Sermon Notes - At the Altar

Pastor Brian Carroll

Work in Progress / Ezra 3:1–7

The altar is one of the most significant places in the Old Testament, as it was the place where sacrifices were offered. The first thing the returning exiles did when they began rebuilding Jerusalem was to construct the altar. This text serves as a powerful reminder that renewal doesn’t begin with buildings and structures; it begins with worship.

 

Introduction - Misplaced Priorities

• Marie Murphy’s “Rescue”

• When fifth grade teacher teacher Marie Murphy got a call telling her that her house was on fire, she promptly dropped everything and rushed to the scene.

• She wasn't scared for anyone's life, because she knew that her husband and her mother, who had been staying with them, were both safely outside the blaze.

• Instead, Murphy was determined to save her most prized possessions -- and no inferno was going to stand in her way.

• What was so important that Murphy would literally risk burning to death to salvage? Baseball tickets. More specifically, her season tickets to the Phillies.

• Heroically ignoring every single one of her other possessions Murphy reached her baseball tickets and made it out in time to see everything else that she owned swallowed by the fire.

• Although Murphy and her husband were forced to live in a motel for some time after the blaze, they were at least able to settle everything with their insurance company.

• And Murphy was even surprised at her school by the Phillies Fanatic who tossed a bunch of Phillies merchandise at her, including a framed World Series Ticket.

• It was probably around this time that Murphy fully realized how ridiculous her rescue mission had been, because she was told that the Phillies would have gladly reprinted her tickets had they burned in the fire.

• Guita Silverstein’s Hot Car

• In 2006, Guita Silverstein made the incredible decision to leave her two-year-old son in her car on a hot summer day while she did some shopping.

• When she returned, she was horrified to discover that she had locked herself out of the car and couldn't get in. With the temperature at 88 degrees, her child was at serious risk of heat stroke.

• When the firefighters arrived, they informed Silverstein that in order to get her son out quickly, they would need to break one of the car windows.

• Silverstein, understanding the urgency and severity of the situation, heroically said no.

• Silverstein didn't want firefighters to damage her 1999 Audi, but she understood that her son needed to get out of the car, so she came up with a compromise: drive over a mile to her home to get her spare set of keys. Keep in mind that her son had been in the hot car for 15 to 20 minutes at this point.

• After she borrowed a car to drive home, the firefighters ignored her wishes and broke the window anyway. The two-year-old boy was initially unresponsive, but thankfully recovered fully.

• When Silverstein returned, she was placed under arrest for reckless endangerment and risk of injury to a minor.

• Silverstein claimed that the reason she didn't want the window broken was that she was worried that the glass would hurt her son. You know, because she just then at that exact moment started worrying about his safety.

• She would later file suit against the city for defamation.

• Obviously, these are extreme examples - but the news is filled with stories of people who just get life all wrong.

• They place too much importance on less important things.

• And the greatest things, they don’t pay nearly enough attention to.

• While our mixed up priorities may not result in risking life and limb, we can still get our priorities out of line as well.

• Our journey through Ezra takes us to an important story in the first few verses of chapter 3.

• The Israelites have been sent to rebuild the Temple, eventually the walls of Jerusalem.

• However, before they tackle the tasks for which they were released from exile, they take the time to complete a project that, at first glance, seems to be rather low on the punch list of monumental tasks.

• Are we witnessing another case of mixed up priorities…or is there something more significant going on here than meets the eye?

• Let’s turn our attention to Ezra 3 - we’ll take a look at the first seven verses or so.

Scripture Reading

Ezra 3:1–7 ESV

¹ When the seventh month came, and the children of Israel were in the towns, the people gathered as one man to Jerusalem.

² Then arose Jeshua the son of Jozadak, with his fellow priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel with his kinsmen, and they built the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the Law of Moses the man of God.

³ They set the altar in its place, for fear was on them because of the peoples of the lands, and they offered burnt offerings on it to the Lord, burnt offerings morning and evening.

⁴ And they kept the Feast of Booths, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number according to the rule, as each day required,

⁵ and after that the regular burnt offerings, the offerings at the new moon and at all the appointed feasts of the Lord, and the offerings of everyone who made a freewill offering to the Lord.

⁶ From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the Lord. But the foundation of the temple of the Lord was not yet laid.

⁷ So they gave money to the masons and the carpenters, and food, drink, and oil to the Sidonians and the Tyrians to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea, to Joppa, according to the grant that they had from Cyrus king of Persia.

Prayer

• Last week, we took a high-level overview of the census data in chapter 2.

• We know that about 50,000 people have made the journey from Babylon to Jerusalem.

• The 900-mile journey would have followed the rivers and trade routes, taking them about 4 months to make the journey.

• When they finally made it to Jerusalem, they encountered a city in ruin.

• No temple, no place of worship, no walls for protection.

• And it wasn’t a matter of just putting the buildings back together - much of the materials used in the original construction would have likely been pillaged and repurposed.

• Verse 7 even tells us that they had to order new parts from Lebanon.

• All that to say - it’s a mess.

• When you’ve got a mess to clean up, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with the problem of “what do you clean up first?”

• Several years ago, our oldest son had friend sleep over.

• This friend had a habit of sleepwalking, so we thought it was a good idea to put him on the top bunk.

• He decided that he needed to get out of the bed in the middle of the night, and when he did, he split his head open on the ceiling fan.

• He’s still sleepwalking - but now he’s bleeding profusely while sleepwalking.

• In the middle of the night, we were awakened and I just remember seeing blood everywhere

• My son’s bedroom, the hallway, and the bathroom looked like an absolute murder scene.

• I couldn’t even comprehend where to start…it was such a big mess.

• Thankfully my wife was in a better state of mind than I was at that moment. Don’t expect much higher cognition from me in the middle of the night

• How do you put Jerusalem back together again?

• We start to meet some of the main characters in our story.

• Jeshua, one of the priests, helps to bring clarity about what they need to do.

• Zerubbabel was appointed governor of the province. He helped lead the effort to start the recovery work.

• What do they rebuild first?

• Do they tackle the walls to ensure safety of those who were doing the work?

• Do they immediately get to work on the Temple?

• This project is so big that they’ve got to get their priorities in order.

• Their first priority, in the middle of all these messes, is to build the altar.

• In Solomon’s Temple, the altar was made out of bronze.

• It measured about 30’ x 30’

• We don’t get many details about this altar…but this does lead to a couple of important questions…

• The first question, what do we mean when we talk about the altar?

• In the Old Testament, altars appeared in lots of different places.

• Of course you had the altar at the Tabernacle, and later the Temple, where all of the animal sacrifices took place.

• You can go back and read Leviticus and see all of the ways blood was to be applied to the altar, and how various sacrifices were prepared to sacrifice at the altar.

• The altar was a place of ash and fire and sacrifice.

• Every day, the priest would have to clean up the mess.

Leviticus 6:10 ESV

¹⁰ And the priest shall put on his linen garment and put his linen undergarment on his body, and he shall take up the ashes to which the fire has reduced the burnt offering on the altar and put them beside the altar.

• But that’s not the only kind of altar that you see.

• Sometimes, altars were built to commemorate a significant event in redemption history.

• When Noah came off the ark, one of the first things he did was build an altar and offer sacrifices.

• When Abram first came to the Promised Land, he built an altar.

• Sometimes altars would be built after decisive military victories, like in Exodus 17 when they Israelites defeated the Amelekites.

• In Joshua 8, Joshua built an altar to renew God’s covenant with the people.

• In Joshua 22, the tribes who settled east of the Jordan river built an altar as a witness, to remind those who settled on the western side that they were all one nation.

• It was at an altar that Elijah had the showdown with the false prophets of Ba’al.

• Altars could be built for any god.

• It wasn’t just the God of Israel who got altars.

• One of Israel’s biggest downfalls was in the fact that they were quick to build altars to idols.

• Turns out you can sacrifice yourself to lesser things and you can also build inferior altars.

• The second question that must be asked is this?

• What do we do with altars in a world where the bloody animal sacrifice no longer has a place

• The altar has been adopted into the church to describe this area.

• That comes from the fact that we share the Lord’s Supper from this space.

• The body and blood represented by the elements in communion remind us of the sacrifice by our Lord.

• Roman Catholics believe that the bread and the wine of communion have the real presence of Christ within them.

• You’re literally drinking his blood and eating his flesh.

• So when the priest breaks the bread, in a sense, he is offering Jesus sacrifice all over again - so the altar is literally a place of sacrifice. Every time the Catholics celebrate mass, Jesus is sacrificed all over again.

• Even though we reject Catholic teaching regarding the real presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, we still see the altar as a place of sacrifice and commitment.

• When a couple gets married, they traditionally do it at the altar because they’re making a commitment to God and to one another.

• The preaching of the word brings about conviction or clarity and we respond by praying at the altar.

• We talk about laying things down at the altar

• Sometimes there are things we need to lay down.

• Burdens, sins, challenges, worries - we want to give those things up to the LORD.

• It’s not that there’s anything architecturally different about what we call the altar.

• And we know that we can make sacrifice and commitment just about anywhere.

• But we also recognize that the bible values sacred space, so we see the altar as that space.

• Going back to Ezra 3, we look at this and we think that they should be working on some of the heavier matters of the rebuild.

• Why build the altar first?

• Why would we start here, of all places.

• We’ve got enemies - we need to get our wall in place.

• We remember the glory of the last temple - we’ve got to get that finished.

• But that isn’t what they do - under the wise leadership of Jeshua and Zerubabbel, they recognize that rebuilding the altar IS their greatest priority.

• Why did the altar take such precedence?

Fear has no place at the altar (v. 3)

• One of the themes of Ezra and Nehemiah is that of opposition.

• There were a lot of people who weren’t at all excited about this city coming back to life.

• You’ve got a lot of enemies rooting against you - it’s easy to understand why the people were afraid.

• And it says here that the people are afraid.

• Where do you go when you’re afraid?

• A child might go to his parents.

• As adults, we might have a close friend that we talk with about our fears.

• But these returning exiles remind us that the best place to go when we’re afraid is to the altar.

• The command issued the most in the scriptures is to “fear not.”

• (If you’ve seen it floating around the internet that the bible says to “fear not” 365 times - one time for each day - please don’t share it, it isn’t true)

• It’s in the bible a lot - but not 365 times.

• The point is that a right relationship with God is the greatest answer to our fear.

• That’s what Jeshua and Zerubabbel recognize here.

• All the greatest building projects in the world aren’t going to matter if these people are living in fear

• When we live in fear, one thing is clear - we’re not experiencing the best Christ has to offer.

• We’re not not nurturing our relationship with God.

1 John 4:18 ESV

¹⁸ There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

• Fear doesn’t have to be rational, it doesn’t even have to have a real enemy.

• But fear is a common experience that we go through as human creatures.

• If you’re living in fear today, then Ezra 3 reminds us here that you’ve got some work to do at the altar.

• It doesn’t mean you have to be at this altar.

• But it does mean that you need to spend some time at a place of sacrifice and commitment.

• You need to spend some time where you do business with your Savior.

• A second reason the altar took precedence is this:

The altar established the pattern of nurture (vv. 3-5)

• Though Ezra doesn’t get into the specifics of all of the different offerings that were being made, it says very clearly that once the altar fire was lit, there was a very clear pattern in place.

• Daily burnt offerings - morning and evening.

• Regular festivals and observations…here the first festival that they celebrated was the Feast of Booths or Tabernacles.

• The details for how they were to observe that feast are found in Leviticus 23.

• They basically built temporary structures and lived in them for a week while they made regular offerings at the altar.

• It was intended to commemorate the Exodus.

• These festivals and feasts were times when the volume of sacrifice was so great, that more priests had to be on duty to oversee it.

• In fact, some Jewish literature said that all 24 divisions of the priests would have to be on duty together during these feasts just to manage the volume of sacrifice.

• You don’t get any of this without the altar.

• But with the altar, you have this regular pattern that is established and this pattern was literally the lifeblood of their right relationship with God.

• We don’t need sacrifice any more to maintain our right standing before God.

• The bible is clear that Jesus’ sacrifice is sufficient once and for all to deal with our sin and place us in right standing.

• However we DO need to maintain regular and consistent patterns in our life to nurture that relationship.

• If your devotional life is scattershot…if your prayer life is sporadic, then don’t be surprised if you’re struggling in your relationship with God.

• Don’t be surprised if you’re wrestling with besetting sin.

• We need our time at the altar.

• And in this case, I’m not talking about this space at the front of the church.

• You need that personal or family altar where you engage in those habits that nurture your relationship with God.

• You need that altar where you can consume the Word of God.

• You need that altar where you can commune with God in prayer.

• We need that place of sacrifice and commitment.

• When Moses was given the instructions for the first altar, he was told:

Leviticus 6:12–13 ESV

¹² The fire on the altar shall be kept burning on it; it shall not go out. The priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and he shall arrange the burnt offering on it and shall burn on it the fat of the peace offerings.

¹³ Fire shall be kept burning on the altar continually; it shall not go out.

• Obviously, the Israelites failed at this - for at least 70 years, the altar fire had been extinguished.

• But with the actions in Ezra 3, the fire was rekindled.

• Though we don’t have a physical, burning altar.

• I do think that we need to take to heart this message that our altars need to continually burn.

• If you’ve ever tried to maintain a campfire, you know that is a job that doesn’t do itself.

• You’ve got to maintain it and nurture it.

• You’ve got to fuel it.

• The altar in Israel was a massive fire that need constant tending.

• Nehemiah 10:34 even says that there were families who gave “wood offerings” with the purpose of keeping the altar burning.

• But it was what they did to maintain their relationship with God.

• The principle is still true for us today.

• We’ve got to constantly tend the fire of our altars and feed them the fuel they need to burn.

• When we let that fire grow dim, don’t be surprised to see your walk with Christ suffer as well.

Finally, a healthy pattern at the altar prepares us for service to the LORD. (vv. 6-7)

• In Ezra, once the altar is built and the pattern is established, they’re able to start taking a better look at their situation.

• They had rhythm and routine at the altar.

• That which they are afraid of is no longer as intimidating because they are, at this moment, walking in the right direction with God.

• Now they’re in a better place to surveil their surroundings.

• What did they notice - they needed a foundation on which to build the Temple.

• They need lumber to build the Temple.

• They’re going to need to pay for all of this stuff.

• A good project manager would have easily noticed these things too.

• But Israel wasn’t freed from exile to build buildings and restore cities. They didn’t first need project managers, they needed faithful leaders who understood the need to rebuild the people.

• Israel was freed from exile to build the nation back.

• And the nation of Israel was more than just a Temple and a city.

• It was a people who were to shine the light of God’s holiness to the nations.

• Before you can build buildings, you have to build people

• The altar was the essential first step in building people.

• You’re not building buildings or cities - but you are a people called to shine the light of the Gospel to a lost and dying world.

• You are a people called to build strong, healthy churches that function as embassies for the Kingdom of God.

• You are a people called to build strong, godly families and raise godly children.

• You’re going to fail at those things if you’re not doing your work at the altar.

• That doesn’t mean that you’re kneeling at these benches every Sunday. There’s nothing wrong with doing so (unless doing so becomes an idol rather than an act of worship).

• That does mean that you’re doing what is necessary in your life to establish the pattern of devotion and sacrifice that the altar established for the people of God in the Old Testament.

Invitation - We are still a people of sacrifice

• We thank God that Jesus’ sacrifice brought to a close the ceaseless line of animals being brought to the altar.

• But we’re not off the hook for sacrifice.

• But that doesn’t mean you need to start looking for bulls and goats.

• The New Testament reminds us that there is still sacrifice that is demanded from us.

• Listen to Paul’s words in Romans 12

Romans 12:1 ESV

¹ I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

• Instead of bulls and rams, the sacrifice we offer today is the sacrifice of self. But no longer dead, instead our sacrifice is to be living.

• In the same way Israelites were not supposed to bring blemished offerings - no lame or blind animals were allowed to be sacrificed.

• As living sacrifices, we should offer the best of us, not that which is leftover.

• We offer the best of our time, energy, talents, and possessions.

• Not the dregs left at the bottom of the bowl.

• Sadly, many today approach their commitment to Christ with a mindset of leftovers, not the mindset of firstfruits.

• I’ll give of my time if I don’t have anything else to do.

• I’ll give of my resources once all of the other bills are paid.

• I’ll give whatever is left in my tank once I’ve exhausted it doing all of the other things.

•  As I close this morning, I would just challenge you to look at your altar, and consider yourself as that living sacrifice.

• Is the living sacrifice you offer the best of you, or is it simply what’s left of you?

• If all you have to give is what’s left, then it really isn’t a sacrifice, at all.

• Paul said that our living sacrifice is holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

• When we give the best of ourselves, then God delights in that offering. It is acceptable to him.

• It is worshipful to us.

• With a living sacrifice, our altar isn’t a physical space, but rather is our heart.

• And that is the altar that you need to tend every day of your life.