The First Rebuild & Restoration - Altar & Offerings

Timeline

So our quick timeline recap, we are looking at Ezra 3 today which is narrating the events following the First Return by Zerubbabel

In our section, the people of God have settled back into their hometowns and are beginning what we will see as the first rebuild and restoration

So let’s jump in

Text

Ezra 3:1-7

Ezra 3:1–7 CSB

When the seventh month arrived, and the Israelites were in their towns, the people gathered as one in Jerusalem. Jeshua son of Jozadak and his brothers the priests along with Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and his brothers began to build the altar of Israel’s God in order to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the law of Moses, the man of God. They set up the altar on its foundation and offered burnt offerings for the morning and evening on it to the Lord even though they feared the surrounding peoples. They celebrated the Festival of Shelters as prescribed, and offered burnt offerings each day, based on the number specified by ordinance for each festival day. After that, they offered the regular burnt offering and the offerings for the beginning of each month and for all the Lord’s appointed holy occasions, as well as the freewill offerings brought to the Lord. On the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the Lord, even though the foundation of the Lord’s temple had not yet been laid. They gave money to the stonecutters and artisans, and gave food, drink, and oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre, so they would bring cedar wood from Lebanon to Joppa by sea, according to the authorization given them by King Cyrus of Persia.

Message

The ideas of...

1. Fear & Obedience

So let’s talk about this first point, because up until now we have shown a lot of how God is in control and orchestrating this narrative in bringing His people back into relationship with Him...

This narrative of restoration that God has been crafting is not removed from the human factors

What I mean by that is one of the main points of the last sermon - God is not restoring a place unto Himself but a people

That people He is restoring are actual people

They are not robots, they are not perfect humans but men and women just like us

They are sinful people living in a broken world…they are people with their own thoughts and emotions and desires

And thus, even in the midst of God bringing restoration, they are confronted with an enemy with the power to derail and cripple them from ever taking the necessary steps to return, rebuild, remove, and restore.

That enemy is fear.

Notice in Ezra 3:3

Ezra 3:3 CSB

They set up the altar on its foundation and offered burnt offerings for the morning and evening on it to the Lord even though they feared the surrounding peoples.

You might think - But doesn’t the Bible say that perfect love casts out fear?

Yeah, it does, the interesting thing about that verse (1 John 4:18) - is the word used typically translated as “cast out” or here in CSB “drives out fear”

The sense in which is it used is the same sense when the New Testament describes the disciples “casting their nets” , or in the parable of the sower who “scatters” or casts seeds amongst the ground, or when Peter sees the resurrected Jesus and he “plunges” or throws himself into the water to swim and see Jesus

What I’m getting at here is this, the idea of perfect love casting out or driving out fear does not mean that walking with Jesus equals a non-existence of fear.

It actually assumes the existence of fear, but as something to be dealt with in proper way (much like as an object to be thrown or cast away)

But how?

I would argue, especially here, that it is by faithful obedience to the commands of God.

Put simply, fear is cast out through knowing and following God’s Word

Where do we see this?

Ezra 3:2, 4, 5

“as it is written (v.2)....as prescribed (v.4)…based on the number specified by ordinance (v. 4)…for all the LORD’s appointed holy occasions (v.5)”

The people of God, inspite of fear, took obedient steps based on the Word of God because the knew it

We read and follow the Word of God because we are given these examples of both people faithfully following God and people rejecting God and we see the results.

Especially here in our story, we see that the people of God, when they strayed from the Word of God, they were led into Exile!

Fear does not provide excuse for disobedience, rather it provides opportunity for faithful obedience that God might be glorified in the end

This obedience inspite of fear is a resting your life upon the promises of God as well as His character (namely His sovereignty)

The second thing we see here I think is extremely fitting for this COVID-19 season...

The ideas of...

2. Worship & Buildings

Because what happens here in our text, is that the people of God have returned and been residing in Jerusalem for a number of months and they begin to rebuild and restore

They, however, don’t start with the temple but rather something more simple

They begin first by rebuilding the altar..

And then we see something really important

Ezra 3:6

Ezra 3:6 CSB

On the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the Lord, even though the foundation of the Lord’s temple had not yet been laid.

Even before they had a temple, they began to worship the LORD again through the burnt offerings.

I think this moment is important because I think, at least in this small instance, the Exile taught the people of God an important theological lesson

And its a lesson we see repeated in Acts 17:24-25

Acts 17:24–25 CSB

The God who made the world and everything in it—he is Lord of heaven and earth—does not live in shrines made by hands. Neither is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives everyone life and breath and all things.

I think one of the things this season is pruning out of the American Church is this idea of worship being only restricted to being in a “church building” and only on a Sunday Morning

While yes, trust I understand the necessity of the gathering together of the people of God to hear from Him through the preaching of His Word to sing praises to Him for what He has done...

But what I mean is not that that (what I just said) is wrong, but rather that’s not it

I’m saying we need to take one of the lessons this text as well as this season is showing us - that worship yes is a thing that happens on Sunday when the people of God gather together, but it is also the thing that should be happening every other day of the week through how we live our lives

I think this moment in Ezra (even if it might have later been forgotten) was important to remind the people that before there was a temple of the LORD there was still the worship of Him.

And so too for us, we must understand that the worship of God is not restricted to a physical space because God is not, and has never been restricted to that physical space

We do not minimize the importance of gathering together, but we likewise cannot minimize the importance of the other days of your week being lived out to worship the LORD

Scripturally, I would argue:

The primary instrument in worship is our voices

However, the primary mode of worship is our lives

Therefore, it should be understood that...

Worship is not a place, worship is an attitude at which you walk through life.

We, now, have something so much greater than a physical temple and altar...

See, through repentance and faith in Jesus, we are given the Holy Spirit to dwell within us....making us the temple (as Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

We have something greater than the temporary fixes of the Old Testament sacrificial system

We have Jesus, the perfect sacrifice. Who came and lived the perfect life that we couldn’t, to die the death that we deserved, and rose again to give the new life we could never obtain.

One perfect sacrifice, so that we might now, through the power of the Holy Spirit, that we might live in obedience to God despite of fears…that we might worship the LORD in word and in deed no matter where we are, no matter what the circumstances are...

And that we might invite others in, to know the Jesus, our perfect sacrifice.