Consider Your Ways Haggai 1 Philipians 2:1-3 Matthew 1:12-16
Season of Lent
Ezra 4:4-5 (ESVUK) 4 Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah and made them afraid to build 5 and bribed counsellors against them to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia.
Ezra 4:24 (ESVUK) 24 Then the work on the house of God that is in Jerusalem stopped, and it ceased until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.
Where are we? Where are we discouraged? Where are we afraid? Where are we frustrated? What have stopped/ceased?
Haggai 1:1-15 1 In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest: 2 Thus says the Lord of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord. 3 Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, 4 Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your panelled houses, while this house lies in ruins? 5 Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways.
Drifting Off
Drifting Off We rationalise our procrastination - disobedience (verse 2) 2 Thus says the Lord of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord. Procrastinations is disobedience!!!
Drifting Off We idolise our possessions (verse 4) 4 Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, Possessions can refer to our gifts/talents/pride Whatever we are possessive about and it possesses us, it becomes idolatory.
Drifting Off We trivialise our purpose - mission (verse 4) 4 Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins? What was this church build to house? How many seats do we have? Leave it to the young? Others? Our work is not done until it is all done
Where Are We??? Are we drifting? Disagreements Dis-satisfactions Disharmony
Haggai 1:1-15 6 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. 7 Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 8 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. 9 You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away.
Haggai 1:1-15 Why? declares the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. 10 Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. 11 And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labours.
Consider Your Ways 5 Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 7 Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 5,7 Set your heart to your ways (YLT) 5,7 Look at what s happening to you! (NLT) 5,7 Take a good, hard look at your life. Think it over.(msg)
ב ב כ ל Consider Your Ways śî mū שׂ י מ וּ Consider to put, place, set lə ḇaḇ ḵem ם heart Consider inner man, mind, will, Put your heart and soul (will) and mind into the way of living
Consider Philippians 2:3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. (NIV)
Consider Consider is about Restarting 8 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. Restart for God s Honor.