His Mercy Endures: Ezra 3

Victories: 1. Graduates 2.

Prayer: The Pointe Church Marion Tad Hampton, Lay Pastor

Missionary Prayer: Jack & Iva Dean Henderson, Texas - Pray for their Health

Intro

Do you ever wish there were a reset button on life? What I mean by that is that sometimes life gets so complicated that you begin to long for a simpler time, or maybe just a do over. Maybe it is because the stresses of life have you overwhelmed or you are going through a time of particular struggles with health, family, work etc. Maybe you are finally taking responsibility for your own sin and you can see the fact that it is going to take a lot of hard work and forgiveness to get yourself out of the jamb you have yourself in and you just wish that it was over already. No matter what it is most of us have had times in our lives where a reset button on life would be a good thing. If only life could be a bit simpler.

However, do we really need a return to simplicity or are we really craving clarity? Perhaps what we need is a clearer view of the path forward. What we need is blinders to all the stuff that gets in the way so that we can focus on what is truly important. This is what God promises us and if you can think back to your decision to follow God in the first place that is at least in part what drew you to Him. Life is crazy and out of control and God promises to clear some of that up and make your path straight. This is the promise of Proverbs 3:5–6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.” or as the NASB puts it “He will make your paths straight.” What we need is a clear view through the craziness of life and God promises to do that for us. How? By changing our perspectives, and by helping us to live a different kind of life, a life spent with God as the focus instead of ourselves.

As we dig into our scripture today that is what I want you to look at. The exiles of Ezra are returning to a simpler life because their promised land is in ruins but what they need is a new perspective on the life God wants them to lead, one where God is the objective and not their own wants and desires. The question we need to ask ourselves is; how do we do the same?

Bible Reading: Ezra 3

Worship Restored

Introductions

As we get started today we are introduced to 2 people whom we did not cover last week in the opening 2 chapter even though both of them are mentioned in chapter 2. These two are Jeshua and Zerubbabel. Jeshua is important because not only is he the leader of the priests as verse 2 points out but he is a direct descendent of Aaron the brother of Moses and the very first Chief Priest. Therefore, his role and lineage is important to the people for his leadership spiritually. Zerubbabel is similar. Back in Chapter 1 we are told that a man named Sheshbazzar is made governor by King Cyrus, however here in chapter 3 we are told that Zerubbabel is leading. This is odd and while many theories have been posited on who Sheshbazzar is I think the most likely is that Sheshbazzar was a figurehead and Zerubbabel is the real leadership. The reason why I think that Zerubbabel is the real leader is the same as the reason why Jeshua was chosen; his lineage. Zerubbabel is a direct descendent of David making him the logical person to be leading even if he wasn’t the one chosen by King Cyrus.

Festivals

In Ezra 3 it starts off with the 7th month, and we will get to why that is important soon but first I want to focus in on the last part of verse 1. Ezra 3:1b “ the people gathered together as one man to Jerusalem.” Everyone who came back from captivity and everyone who was Jewish and whom had remained in Judah left their homes and come to Jerusalem for they were all in one mind. They all knew that The Temple must be restored. To obey the Lord was the most important aspect of this whole thing. It did not matter what else was to be done, they needed to obey the Lord and job one was to rebuild The Temple. Those words, “ the people gathered together as one man to Jerusalem.” are important because is shows that they were of one mind on this. This was made all the more important in the fact that this was also THE most holiest month of the Jewish year where they celebrated these three really important festivals.

Seventh Month in the Jewish calendar is the month of Tishrei and if falls in our calendar around September–October, because the Jewish calendar is based off lunar movement as opposed to ours based off solar movement. The seventh month means nothing to us- but to the Israelites here in Ezra and still to the Jews today this is a big deal, because it is one big holiday celebration month. It is the holiest month in the Jewish calendar as these 3 major festivals are held and the biggest Yom Kippur is right in the middle. Jewish festivals were setup to be reminders to them of what God had done.

The first of the festivals is Rosh Hashanah and to us it is similar to New Years Day. “Rosh” is the Hebrew word for "head", and “shana” means “year.” Thus Rosh Hashanah means "head of the year", referring to the day of the New Year. As I said it is like our New Years except it lasts 10 days and instead of focusing on making resolutions we aren’t going to keep, by contrast, the Jews were expected focus on repentance. Perhaps we should rethink our New Years and make it a bit more Jewish. Rosh Hashanah or the Festival of Trumpets was defined by God in Lev. 23:23-25. It was started by blowing the Shofar which is the reason it is known as the Festival of Trumpets.

The second festival Yom Kippur along with Rosh Hashana are considered the two High Holy days, but Yom Kippur is the most holy day on the Jewish calendar. Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement and God set up this festival in Lev. 23:26-32. It is traditionally associated with the bringing of the 10 commandments and God’s forgiving of Israel after the incident with the Golden Calf. On this day of atonement the priests are to make atonement for the entire Jewish people. There are many aspects to it but it is all culminated by the Chief Priest entering the holy of holies but he may only enter the sanctuary by performing a complex sacrificial procedure.

Worship Restores

I want to remind you these Jewish festivals were setup to be reminders to them of what God had done. The month of Tishrei, the seventh month, was special but the scripture itself doesn’t mention all of these festivals it only mentions one. In verse 4, the Feast of Tabernacles is celebrated. So why am I making a big deal about them now if the scripture only makes a small passing reference to them? Well remember, last week, how I said that Ezra mirrors Deuteronomy in that we have Israel coming to the promised land and now here in Ezra they are returning to the promised land.

Sukkot or the Feast of Tabernacles or Festival of Booths. It was set up in Lev. 23:33-43. Sukkot is the commemoration of the Exodus from Egypt. By now you are probably wondering why in the world I have been giving you all this information about these 3 festivals, and even more how does this bring about clarity and perspective to our lives. Hang with me on the clarity and perspective issue I am getting there. Once again the celebrating of this festival, Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles or the Festival of Booths, specifically ties this return to Israel from Babylon back to the Exodus. This makes celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles special for the exiles for they are not only remembering the Exodus they are living it out in their return. The festival was meant to be a pilgrimage as they would take the time to travel to Jerusalem but even while there they would not live indoors but in tents, they called them booth hence Feast of Booths. This was all done to remember the original wilderness journey. But here in Ezra 3 we read that this is the very first time they would celebrate the Feast of Booths after their return from exile. They were returning to a ruined country and so many were still living living in tents and their journey was no longer done in memory but they physically had to return from Babylon. This was a time of camping but more than just a campout it was a campout with a purpose. The purpose was to remember God’s provision and be reminded of God’s power.

So here is the perspective and clarity. This perspective and clarity gained through celebrating God was coupled with the idea of them being “together as one man” as verse 1 shows us. Here is what Zerubabbel was trying to do. He was trying to get them to see and understand themselves as Jews once again. They were no longer exiles, no longer a people without a home, no longer the forgotten of God. They were beginning a rebirth back into being the children of God. This rallies them together around the worship of their God and begins to pull together their spiritual mindsets. Why? Because they needed to see they were more than just a people or race they were the chosen people of God. Their spiritual lives mattered especially to God. They weren’t just celebrating to celebrate they had a purpose. They were celebrating God’s provision and power and they were doing so in a way that took their minds and thoughts off of their own problems. They were choosing to set all the craziness of the world aside in order to worship the Lord. The festival itself was a lesson in relying on God.

What do we do to remind ourselves of God’s deliverance in our lives? We celebrate Christmas and remember Jesus’ birth but more importantly the fact that God became Immanuel God with us. That is good but is it enough to do once a year? No. So we celebrate Easter and remember the sacrifice of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus. But easter egg hunts and a meal with family really don’t do enough to remind ourselves of God’s great love and power. No, we need to live this out daily. We need to remind ourselves often of God’s provision and power. We need to rely on God daily.

We too need to take the time to determine if we are just people or if we are something more. Are we just a group of individual people gathered here each Sunday or are we a special group of the Children of God gathered together not for our own individual purposes but gathered to serve, worship, and build up each other in the name of the Lord. But for what purpose? The purpose of living out that clarity that only God can give. He can make your path straight and if you are a child of God through the mercy of Christ death and resurrection then you are being transformed daily into His image, meaning that daily you are learning how to leave your past sinful life behind so that you are being lead down the straight path that God has for you. We know that God’s ways are better but we so are quick to set them aside because we believe the lie that sin will get us what we really want. When we celebrate the provision and power of our God we stop putting our hope in our own power and we start looking for His path. That should be our mindset each Sunday.

Worship Changes Us

It is this perspective and clarity that is seen in the last few verses of this chapter. In verse 8 we are told that some time has passed and they have actually started to rebuild the temple and in verse 9 Jeshua and the rest of the priests are overseeing it all. When they lay the foundation of the Temple another celebration breaks out.

Read vs 10-13

They laid the foundation and the Priests blew their trumpets and they began a huge worship service. I can imagine being there and joining is as the crowd began to sing in response to all they were seeing and feeling. Ezra 3:11 “For He is good, For His mercy endures forever toward Israel.” They were shouting these words as they recognized the goodness and mercy of God. They had come so far, they had seen God move and bring them back from Babylon, they had joined together as one man to celebrate the festivals, they we beginning to change and it was good. They were excited to see it rebuilt, excited that work was beginning, excited that something was finally being done. Yet- in the midst of this celebration there were two responses. The ecstatic joyful shouts of the crowd and the loud weeping of the older generation.

Why were they weeping? They were weeping because they remembered. They remembered the greatness and grandeur of the original temple and they realized that it would never be restored to that former glory. It couldn’t. They didn’t have the wealth or the manpower they once had. They also knew the laying of the foundation was a reminder to them of all the disobedience they had done to bring the destruction in the first place.

They did this, Solomon’s temple was lost because of their sin and disobedience along with the generations that had gone before them. Yes, it is great and they should celebrate the rebuilding of the foundation of the Temple, but it was a sad remembrance of their sin.

The temple- where God’s spirit resided was destroyed and it was their fault. We need to learn a few lessons from this. 1. Take responsibility for your sin. It does you no good to deny that you are a sinner. It does you no good to try to pass the blame. When you recognize sin in your life acknowledge it, seek forgiveness between God and man, seek to root out the cause, (you do what you do because you want what you want, so what is it you wanted so bad that you were willing to sin in order to get it), and then prayerfully ask God to help you to conquer it. 2. Grieve over your sinfulness. You should hate your sin. Sin is destructive and it hurts not only you but those around you. The returning exiles had a physical representation of their sin; the ruined temple, we won’t always have a physical representation but that doesn’t mean we aren’t left with the ruins of our sin. So, grieve the fact that you chose sin over the goodness that God wants for you. 3. Rejoice when you see victories. In our battle with sin there are victories and there are times when we get this right. Praise the Lord that victories happen. Praise the Lord when you see the fact that you are becoming more like Christ then you were yesterday. Rejoice with you fellow brothers and sister in Christ when they are obedient. When we see more of the goodness of God in our lives we will want more and that will lead us to less sin and more righteousness. That is exactly where we should be, Ezra 3:11 “For He is good, For His mercy endures forever toward Israel.”

Gospel

‌If you are here today and you know that you are not a believer, you have never asked Jesus into your heart, or maybe you did but haven’t ever allowed God to change you, then let me tell you how you can change that today. Your sin and your brokenness are there to point you to Jesus because only He can provide you with a real solution. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is that solution. Here is the Gospel: Jesus died on the cross for our sins, and because He did, we can ask for our sins to be forgiven, and the Bible says He will forgive them. Jesus is the Lamb of God who died for your sins. God sent Jesus so that Jesus might take the punishment we deserve so that we might return to God and be called His own. Romans 10:9 says, “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” ‌It is just that easy. You can confess Him as your savior. If that is your desire today, you can say this prayer with me. Bow your heads. God holds out His outstretched hand for you. Are you going to continue in your sin, or are you going to take His Hand? He is calling, and all you have to do is believe.

‌It is just that easy. You can confess Him as your savior. If that is your desire today, you can say this prayer with me. Bow your heads.

‌Dear Lord, ‌I know that I’m a sinner. I’m sorry for my sin, and I ask you to forgive me. I believe you died for my sins and rose from the dead. I repent of my sins, and I ask you to come into my life and take control. I make a commitment to follow you, and I trust you as my Lord and Savior.

‌Friend, if you prayed that prayer today, I ask that you come and speak to me after the service.

‌Benediction: Romans 12:2 “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” Amen