What do you do when the good life costs you more and more and gives back less and less, more exhaustion, less joy? That is exactly what the Israelites returning from exile were living through when the prophet Haggai gave them a blunt diagnosis: you sow much and harvest little, you earn wages only to put them in a bag with holes (Haggai 1). This sermon shows that their problem was neither laziness nor lack of resources, but what had quietly slipped from the centre of their lives to the margin. Listen, and ask what your own life is really revolving around.
Discussion questions
For your small group or for personal reflection after the sermon.
- Haggai speaks to people who returned from exile and sowed much but harvested little. How does the prophet explain the cause of their dissatisfaction, and what did the temple lying in ruins mean for them?
- To their fears about lacking resources and to the problem of their uncleanness, God answers: "I am with you." What does this reveal about God, given that He began blessing them before they finished building?
- The preacher compared the people to someone who remembers a friend's gift but keeps it at the bottom of a closet. In which areas of your life is God important in words but pushed to the margins in practice?
- The sermon used the Copernican revolution as a picture: the good life revolves around God, not around us. How is that life different from the comfortable life described at the beginning of the sermon?
- The preacher emphasized that how you spend your money, time, energy and talents shows who matters to you. What do your calendar and your spending say about who is at the center?
- What is one concrete step that costs you something, which you can take this week to put God at the center, even if it brings criticism or discomfort?
