1)      Haggai is a book that has only two chapters.

a)      The nation of Judah had been conquered; Jerusalem had been burned; the temple was demolished.

b)      King Cyrus issued a decree that brought about 50,000 Jews back to their homeland.

c)      Some efforts had been put forth to rebuild the temple, but enemies had stopped the work.

2)      Haggai needed God’s people to get back to work.

3)      Hag. 1:4 – READ

a)       “You are making your own houses beautiful while God’s temple is in ruins.  Is this right?

b)      Moving on to verse 5 – READ

4)      God’s prophet called on the people to consider their priorities.

5)      This was not something that had happened once or twice.

6)      For 15 years things had been going on like this and God finally said ENOUGH!

7)      God’s people should have seen the signs of their misplaced priorities.

8)      God had not blessed those who had their priorities out of alignment – verse 6 – READ

9)      Verse 7 contains another plea for the people to “consider their ways.”

10)  Verse 8 is where Haggai told the people what they needed to do.

11)  It was time to get timber and start to again build the temple.

12)  God knew that some with the misplaced priorities might not want to change their ways.

13)  There is thus this warning in verse 9 – READ

14)  Rom. 15:4 says we are to learn from passages such as Hag. 1.

15)  Priorities are important.  God pays attention to our priorities.

16)  Misplaced priorities caused this people to suffer droughts and crop failure – verse 10 – READ

17)  In the final verses of this chapter we find that the Jews finally got their priorities in order.

TODAY WE ARE NOT INVOLVED WITH BUILDING A LITERAL TEMPLE FOR GOD.  THERE ARE STILL VARIOUS RESPONSIBILITIES THAT CHRISTIANS HAVE AND SOMETIMES OUR PRIORITIES CAN BECOME MISALIGNED.

1)      What does the Bible teach concerning religion and its priority in our lives?

2)      More than once God says we can have or priorities out of alignment.

a)      Verse 6 in Ps. 39 – READ

b)      Mt. 6:25 – READ

3)      Some have “eating and drinking” as their priority.  Others have “clothing” as their priority.

4)      Just a few verses later in Mt. 6 we have these words – verse 33 – READ

5)      Jesus spoke of this matter in Mt. 6 as well as other places such as Lk. 14, our next text.

6)      Verse 18 – READ

7)      Another excuse is found in verse 19 – READ

8)      Verse 20 has another misplaced priority – READ

9)      How did the person who did the inviting feel?  Verse 21 says he was “angry.”

10)  Misplaced priorities anger God.

11)  Prov. 37:5 says “commit thy way unto the Lord.

12)  Jesus said “Mary” had “chosen the good part” (Lk. 10:42).

13)  God says spiritual priorities must come first.

14)  Beginning tonight we have a test for our spiritual priorities.

15)  Where is God and His kingdom on our priority list?

16)  If we cannot say He and His work are first, we have Him in the wrong spot.

Poll on spiritual priorities: A survey on Christianity

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