Overhaulin

INTRODUCTION: How many of you have ever purchased a house that was a fixer-upper? I know Kim and I did. It’s been a joy and it’s been a trial. If you are like us, did you find that it took considerably more work than you expected? Another question; what happened to your other priorities as long as the home improvement project was underway. Did you find yourself neglecting important things such as family, work, education and so on while you house was being rebuilt? All kinds of things can turn our priorities upside down; even daily life can be the culprit.

Have you ever experienced that nagging sense that your life is “out of control?” I think most of us have. Getting to the end of the day and wondering if we really did anything that has an eternal significance. As we open the pages of scripture we find our self in a place where every house is a fixer-upper and every household is in disarray and the priorities of life aren’t what they should be.

BACKGROUND: In 586 B.C. the Babylonian army destroyed the city if Jerusalem and the temple of God. The surviving populace is exiled to Babylon. 50 years later the Persians conquered the Babylonians and passed a decree allowing the children of Israel to return to their homeland, with an order from the Cyrus the Persian King to rebuild the temple (Ezra 1:2-4). Those who returned faced a daunting task, a challenge to rebuild their lives, their city, their country, and most importantly the temple of God, to rebuild that which had lain in ruin for decades! For them this was a journey of faith, a journey that we all take. On that journey we are faced with a series of choices. Will we do what we think is important or will we trust God and do what He says is important. Sometimes we thing we know what’s best to do and we pursue our own priorities in spite of what God says. Here we are faced with just such a situation, and our insight for that dilemma comes to us from an old man name Haggai.

PROPOSITION: As we learn about Haggai’s challenge to rebuild the temple we will see how easy it is to let God’s priorities slip into last place, and the importance of re-establishing the right focus.

TRANSITION: This leads us to ask the question. How can I accomplish the most important things in life? To this question Haggai gives us three insights, the first being that we need to recognize…

I. RECOGNIZE MISPLACED PRIORITITES (Haggai 1:2-4)

a. As we enter our story Haggai is confronting Zerubbabel, heir to the Davidic throne and Joshua the High priest

• Speaking for God Haggai reminds the governor and high priest that the task of the rebuilding the temple has yet to be completed

• It had been years since the foundations had been laid by Shesbazzar, and still the work had not been completed

b. The question can and has to be asked “Why” Why did the zeal and enthusiasm for God’s priorities wane

• God’s people had just been released from their exile, you would think that they would be “chomping at the bit,” to have God’s priorities as their own

• Here are a couple of possible reasons we can draw from the context and from Haggai’s contemporaries

• (1) During the 70 years they were in Babylon many came to see that place as their “Home”

• (2) Others may have been doing somewhat well financially and didn’t want to impede on their lifestyle

• (3)Perhaps they were preoccupied