(Clip) Have You Drifted From Your First Love

Haggai the Prophet, the Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, the Joshua, the son of Jehozaddak, the high priest. Thus says the Lord of hosts. These people say, the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord. Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the Prophet. Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled, it means mosaic houses, fancy nice suburban houses? While this house lies in ruins, now therefore thus says the Lord of hosts. Just remember this phrase. It's a revival phrase. Consider your ways. You've sown much, you've harvested little. You eat, you never have enough. You drink, you never have your fill. You clothe yourself, no one's warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes. In other words, you put them into pockets. The word bag can mean pockets with holes in them. Walking around, trying to stuff more stuff in your pockets there. And it just keeps coming out because there's holes in it. You might want to write this down. Saying yes to self never satisfies. Saying yes to self never satisfies. These folks weren't the worst of sinners, at least not by our way of thinking. I'm not sure that the Lord thinks about sin the way we think about sin. Sometimes it's very easy for me to become carelessly arrogant. To think, well, I've never had an affair. In fact, I was a virgin when I married. Not too many people do that. I've never had an affair. I'm faithful to my wife. I'm not like these other preachers we hear about these days. And the Lord may be saying, yeah, and in thinking that way, you've just become an arrogant you-know-what. And I'm just pleased with that because I'm wondering if maybe the sins of our heart, pride, arrogance, bitterness, gossip, slander, the things that come into our heart and out of our mouth, there's unity in the body. Isn't it interesting? Jesus in John chapter 17, he's praying. He's on his way to the cross. It's the last thing he said before he died to his disciples. And he said, you know what? I want to pray right now for those that aren't even born yet. I'm going to pray for those folks at a conference coming up in a couple thousand years. Now, there's a lot of things he wants from us, but he didn't pray those things. Does Jesus want us to be sexually pure? Of course he does. He didn't pray for that. Not then. Does he want us to be doctrinally sound? Sure he does. That's not what he prayed for. He said, Father, I pray that they'll stay unified. That means that I'm going to have to believe that I might be wrong about some of my doctrine. And you might be too. Probably you. That was a joke. But that's the way we act sometimes, right? I've got this right. If you listen to me, I'll straighten you out. No. No, that's arrogance. Saying yes to self never satisfies. Sometimes we think we're saying no to self because we're not doing those really bad things that other people are. Sometimes the Lord's just whispering, yes, but I just want you to love me. And I just want you to love others. And I don't know that I see that. There's a difference between trying to be good, trying to be better, and just loving Jesus so much. So much. You know what the gospel teaches me? I can't do it. Not I can do it. I can't. That's why I've got to have the gospel. That's why I've got to have the Holy Spirit. And that's why when I read this passage about the word of the Lord saying, listen, your pockets are full of holes. You keep trying to stuff stuff in there to satisfy. That's even for us as Christians, even in church life. Just get things our way, make church what we want, and then we'll be satisfied. But it keeps going out, going out, and going out. Saying yes to self never satisfies. But let's not point out there to the world. Let's point right back here and say, Lord, I may be saying yes to self just because I've just drifted away from my first love.