into something, you start to care about it. Then when you hear those missionaries' letters read on Wednesday nights, or you see the missionary videos that we show, we have missionaries come in, you want to hear what they have to say. Because you're invested in that. And you begin to hear about people getting saved, and buildings being built, and people being reached, and all of these things going on. And man, look at what the Lord's doing with that money that I'm helping to send. I'm getting to be a part of that. And then the Lord begins to stir you up more about it. Lord, stir me about soul winning. Once I get stirred up about sharing my faith with somebody, then I'll go do it. No, go share your faith with somebody, and then the Lord will stir you up. Because it'll excite you that you got to share your faith with somebody. And then when you see somebody, they catch the message, they say, hey, I want what you've got. How do I get saved? Then you'll really want to go tell the next person about it. I'd like to be involved with the bus ministry, but I'm just not stirred up about that. Go pick up some kids that have no other way to come to church and bring them. See them get saved, see them get baptized, see them start to grow and learn about Jesus. You say, man, I want to go get some more kids and bring them in. The Lord will stir you. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you. It's not just talking about finances there. And notice how it happened. God stirred up the leadership and it flowed down to the people and they followed. Hey, when the preacher gets stirred up about something, probably a good thing to follow. We can get stirred up about it as well. So how do we conclude this this morning? Well, I think some practical things from the book of Haggai. Until God is number one in our life, our personal lives are gonna be fruitless. Obey God first before you feel his presence, and then the stirrings will come. God will stir you after you start to obey. There's going to be discouragement. We saw it in this book. They were discouraged. Discouragement is going to come in your life. When you get stirred up to serve God, I can promise you there will be opposition. There's going to be something to try to keep you from serving Him. Discouragement will set in. And the danger is that we turn from God's priorities when we get discouraged to our own priorities. We take our eyes off of him, we begin turning inward and we become self-centered and self-absorbed again. We gotta watch that in our lives because the blessings of God will be removed from us when that happens. And if we've made that mistake, we need to rebuild our Christian lives and do exactly what the people of God here in Haggai's day did. What'd they do? They repented. They turned back to God. They said, Lord, we realize we put ourselves ahead of you. You're number one again. We want your blessing. We want you to be in our lives. We want your presence. Forgive us, Lord. And then here's the last thing I think that we could take from that. Revival. We just came out of a revival meeting. Revival comes by doing right, not by feeling right. We don't live our lives based on feelings and emotions. Revival comes by doing right, not by feeling right. Obey God, return to serving Him. Before you feel disturbed, not because you feel disturbed. One service can stir you up emotionally, but if there's not been that heart change, it's just gonna fade away. You start obeying God, and then the stirrings will come. Return to serving, return to witnessing, return to relationships, return to giving. And the people of Israel, they went from failing in their lives to flourishing when they put the things of God back in first place. Are you failing in your life this morning, having some problems, drifting away? You can flourish. That's what God wants. Our nation, we can return back to God. We don't have to fail. We get our priorities back in the right place. Let's pray. God, thank you for this message from the book of Haggai this morning from the prophet. Lord, I pray that we take what we've heard this morning and allow it to change us. If we have any misplaced priorities in our lives, God, I pray that we would look at those this morning, if we've drifted from you any. We're not as close to you as we once were. We're missing church more. We're not as involved in serving like we used to be. Lord, I pray that you'd cause us to recognize that in our lives and that we would repent We're not sharing our faith the way that we were. Lord, I pray that we get back to doing that. God, I pray that you would allow us to identify this morning as we examine our own selves, we examine our own lives. How can we make sure that you're the preeminent one?