Don't Put Your Comfort Before God's Glory

Good morning.

I am glad to be here this morning.

I'm glad to be able to share the word with you for those of you who haven't gotten a chance to meet yet.

I'm Greg Linus.

I'm the student pastor here.

It's just a blessing to be able to share out of Scripture this morning.

We're going to be in the book of Haggai, which is a book that I don't think we open to that much.

It's a very small book, and it's a book that you might not be familiar with finding, so let me make it easier to find.

It's the minor prophet closest to the New Testament that has six letters in its title.

So just turn there real quick.

Seriously, though, if you have a Pew Bible, it's on page 791.

If you've got your own Bible, I can't help you because they're all different.

But it is a book that we're not that familiar with.

It's um it's a third book back from Matthew if you're looking for it, but it's a book that we can overlook.

And even when you're looking for it and you know it's a third book back from Matthew, it's just like a page or two pages long, depending on your Bible.

And so it's easy to flip past.

You kind of have to be intentional to get to Haggai, and yet it's a wonderful story.

It's a gospel story we're going to be looking at today.

Uh, I like to call it the gospel of Haggai.

We tend to turn to the gospel and say, well, the gospel is Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Well, the gospel is the whole scripture.

The gospel's the story of a God who is perfect and loving, chasing a people who are imperfect and unlovable.

And we will see that today in the book of Haggai.

So before we read it, though, let me just give you a little historical context of how we arrive at the story of Haggai.

The people of Israel, if you read the Old Testament, were a disobedient people repeatedly, time and time again.

And they would turn to God, and then they would slowly fade away from him until they were chasing just their own desires.

And after repeating this process over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, God eventually said, Look, um, I'm going to let you suffer the consequences of walking away from me, and you're going to become a captive nation to the Babylonians.

And so what we have in 605 BC, the Babylonians occupy the Holy Land and they take over and they begin ruling over God's people.

And in 586 BC, Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed, and they no longer had a home, and they were carted away from their home, and they lived as foreigners in a different land ruled by others.

And yet, in God's graciousness, after years in captivity, in 538 BC, Cyrus issued a proclamation that allowed the Jews to return to Judea and rebuild the temple.

He specifically said, Not only rebuild your temple, but here are the goods to rebuild it.

And your walls and your temple and rebuild it up and be safe and worship your Lord and return to your lives.

And so they were directed in 538 BC to do that, and yet this book comes at about 520 BC, 18 years later, and the people are living in the land, and yet the temple is still not rebuilt.

They returned home and rebuilt the walls to their city so they could be safe, but they did not rebuild a place to honor God and to put him central in their focus and to hold his glory up in the midst of them.

And so when we open the book of Haggai, that's what's going on.

So let's read.

Haggai chapter 1.

Haggai 1 · chapter mention

In the second year of King Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel, son of Sheelteel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua, son of Jehosedak, the high priest.

This is what the Lord Almighty says.

These people say, The time has not yet come for the Lord's house to be built.

Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai.

Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses while this house remains a ruin?

Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: give careful thought to your ways.

You have planted much but harvested little.

You eat but never have enough.

You drink, but never have your fill.

You put on clothes but are not warm.

You earn wages only to put them in a purse with holes in it.

This is what the Lord Almighty says: give careful thought to your ways.

Go up into the mountains and bring down the timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored, says the Lord.

You expected much, but see it turned out to be little.

What you brought home I blew away.

Why?

declares the Lord Almighty, because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house.

Therefore, because of you, the heavens have withheld their due and the earth its crop.

I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, on the new wine, the oil, and whatever the ground produces, on men and cattle and on the labor of your hands.

Then Zerubabel, son of Sheelteel, Joshua, son of Jehosedak the high priest, and the whole remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and the message of the prophet Haggai, because the Lord their God had sent him, and the people feared the Lord, and then Haggai, the Lord's messenger, gave this message of the Lord to the people.

I am with you, declares the Lord.

So the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, son of Sheelteel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua, son of Jehosedak, the high priest, and the spirit of the whole remnant of the people, and they came and began to work on the house of the Lord Almighty their God on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month in the year of King Darius.

Let's pray.

Lord, we ask today that you would impact our hearts through the hearing of this word.

That we would look at your people and the lessons that you have put down in your scriptures for us to learn from the way you have operated in your people Israel at this particular time in their history.

And that we would walk out of here knowing better how to follow you at this particular time in our history.

That your spirit would change our hearts and soften the soil of our hearts that it may bear fruit for you.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

So I don't know if you're like me and my wife, but me and my wife like to kind of tour around cities when we're new in them.

Like if we just move to a city or we're visiting a city on vacation or visiting family somewhere, it we like to go find kind of those nice old neighborhoods with the big mansion type houses and the gates that are fancy wrought iron gates, and we kind of like to drive around and look at what everything looks like in those neighborhoods.

Anybody else like to do that?

It's kind of cool.

Dallas, when we move back to Dallas after years and years in Colorado, uh we went down to the Highland Park area of Dallas, which is a very affluent area in Dallas, and we're just driving around and looking at some of the big mansions that we're like, wow, this is a different world than the one we live in.

But the construction is beautiful and the architecture is grand and the lawns are so perfectly manicured that it's just like a fairy tale.

So I want you to imagine you're taking a stroll through one of these communities, right?

And you're looking at what's going on.

And if you if you're driving through in the first house that you see when you come to look something like this, it's a nice house.

It's a big house, got a great lawn, and and you drive down the street and you see one of these, a little more elegant with the big columns, reminds you of maybe some of the southern manners that you see in various shows and things like that, and you're like, wow, that's interesting.

It's got a nice tree, and you drive a little further and you see this thing, and you go, Oh my goodness, my house could fit in the bushes there.

And what we've always found interesting is you drive through these neighborhoods and you look and you see what they've got.

And usually in these affluent neighborhoods, you then come to the church, right?

And and in Highland Park, there's Highland Park Presbyterian's Church, is this old, graceful stone building with just this carved architecture that's beautiful and perfectly kept, and you see these people that put so much effort into their home, they want to make sure their church is presentable too.

And and it would be like if you drove through and you saw these houses and you got to the church and you expected to see this grand monument to God, and instead you saw this.

This is what's happening with God's people in the book of Haggai.

And they're spending so much effort to make their own homes comfortable and to make themselves comfortable.

And they're perfectly content for God's house to look like this.

Now, let me just say right off the bat: this is not a sermon about making our church look nicer, okay?

That's not the point here.

But there is something to be said for God's people at this point in history that they had neglected God's glory for their own comfort.

And they had put their comfort before God's glory.

The temple was supposed to be God's home, his resting place, where he sat in the Holy of Holies, his presence among his people.

Before he indwelt their hearts as he does now in our lives, he said, I will be God with you, though.

His name was God with you, and he wants you to live in their midst.

And they didn't even care that he had a home to live with them.

And they had put their comfort before God's glory.

This is how we come into the book of Haggai.

And 18 years out of captivity, they were very content to be pursuing the finest things in life, where it says, Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses while this house remains a ruin?

That paneled house is a suggestion towards newer technology and home building, that they wanted the nicest, newest things, and they wanted to give themselves all this great stuff, and yet one stone hadn't been rebuilt in the temple yet.

It laid in fiery ruins.

And God's going, Where are your priorities?

And we can look at the people of Israel in the book of Haggai, and we could say, Oh, shame on them, right?

And yet, when I read it, I see me.

How many ways do we put our comfort before God's glory?

How many ways we're creative at it, right?

We're creative at chasing our own comfort, our own desires, the things we think will make us happy.

We want to make sure we have the best.

And if we have to sacrifice and scratch and claw, even if we have to give up on a few really important family events to get that one deal worked out, even if we have to do some things that we're not too proud of, we're going to get the things we want.

And we chase our comfort.

And our efforts go towards our own comfort instead of God's glory.

It doesn't mean money's bad.

This is not a declaration that wealth corrupts.

There are other verses in scripture that talk about the dangers of wealth, and we do need to be careful, and it can distract from God, but it doesn't necessarily distract from God.

There are plenty that have lots and lots of money that live well below their means, that their desires and their delights are not in the things their own money can buy them.

So this is not knocking the rich, right?

There are plenty of us who might not have material wealth but spend every waking moment wishing we did.

Or chasing the things that the world has to offer.

It doesn't let you off the hook if you're poor, too, because, oh, well, I can't be materialistic because I'm poor.

No, where is your mind focused?

It doesn't have to be about the things you have, it could be about the things you want.

And do you chase them?

Do you think about them?

Do you plan and strategize on how to achieve these things where you could be thinking, how do I make God's name greater?

How do I exalt God for his glory?

For the message of the gospel, for his forgiveness of my sins, how do I show him thanks?

But I don't even think it's restricted to physical possessions.

That might be what the Lord highlights here.

But I think that what they have, that's just a symptom of a deeper heart issue, right?

That's how their heart issue played out.

The issue is their own comfort was more important to them than God's glory.

And we do this in many ways that have nothing to do with materialism.

I don't want to tell my friend they need Jesus because it might make the relationship uncomfortable, right?

Well, I I know I'm supposed to wait till marriage, but I don't really want to, because I, you know, I mean, I really don't want to.

I know I should spend more time in God's Word, but when I, you know, when I get home from work, I'm tired, I've had a long day, I just want to eat dinner and crash on the couch and just clear my mind.

Don't I deserve that?

Just a little comfort.

You know, I know that turning the other cheek right now would probably let people see Christ through me more, but that guy hurt me and he's gonna pay.

There's a thousand ways we chase our comfort over God's glory, and the matter is, is where do we delight?

Where do we delight?

We can even turn church into a way to chase our comfort over God's glory.

We get in petty arguments about the style of music that we sing.

And the reality is, is whether we're singing in new styles, old styles, whatever it is, are the words we're singing saying, God, you are beautiful, thank you for your love of me, a wretched sinner?

Are we praising him and his name for what he has done?

Are we bringing him glory?

And if so, does the style matter?

What is wrong with our hearts that we're saying, no, no, no, you know, I didn't like the music today?

Is it our comfort we're after, or is it about God's glory?

We can do this in church by getting really comfortable with where we're at.

We like church to be a safe place for our families and the kids.

They're safe there, and we know they're not going to be exposed to those horrible worldly things, right?

And so we come here and we hang out, and we'll go to a Bible study on Tuesday night, and a fellowship on Wednesday night, and we'll go to this men's study on Thursdays, and we'll do this, and we come and we hang out, and we just start coming here to charge our light bulbs because we're called to be light in the darkness.

But the problem is, is all we're doing is charging our light bulbs, and we never take our light bulbs into the darkness to fulfill the task for which they need to be charged.

We're called to be light in the darkness, and it and but sometimes we're just comfortable being a bunch of light bulbs in a box.

And it can become a place that we seek our comfort because it's really nice to sit around and it's really comfortable to talk around the circle with people that think exactly the way we think.

And if I go out into the darkness, I'm gonna encounter people that are gonna judge me, or they're not gonna like me, or they're not gonna listen to me, and it might be difficult, and I might have to make sacrifice, and I might have to go out of my way and work hard to show them that I accept them despite the fact that we disagree.

And all of a sudden we can make church a place that we hang out for our comfort instead of chasing God's glory.

There's nothing wrong with the Bible studies, just like there was nothing wrong with material wealth, right?

It's how we view it and use it.

And is it for our comfort or is it for God's glory?

Because we are called to be light in the darkness.

As I said, we are really creative about how we chase our comfort over God's glory.

And so, what does God say to the people in Haggai?

What is happening as a result of this?

Well, in verse 7, and he's saying this for a second time in verse 7, he says in verse 5, too, this is what the Lord Almighty says to his people.

Give careful thought to your ways.

The exact same phrase is in verse 5.

God forget what he said?

No.

Is he repeating himself because he wasn't, you know, did I say that already?

I don't know.

Let me say it again.

No.

God in his word repeats himself for emphasis.

He repeats himself for emphasis, he's saying, You're thick, so let me say this again.

Give careful thought to your ways.

And I would venture to guess that if he can say that so firmly to the people of Haggai, that today we could benefit from pausing and giving careful thought to our ways.

Sometimes we come to church and we like to go, let's get church over with today, right?

Like we'll even go early because the game comes on today, right?

Like and we just want to get it out of ways and then, oh, that was a nice sermon, and then we wash our hands of it, and we don't even think about what God might have wanted to say to our hearts.

It's not one and done here.

Do we leave here and let God work in our hearts and massage the truth into our hearts?

And do we pause and set aside some time to sit down and go, no, let me really give some thought to my ways.

Let me look at my life.

What am I chasing?

Why am I chasing it?

Is it bringing me happiness?

Or am I finding frustration?

Because that's what God's people were doing.

They were finding frustration.

He says, Give careful thoughts to your ways, go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored.

You expected much, but see it turned out to be little.

What you brought home I blew away.

Why, declares the Lord?

Because of my house, which remains a ruin while each of you is busy with your own house.

He's going, you're frustrated.

You keep expecting all these great things in life, and it turns out to be little.

Think about that.

Is the path you're chasing bringing you joy?

See, the issue is not just give more.

Like this is if you hear that this is about giving more or doing more, you're hearing the wrong thing.

It's about where do you find your delight?

And when you're looking to fill your delights in anything but Christ, you will find frustration.

Look at verse 6.

It says, You have planted much but have harvested little.

You eat but never have enough.

You drink but never have your fill.

You put clothes on but are not warm.

You earn wages only to put them in a purse with holes in it.

We are gluttonous with everything we consume.

And it doesn't satisfy.

It says you earn wages to put them in a purse with holes in it.

How many of us come home and we feel like our paycheck is gone before we've ever even got it home, right?

That's putting it in a purse with holes in it.

But is that because the places it's going are places to chase our comfort?

Are we investing in our comfort above God's glory and are we still not finding happiness?

We can spend every single penny that comes our way, every ounce of energy and spare moment chasing things.

But if our delights are somewhere other than the Lord, we will not find happiness.

It's impossible.

And God wants to tell his people that.

That you're going, I don't understand why this isn't coming through.

I don't understand why it's not working.

I don't understand why these people just won't see it my way.

I don't understand whatever it is, is God saying, Hey, look at me.

Look to me.

Look to me.

Because that's what he said to them and Haggai.

He said, What you brought home I blew away.

Why?

Because of my house, which remains a ruin while each of you is busy with his own house.

I don't want you to find happiness there.

We can do this.

We've gotten good at deceiving ourselves.

But if you really think about it, you really find enjoy.

People is it's time for a change.

He says, My house lies in ruin, but he says, Go up in the mountains and bring the timber down and build the house that I may take pleasure in it and be honored.

And as God's saying to you, stop what you're doing, go chase me.

Bring me into your life in a way that I can be honored.

Is God saying, Build a monument to me in your heart, that I may take pleasure living with you?

Find your pleasure with me.

It's time for a change.

Because that's what he's telling his people here.

It's time for a change.

What happened with Israel?

Well, they changed their ways and they obeyed.

It says, Vinzerubbable, verse 12, Zinzerubbable, son of Sheelteel, Joshua, son of Jehosedak, high priest, and the whole remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and the message of the prophet Haggai.

Amen, sermon's over, right?

No.

Because they obeyed, but I want us to look at why they obeyed, how they obeyed, what was prompted as a result of their obedience, and how we chase the same things in our life.

Because is this a story of God's people pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and making a resolution through the power of their own will to just be better?

Because if you hear that and you go home and you try to just be better, you will fail.

You will.

I've done it a thousand times.

We're great at making decisions in our own strength and watching them fail.

Let me give you an example.

It's September.

How many of you this past January set what we like to call a New Year's resolution?

Anybody?

How many of you have failed at that New Year's resolution?

How many of you was that New Year's resolution?

The same resolution you set the year before.

I resemble that comment.

See, we set goals and we say, you know what, I'm gonna be better.

I'm gonna do better.

I'm not gonna do that anymore.

I changed my ways, and we don't.

Because we're not strong enough.

We're not.

And God's people here weren't look at the history of Israel.

Look at how many times they failed.

Look at how many times God had to say, you forget?

What is wrong?

Did you not see me lead you through the dry ground of the parted sea?

And yet you come over here and bow down to this golden calf?

I don't get it.

They're saying, oh, you know what?

God has led us out of Egypt and we will worship Him alone until that calf gets built in front of us.

What?

We don't follow through with our resolutions.

We decide things in our brain and say we're gonna be stronger and we're not, and God's people weren't.

For goodness sakes, they had just gotten back from captivity.

They went to captivity because they ignored God, because they made bad decisions.

And they get out of captivity, and you would think that'd be the perfect opportunity to go, you know what, we're gonna do better this time, because 70 years in captivity, that was kind of miserable.

So I'm gonna do better now, right?

But they came home and they instantly forgot.

And guys, you can't be good enough.

You can't be strong enough, you can't resolve enough in your brain to just do it.

And please the Lord, this is a matter of finding your joy in God, not forcing yourself into obedience.

And joy in God only comes through a changed heart, and a changed heart only comes through the power of God working himself in your heart.

And that's what happened with them.

Look in verse 14.

So the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel, son of Sheel Til, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua, son of Jehosedak, the high priest, and the spirit of the whole remnant of the people.

They came and began to work on the house of the Lord their God Almighty.

On the 24th day of the sixth month and the second year of King Darius.

But it says, he stirred up their spirits, the spirit of the whole remnant of the people.

This was a work of God in their heart, not a work of will in their brain.

And so we have to say, God, change my desires.

These things I'm chasing that lead to no hope, to no satisfaction, to no fruition.

Please help me to where I don't look at them with desire anymore and delight and think that they will be my source of happiness.

Help me to look at you and think you will be my source of joy and you will be my source of happiness.

This is a gospel message of God changing the hearts of an unworthy people.

This is a God changing a people who are unlovable.

He is chasing a people who do not deserve to be chased.

He could have just said, you know what, okay, done, right?

I'm done with you.

You got back from captivity.

I give you the materials, I give you the gold of another nation with which to rebuild the temple, and you don't do it.

But he doesn't.

He chases them and he says, Guys, let me be with you.

Let me be with you.

Let me live amongst you.

Let me live with you.

Focus on my glory and you'll find happiness.

And that is the gospel, is it not?

That is who we are, is it not?

We are an unlovable people.

We are a people who do not deserve to be chased, and yet he sent his only son, who gave up the glory of his throne in heaven, to walk amongst us and be beaten and bruised and killed by his own creation, because he was going to chase a people that did not deserve to be chased.

This is the gospel of Haggai.

And it directly parallels what happens in your and my heart.

And so today, will you let the gospel change you?

Will you say, God, change my heart, fill me with desire for you.

Make my delight in your law, O Lord.

Make my delight in your word.

Cause me to find peace, not in my own comfort, but in your glory.

Let me give up that which makes me comfortable, to make your name known great in my family, in my workplace, in my friendship circles.

Wherever I go, let us stop looking at the gospel as something that we share on the rare instance that someone in the grocery store says, Excuse me, do you know Jesus?

And how do I get to know him?

Because that's not often the way this happens.

We need to be light in the darkness, and we need to be willing to go into uncomfortable places, and we need to say, I'm going to make an opportunity to tell these people how much Jesus loves them, not wait for a door to be knocked on right in front of me.

When that happens, great, take advantage of it.

But are we willing to be uncomfortable in our pursuit of the lost?

Are we willing to tell them, look, I didn't deserve God's love, and he chased me down, so he wants me to chase you down and tell you he loves you.

And are we willing to let our joy come from that?

It's a great gospel message.

And I ask that today, when you go home, you would consider your ways and that you would ask God to change your heart.

And that we, like the people of Haggai, can turn from a life chasing our comfort to a life chasing God's glory.

Next week we're gonna go into chapter two and see what their pursuit of his glory looked like.

So come back and let's continue this exploration.

Let's pray.

Lord, we come before you humbled at your great glory, at the things that you do that we don't deserve.

We look for happiness in so many places other than you, and we confess that, and we know that if we just try to be better, we'll end up eventually chasing our own desires.

So we ask that you not just give us strength of will, but that you change our hearts and change the delights of our hearts and change our desires, that we would find you to be the greatest source of joy in our life.

We love you.

Thanks for chasing us.

In Jesus' name, Amen.