Consider Your Ways — Haggai 1:1-11
The Context
It is the year 520 BC. The Jewish remnant has returned from Babylonian exile, but something has gone wrong. The temple, the visible center of their covenant relationship with God, sits unfinished. Work stopped 16 years earlier. The people said, "The time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord" (Haggai 1:2, ESV).
In other words: not yet. Later. We'll get to it.
Sound familiar?
The Indictment
God's response through Haggai is pointed: "Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?" (1:4). The word paneled matters. This isn't survival housing. These are finished homes with decorative woodwork. The people have invested in their own comfort while God's house remains incomplete.
Haggai 1:6 describes the result: "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."
This is the description of a life that works hard but comes up empty. A church that runs programs but never experiences genuine transformation. A pastor who preaches weekly but senses the anointing thinning.
The diagnosis: wrong priority order.
The Command
"Consider your ways." Haggai 1:5, 7. God says it twice. The Hebrew word sim means to set, to lay, to direct your heart. This is not passive reflection — it is an intentional act of self-examination. God is saying: stop and look at the pattern of your life. Look at where your energy goes, where your money goes, where your passion goes.
When we consider our ways honestly, we see what we have actually prioritized. Not what we say we value, but what our daily choices reveal.
The Call
"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." (1:8)
The application is not merely ancient temple construction. Paul tells us we are the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). The church gathered is the dwelling place of God's Spirit. To build the house of God today means:
- Prioritizing genuine corporate worship and prayer over programming efficiency
- Investing in discipleship, not just attendance
- Giving our best to kingdom purposes, not just institutional maintenance
The Shift
This message launched our SHIFT series. The word "shift" captures what God was demanding of Haggai's community and what He is demanding of ours: not a small adjustment, but a reordering. A shift in priorities, in spiritual hunger, in corporate identity.
The good news of Haggai 1: the people listened. Verse 12 says the whole remnant "obeyed the voice of the Lord their God." And the Lord's response? "I am with you" (1:13).
That is the promise still available to the church that turns back to God.
Main Point: God is calling His church to stop building their own houses and start building His. The shift begins when we honestly consider our ways and return to first things.
Application Questions:
- Where has personal comfort edged out kingdom priority in your life?
- What does your weekly schedule reveal about your actual priorities?
- What would it look like to "build the house of God" in your specific calling this season?
This sermon is part of the SHIFT series. Download the complete series packet in the Resources section.