Seek First the Kingdom: Make God Your Priority

Introduction

"Seek first the kingdom and the righteousness of God, and all these things will be added to you" (Matthew 6:33). This word of Jesus sounds like a slogan. We hear it, we admire it, we put it on a postcard. Then we go back to taking care of our house, our work, our vacations, our paperwork. God, meanwhile, is waiting.

This Sunday, August 10, 2025, elder Louis Esmel does not preach Matthew 6 directly. He opens a small book of the Old Testament: Haggai 1:1-11. A book where God complains. A book where the Lord of hosts looks at a people returned from exile, who had begun rebuilding their temple, then stopped. Why? Because everyone had gotten busy chasing after their own house.

The preacher's message can be summed up in one sentence: "If you make God your priority, God will make you his priority." It's the same truth Jesus teaches. Haggai says it to a people who abandoned the temple. Jesus says it again to you today. Where do you stand?

Article Outline

• 1. God laments a people who put him second
• 2. Go up the mountain: the place of true encounter
• 3. Cut wood: get moving, don't stay passive
• 4. Don't give up: joy in the middle of hardship
• 5. Obey now: the blessing starts today

1. God laments a people who put him second

We are around 520 years before Jesus Christ. The Babylonians destroyed the temple of Jerusalem in 586 BC. Then Cyrus, then Darius, allowed the Jews to return home and rebuild the house of the Lord. Zerubbabel, the governor, and Joshua, the high priest, brought the people back. The work began. Then it was abandoned. Adversity, obstacles, enemies: at the first discouragement, the building site came to a stop.

So God sends the prophet Haggai with this message: "These people say, the time has not yet come, the time to rebuild the house of the Lord. […] Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?" (Haggai 1:2-4). And he adds this terrible sentence: "Consider your ways. You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough. You drink, but you never have your fill. […] And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes in it" (Haggai 1:5-6).

Look at your life. You work hard and you always come up short. You eat and you are never satisfied. You save up and nothing holds together. Why? God's answer is direct: "because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house" (Haggai 1:9).

Louis Esmel says it plainly: God is not complaining because he needs us. He is not in need. We are the ones in need. The blessing comes from above, not from below. God partners with mankind in his work in order to bless them in return. When we refuse this partnership (when we stay off to the side of the mission he has given us), God is grieved, and we come up short. Your birth and your existence are not meant to rhyme with the life you are living. God has destined you for something greater. But is your heart willing?

2. Go up the mountain: the place of true encounter

After the complaint comes the command: "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" (Haggai 1:8).

Humanly speaking, going up the mountain isn't easy. Cutting wood up there, and bringing it back down, even less so. But the mountain God is talking about here, Louis Esmel explains, is something else. It's the place of contact. The place of solitude. The place where you meet with your God.

When you have worries, who do you tell them to? When you're hurting, who do you talk to? God wants to have a real relationship with you. He tells you: go up. Why do you stay down below? Why do you stay passive? Sometimes you try to climb, and right away you come back down. God wants you to go up, because on the mountain, everything will be seen. Up there, God is glorified. Up there, he rejoices over you the way he rejoiced over Job in front of Satan: "Have you considered my servant Job?" (Job 1:8). Can God boast about you this morning?

3. Cut wood: get moving, don't stay passive

Going up the mountain is not enough on its own. God adds: cut wood. This is action, activity, a concrete contribution to the house of the Lord. Building God's work with what you have, even if it's little.

Remember the widow of Zarephath: a jar of oil, a few handfuls of flour, and God multiplied it (1 Kings 17:8-16). What do you have this morning? God tells you: "Consider your ways carefully." Don't rush, but look at your attitude. Your works follow you. What you sow, you will find again. "Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above" (Daniel 12:3).

The question isn't only: do I give to God's work? The question is: do I do it with zeal, with conviction, with the awareness that zeal for the house of the Lord should consume me (John 2:17)? On the list of your priorities, where does God rank? At the top? Below vacations, leisure, work?

Louis Esmel insists: when it's time to be at your post in the church, you're not there. When it's time for the meeting, you find excuses. And yet, "cursed is he who does the work of the Lord with slackness" (see Jeremiah 48:10). You wait to be blessed without moving. But blessing is not automatic rain: it comes through a hand that reaches out, a body that gets up, a work that gets done.

4. Don't give up: joy in the middle of hardship

The workers on the temple, in Haggai's day, let themselves become discouraged. That is also your temptation. When your family isn't moving forward. When your children's studies aren't moving forward. When you see them drifting into the world. When you've been praying for years and nothing is changing.

The preacher tells you: don't be discouraged. Difficulties are meant to shape us. "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness" (James 1:2-3). What the enemy wants is to see you in bitterness, despair, and discouragement. What the Word asks of you is joy, no matter what happens.

Don't be passive. If you've been waiting for a child for a long time and you're told you're barren, start preparing the crib anyway. Get moving, act, and you will see things follow. Trust the Lord. From Genesis to Revelation, those who walked with God went through trials, David facing the lion, Job, Moses, Paul, Peter. None of them was spared. None of them was abandoned. God is closer to you than you think.

5. Obey now: the blessing starts today

There's a moment in Haggai that changes everything. Zerubbabel, Joshua, and the rest of the people hear the voice of the Lord and begin to tremble. Then Haggai declares: "I am with you, declares the Lord. And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel […] and the spirit of Joshua […] and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and worked on the house of the Lord of hosts" (Haggai 1:13-14).

God did not wait for the building site to be finished before blessing them. As soon as they obeyed, the blessing was released. Listen to this promise: "Is the seed yet in the barn? Indeed, the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have yielded nothing. But from this day on I will bless you" (Haggai 2:19).

From this day on. Not when you're finished. Not when you understand. From the moment you decide to make God your priority, his blessing starts to flow. Louis Esmel says it plainly: if you make God your priority, he will make you his. Your sorrows become his sorrows. Your joy becomes his joy. Your well-being becomes his. Because God does not want to see you unhappy, he wants to see you happy.

Key Takeaways

• God laments when we build our lives alongside his house, and the lack we often feel is him withholding his breath from what we bring home (Haggai 1:9).
• The "mountain" is the place of encounter: go up, stop staying passive at the bottom, entrust him with your worries, cultivate the relationship.
• "Cut wood": act, serve, bring the little you have. God multiplies what is given to him.
• Don't let obstacles discourage you: receive trials as a subject of joy and get moving.
• Obey now. The blessing doesn't start when the building site is finished, but the moment you say yes.

Personal Application

1. On your list of real priorities (not ideal ones), where does God rank, at the top, or below vacations, work, the house?
2. Where did you stop in a project God had entrusted to you? What discouraged you, and what is God asking you to pick back up this week?
3. What "wood" is God asking you to bring concretely to his house: your time, your service, your giving, your presence at the meeting?
4. What trial are you going through right now that you can, starting today, choose to look at "as a subject of joy" (James 1:2) instead of enduring it in bitterness?
5. If God boasted about you the way he boasted about Job, what would he say? What do you want to change so that this description becomes true?

Verses Cited

• Matthew 6:33
• Haggai 1:1-11
• Haggai 1:13-14
• Haggai 2:19
• Job 1:8
• 1 Kings 17:8-16
• Daniel 12:3
• John 2:17
• Jeremiah 48:10
• James 1:2-3

Frequently Asked Questions

What does God rebuke the people for in Haggai 1?

The people say, "The time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord" (Haggai 1:2). Meanwhile, everyone rushes to their own house. God's complaint: you put your own comfort before my presence. The result: you sow much and harvest little, you eat but are never full, your wages go into a bag with holes in it (Haggai 1:6).

What does it practically mean to "make God my priority"?

It means putting him at the top of your list: before leisure, vacations, work, your house. It means going up the mountain, taking time to meet with him, entrusting him with your worries, obeying his voice. It also means getting up and serving in your church rather than passively waiting to be blessed.

How do you hold on when hardship discourages you?

James 1:2 says, "Count it all joy when you meet trials of various kinds." Don't give up. Get moving, act in faith, and remember Haggai 1:13: "I am with you, declares the Lord." As soon as the people got to work, God released the blessing.

References

Sermon by elder Louis Esmel, Sunday, August 10, 2025. Text: Haggai 1:1-11 (with Haggai 1:13-14 and 2:19). Full message available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzRfnfh1rBo.