4.28.24 - EZRA 4:1-6: “Opposition to Rebuilding the Temple”/“WHO ARE YOU TRYING TO PLEASE???

Opposition to Rebuilding the Temple/WHO ARE YOU TRYING TO PLEASE???

If you were with us last week… you would have joined us in our first message in the Book of Ezra… we looked at Ezra 1:1-4 and we discovered and learned:

1. God is in CONTROL of those in POWER on EARTH

2. We no longer NEED a TEMPLE made by MAN to WORSHIP God

3. God’s WORD will come to PASS

This week however we are transitioning our focus and attention to Ezra 4:1-6… but before we dive into the text it is important that we always as ourselves two important questions:

What is God teaching us through this text?

How do we apply God’s teaching to our lives today?

With those two questions in mind, please following along as with me as I read Ezra 4:1-6…

Ezra 4:1–6 (ESV)

Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the returned exiles were building a temple to the Lord, the God of Israel, they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of fathers’ houses and said to them, “Let us build with you, for we worship your God as you do, and we have been sacrificing to him ever since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria who brought us here.” But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of fathers’ house in Israel said to them, “You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God; but we alone will build to the LORD, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us”.

Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah and made them afraid to build and bribed counselors against them to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia.

And in the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem.

CONTEXT

If you were to look at the two previous chapters (Ezra Chapter 2 & 3) you would know that about 50,000 exiles had returned to Judah… and that the temple had begun it’s reconstruction process… in fact in Ezra Chapter 3… we see that the temple foundation had been built and laid… and that people rejoiced and celebrated with trumpet sound and shouts of joy… which brings us to Ezra Chapter 4 where we picked up and and just read together…

In Ezra 4:1-6 we see that enemies or adversaries of the returning exiles wanting to get in on the temple making process… they wanted to be apart of the rebuilding the temple with the returning exiles… look at verse 2, “Let us build with you, for we worship your God as you do, and we have been sacrificing to him ever since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria who brought us here.”

But I want to be clear, that were not interested in building the temple so that they could exclusively serve, worship, and be obedient to Yahweh the God of Israel… you see they would serve multiple God’s… they would not serve the God of Israel alone… In fact these adversaries or enemies of the exiles were the lowest and poorest of the Jewish population that were left behind when when the people were originally exiled into Babylon… All this to say, these left behind Jews had intermarried with Samaritans and adopted their gods, religion, and traditions… In other words, when they asked the exiles who were returning to Judah if they could help assist in rebuilding the temple… they were not authentic or genuine in true worship to the God of Israel alone…

Look at the response from Zerubabbel, Jeshua, and the head the leaders of Israel… verse 3 says,

But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of fathers’ house in Israel said to them, “You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God; but we alone will build to the LORD, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us”.

POINT #1: Your PARTNERSHIPS will REVEAL what you PRIORITIZE

Who you choose to hitch your wagon to, do life with, and spend your time with show a lot about what you truly prioritize and care about…

Example #1:

When I was younger I can remember my mom telling me that she would only date someone who was a Christian growing up… she never wanted to take a chance on dating someone who does not know the Lord and then it effect her walk with Jesus or her kids walk with Jesus… it was crucial to her that whoever she partnered with and did life would value, treasure, and prioritize the same God that she did… She did not want a family where she was the only one going to church on Sunday…

Example #2:

I can remember when I was a freshman in High School and there was this new girl that came to our school… I think her name was Megan, but I am not for certain… I ended up getting her number and after a week of talking to her, I thought to myself, this girl is nice, she is pretty, and she is new to this school. If I do not ask her out, somebody else will. So I ended up asking her out over a text conversation… and we started to date… Turns out, after spending a week with her at school, I did no like her personality at all. She would not leave me alone, she constantly followed me, and I realized that she was not a Christian. After a week of dating her, I text her and broke up with her. All this to say, I realized that I had completely skipped the most important thing to consider - which was does she know and love Jesus Christ?… Why? because I wanted to hitch my wagon to, do life with, and spend time with someone who shared the same values as I did - which was loving the Lord my God…

I can even remember not wanting to hang out with a certain group or crowd in high school because I knew that if I did, I would probably pick up their habits, behavior, and do something that I knew I would regret or wish I never had done…

What I am trying to communicate to you guys is those that you choose to do life with, spend time with, and surround yourself with will reveal whether or not you truly prioritize the Lord…

We see this in Ezra 4:3, when they deny help for the building of the temple from those who were already living in the land… You see they did not want the people of the land to assist in the red-building of the temple because they new that those people did not align with what they valued, cherished, and adored most - the God of Israel… You see the people in the land of that day worshiped serval gods, and if they assisted in the building of the temple, then who is to say that they wouldn't want access to the temple… they could make a case that sense they helped build it, they have rights to what it is used for…

My point is this… the returning exiles and Jews did not deny help from the natives of the land because they were selfish, lacking in compassion, or prideful… rather, they knew that if they partnered with the native people that it would jeopardize, risk, and threaten the relationship with their God…

They knew that if they partnered with, spent time with, and lived life with the native people that they may adopt or allow themselves to partake in the gods they worshiped… they knew that it could cause them to stumble and chase after other gods instead of serving the God of Israel…

And this is something that is still relevant to you and I today… who you hang out with, spend time with, and live in close quarters with will reveal what you prioritize…

If I hang out with people who are constantly cussing, disrespecting their parents, living in sin without repentance or regret, treating their friends and family like trash, or partaking in a lifestyle that is not pleasing to the Lord… then it would show that I do not care about whether or not I am doing everything I can to live a life that prioritizes the Lord…

Who you hang out with the most, the people you run to when life is difficult, the partnerships and friends that you make and choose to hang out with always reveals what you prioritize and care about most…

Proverbs 13:20–21 (ESV)

Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise,

but the companion of fools will suffer harm.

Disaster pursues sinners,

but the righteous are rewarded with good.

FOOLS = “A foolish person who lacks good judgment”

Whoever walks with the wise… or whoever walks with those who love, fear, are in awe of, submit to the counsel of, and are obedient to the Lord will also become wise… but those would decided to partner with, become companions of foolishness will receive nothing more than harm…

QUESTION: Who are walking with today? Those who are foolish? or those who are wise? And would someone put you in the category of wise or foolish?

I ask, because we the the exiles returning to Judah acting in wisdom and not becoming companions with fools…

POINT #2: You will have to be more CONCERNED with PLEASING GOD instead of man

In Ezra Chapter 4 verse 3, when the returning exiles denied the help of the native people, they did this because they were more concerned with pleasing the Lord their God than the people who lived there…

In other words, they were not concerned about how they were perceived by other people, rather they wanted to ensure they were pleasing the Lord…

You do not have to be a Christian long to experience a moment in time where you were faced with either pleasing the LORD… or pleasing someone else…

EXAMPLE #1 - MIDDLE SCHOOL

For me, I can remember countless times where people would find out that I was a Christian and they knew that I did not cuss… and I can remember people at school asking my Why? Asking me well… just say one word… and question me and why I did not cuss…

I can remember when I was a sophomore in high school and this kid that road the same bus as I did was in my English Class… and I can remember him talking about Abraham and how he does not believe in God because what kind of God asks his servant (Abraham) to sacrifice his son (Isaac)? What kind of God would do such a thing… and I was more concerned with how they would perceive me if I corrected him and told him the reason why, so I pleased man instead of God and walked away… allowing them to continue to talk about God as if he was outrageous and beyond understanding… It was easier for me to please man than to go against what other people were saying… it was more comfortable for me to not stand up for the Lord and just roll with the crowd…

I even justified my behavior…

I thought… well if I say something I could make it worse…

If I say something I do not want them to think I am confrontational…

God will bring him around in time… it is no big deal…

I just need to keep loving him with my actions…. I do not have to actually speak about God or defend God…

EXAMPLE #2: HIGH SCHOOL

Friend asking me if I would take a drink and taste alcohol…

But one thing I love about the text we are reading and the exiles who returned to Judah to re-build the temple is that they did not cave into pleasing man… they stood firm and denied help from the natives… and it would have been easier for the exiles returning from Babylon and exile to have just had other people help them build the walk…

They could have easily justified the assistance of those who lived in the land…

The temple could be built faster

We could convince them of serving the Lord God alone

Its not such a big deal if we share the temple

We could use their help and support from surrounding enemies

We could understand their culture better if we allowed them to assist us

My point is… even though it would have been easier, more convenient, and appealing to please man… the returning exiles stood firm in pleasing the Lord their God…

QUESTION: What about you? Are you more concerned about how you are perceived by others and pleasing man, or are you more concerned about standing firm in your faith and pleasing the Lord?

2 Corinthians 5:9-10

9 So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

Paul wrote 1st & 2nd Corinthians… and during the day and age of Paul… Corinth was a prosperous city… known for being a “trade city” that serviced most of Greece, much of the Mediterranean area, including North Africa, Italy, and Asia Minor… The Isthmian Games - a major athletic event - took place in Corinth… causing it to be an area that was heavily decorated and filled with people of different backgrounds, cultures, and religions… But Corinth became so morally corrupt that its very name became synonymous with debauchery (extreme indulgence in bodily pleasures and especially sexual pleasures : behavior involving sex, drugs, alcohol, etc. that is often considered immoral.) and moral depravity…

In fact to “corinthianize” came to represent gross immorality and drunken debauchery… In other words, by all accounts, Corinth was not a place where Christianity was popular or championed…

Yet… God uses Paul to plant a church in Corinth… and this particular church struggled with worldliness and unwillingness to depart and divorce away from the cultures that surround them… Most of the believers struggled to consistently put off their old self… they would go back to their pagan, immoral, and selfish ways… so Paul writes first Corinthians as a corrective letter that address multiple issues and areas of their lives… Paul then follows up with a Second Letter (2nd Corinthians) where we see him telling the church of Corinth in Chapter 5:9-10 to make it our aim to please him - Him being our Lord!

In fact, in 2 Corinthians Chapter 5, Paul has been talking about our heavenly home and body that God has prepared for us… and how as long as we live here an earth… we groan, wait, and would much rather be with the Lord in heaven… yet, while we are here… our purpose… our aim… or sights should be set on…

PLEASING THE LORD…

It is evident that Jewish Exiles leaving Bablyon to rebuild the temple where focused on pleasing the Lord and not themselves or the other people…

It is evident that in 2 Corinthians… Paul was calling the church to focus on pleasing the Lord and themselves or others…

And it is evident today… that the Lord is still calling people like you and me to make it our aim to focus and please Him…