8-5-18 Grace - Benson/Vail Sermon

Ezra 3:1-13 [Build on the Rock Summer Series 10] Pastor Ron Koehler

Grace-Benson/Vail

August 5, 2018

Dear Friends in Christ, The year was 539 BC. Cyrus the King of Persia had just conquered the Babylonians.

The Babylonians, of course, had ransacked Jerusalem and Solomon’s Temple and completed the captivity of the Israelites back in 586. People like Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are names you would recognize who were among those carried off to Babylon as exiles. But now the Persians ruled and after King Cyrus took over, he allowed Zerubbabel to lead a group of Israelites back to their homeland.

The part of Scripture we want to learn from today comes from Ezra chapter 3 and concerns that first group of returnees from Babylon, the ones that got to rebuild the temple as they repopulated the Promised Land. That’s our Bible building project this morning: The Rebuilding of God’s Temple My parents used to have a house in northern Michigan which they bought after they sold the inn that they ran. It was a really nice house on a bluff with vineyards and a winery below it and the view from the back yard was Lake Michigan, where they could enjoy beautiful sunsets and watch the storms roll in. But when the drove by to see the place a year or two after they had sold the house and moved to Florida, what they saw brought sadness. The house and lawn were not kept up, the nice awning they had installed over the deck was in shreds. The place was a mess and they felt sick about it.

If you can imagine that kind of sick feeling and multiply it a million times, maybe you can get close to the way the returning Jews felt when they saw firsthand the devastation in Jerusalem and the ruins of the temple that had once been dripping in gold and adorned with beautiful decorations. We can’t truly appreciate what it must have been like to know that the LORD himself dwelt in the Most Holy Place in that temple where they brought their offerings and sacrifices in worship and praise and to then come back and see that place decimated by war.

But once they were able to return to their country and settle in and the most worshipfestival-intensive month of the Jewish calendar rolled around, the people gathered in Jerusalem to rebuild the altar of the temple and to once again return to the proper worship of the LORD. Even though there was the threat of enemy peoples around them, they went ahead with restoring their worship life. Over the next 7 months, they traded for supplies with their Phoenician neighbors to the north who had provided materials and labor when Solomon built the first temple. Then they began laying the foundation for the new temple. They had a ceremony, much like we do when we have a groundbreaking or cornerstone laying for a new church: priests were in their robes, trumpets and cymbals played, the people sang praises to God, and loud cheers went up as the foundation to the temple was laid.

Brought Tears Because of Israel’s Sin But then something happened that may seem curious at first, but when you think about it, makes sense. Some of the people started crying. It was the older people. There were a couple good reasons for their tears. The laying of the foundation made them realize that this temple would pale in comparison to Solomon’s Temple. They remembered the glory days of that magnificent building and temple grounds. The temple they were set to build now would be built at a time of poverty as their people returned to rebuild their nation. We don’t have many details on this temple. Was it much smaller than the original? It was certainly much less ornate, much simpler and without all the riches Solomon poured into the original temple. All that gold and the precious gems from that building were now in Babylon.

But as difficult as that must have been—to remember the glory days of Solomon and that temple—there was something more difficult to deal with, something that brought forth deep emotion: this was their fault. The fact that the Babylonians conquered them and removed them from their land…the fact that the old temple was gone and they had to completely start over…it was their fault.

Their generation had been part of a turning away from the LORD as their attention and praise and sacrifices went to idols, false gods. Some of their kings even led this rebellion against God. Although he was actually a good king, Hezekiah had to hear these words from the prophet Isaiah back then: “Hear the word of the LORD: 17 The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your fathers have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the LORD (2 Kings 20:16-17).”

The rebuilding of God’s temple brought tears because of Israel’s sin. They knew that the LORD was the only true God. He had warned them not to worship idols or get involved with the people who did. But they didn’t listen. It was Israel’s sin that caused the LORD to use Babylon as his instrument of justice…and they knew it. Even as they saw the new temple foundation being laid and as they all sang to the LORD and celebrated that day, they couldn’t help but remember why all this was necessary. Their people had rejected God. And because of this, they grieved and wept out loud.

Brought Happiness Because of the LORD’s Forgiveness But there were many who shouted for joy as the foundation was laid! Certainly there was happiness and pride in returning to their own country. And setting the footings for the temple sent the message that they were there to stay. But national pride wasn’t the main thing.

There were many there—in fact many in charge of the building project—who never knew Solomon’s temple and who had never even been in Israel before. They were too young! They were born and grew up in Babylon. But it wasn’t only the younger generation that rejoiced that day.

Certainly there were many for whom the rebuilding of God’s temple brought happiness because they realized in that moment, the LORD’s forgiveness. Their people had rebelled against the LORD by worshiping the false gods of their neighbors. Idol worship was an epidemic that even Israel’s leaders were caught up in. It was sin, plain and simple, and they deserved the judgment the LORD levelled against them.

But now the LORD had brought them back. He had released them from the consequences of their sins and returned them to their land, their way of life, and their worship of the LORD. The perfectly loving and forgiving God had reached out and blessed them.

And so these people expressed their joy by shouting praises to the LORD. Along with restoring them as a nation, he had restored their hope. God had promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that they would be a great nation, that they would have this land, and that from this place and from this people, he would send a Messiah. He would bring freedom, releasing them from captivity to sin. Life after death with their God was the promise that came through faith in this Messiah.

The temple was the place where those reminders would vividly come to them as they offered sacrifices that looked forward to the Messiah’s sacrifice. There they would meet with priests, their go-betweens with the LORD, who caused them to look forward to the Messiah, the great Mediator between God and people. The laying of the foundation to the temple brought to mind the forgiveness of God. Happiness filled their hearts and joyful praise came from their lips that day.

Teaches Us Some Important Lessons This morning as we again look back into the history of God’s people, we are reminded that this is more than a history lesson. Maybe you felt that as I’ve been talking about the effect this building project of theirs had on their hearts and minds.

Maybe you started to think about how we too have sinned against the LORD—in fact, we sin in the same way God’s people did back then. We worship idols—things, people, ourselves, rather than God. If that didn’t come to your mind, it ought to. The thing with our idolatry is that you might not recognize it as idolatry! Or you may not think much about the serious it is. Israel stopped thinking about the seriousness of it. They stopped putting God first in their hearts, making him the most important thing in their lives. We are guilty of that too.

And sometimes the LORD allows us to suffer earthly consequences for our sin just as he allowed the Israelites to. We worship ourselves and what we want and then our relationships with others suffer because we have been self-focused and selfish. We obsess over money and it leads us to further discontent and we find that it can’t solve all our problems. We pour every effort into our family—and put God in the background—and wonder why we still have family issues. There are a thousand ways we commit idolatrous sin and thousands of resulting consequences for doing so. Like

those people who grieved and wailed at the groundbreaking ceremony for the temple, we bring these consequences on ourselves; it’s our own fault. And the sin that is at the root of our troubles is damning.

God’s purpose in allowing consequences for sin can be to serve as a spiritual wake-up call. It can be to cause us to reprioritize God as number one, to make us remember that we are to put him first in our lives. This is an important lesson for us to learn and sometimes our sin causes us to learn the hard way, just like the Israelites. Through these things, the LORD can lead us to weep over our sins, to repent and look only to him for help.

One of the most amazing things about God is his forgiveness. That too can bring tears to our eyes, but it also brings happiness to our hearts and joyful praise to our lips!

When we realize our sin and know the LORD’s forgiveness, we too want to rebuild. It is not a temple that we want to construct; we want to rebuild and restore our relationship with God. That begins in the temple of our hearts.

God is put back in his rightful #1 spot in our hearts and that is reflected in our lives as we begin to rebuild what we have caused to be broken down. We fix the things that led to those consequences. We repair the things that hurt and offended the holy God and the One who lived and died and rose for us.

I spoke with someone in the last week who is looking to do that very thing. They are realizing that the sin in their lives was doing whatever they wanted to do and not following God’s will. They are living with consequences for their sinful attitudes and actions but have come to remember and to realize that their sins are forgiven fully in Jesus. They have the desire to return to worshiping the Lord and honoring him in their lives and they are taking steps to rebuild.

That person is no different from any one of us really. We have all sinned. Each of us has put ourselves and other things before God on the priority list. Some of us have put MANY things ahead of God. If you have had to suffer some consequences for your idolatry in the past, you know how those people felt—sad over sin, happy over God’s forgiveness. If you are suffering now, it is time to begin rebuilding under the forgiveness of the LORD. I suppose you could say that we are all continually in the rebuilding process as we sin, repent over our sins, trust in the LORD’s forgiveness, and then go forward, truly trying to sin no more so that we can honor our God and Savior in all we do. May the Holy Spirit continually work in our hearts so that they do not grow cold and turn from the LORD, but that they instead find happiness in his forgiveness and, swelling with love for God, are eager to rebuild in praise to him. Amen.

Now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.