Sermon Notes - A Firm Foundation

Brian Carroll

Work in Progress / Ezra 3:8–13

 

Introduction

• Back in 2018, when we first came to CVBC, we were house shopping.

• There was one house, in particular, that we fell in love with.

• It was up on the mountain, just down from Burkhalter Gap Rd.

• It was right on the bluff - had a beautiful deck that gave you this incredible view of the valley.

• We had been to the house a couple of times…but we were getting ready to pull the trigger on an offer.

• We wanted to see it one last time before we did, but this last time, our realtor was running late, so we were just kind of kicking around the outside of the house.

• The house had been empty for a bit, so a lot of leaves and stuff had collected in the driveway, up next to the garage doors.

• While we were waiting, we were just kind of kicking those leaves around and found a fairly significant crack in the driveway.

• Once the realtor got there, we went inside and found that crack went into the garage, and up the foundation wall.

• You could follow that crack throughout the house, and it became clear that the house had a foundation problem.

• We had one of those foundation companies come out and it was going to be a VERY expensive repair to stabilize the house.

• Thankfully we found all that out before we ever got too involved in the purchasing process.

• But it did serve to remind us of how important a good foundation is.

• And we also learned how hard it is to fix a bad foundation once the superstructure of the building is already in place.

• In our text today, our community of exiles gets first hand experience in foundation building.

• But just like a building needs a strong foundation, we recognize how important our spiritual foundations are as well.

Scripture Reading

Ezra 3:7–13 ESV

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.

⁸ Now in the second year after their coming to the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month, Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak made a beginning, together with the rest of their kinsmen, the priests and the Levites and all who had come to Jerusalem from the captivity. They appointed the Levites, from twenty years old and upward, to supervise the work of the house of the Lord.

⁹ And Jeshua with his sons and his brothers, and Kadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah, together supervised the workmen in the house of God, along with the sons of Henadad and the Levites, their sons and brothers.

¹⁰ And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments came forward with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the Lord, according to the directions of David king of Israel.

¹¹ And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the Lord, “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever toward Israel.” And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.

¹² But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy,

¹³ so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away.

Prayer

• Last week, we looked at the first part of chapter 3 and we saw that the leaders of Israel, Jeshua and Zerubbabel, believed that their most important task was to reconstruct the altar.

• This allowed the nation to begin offering sacrifice again.

• By concentrating on the altar, this gave the nation what it needed to be able to focus on maintaining their right standing before God.

• That took place during the seventh month of the Jewish calendar - somewhere around mid September.

• As we read here in the last part of chapter 3, it is time to get started on building the second Temple.

Every great building project has to start with a solid foundation (vv. 8-9)

• We’re told that this work got underway in the second month of their second year.

• On our calendar, we’re talking about April of 537 BC.

• So just to frame this, they take about a year to get ready to lay the foundation.

• That means sourcing the materials, doing all of the engineering, probably getting an environmental impact study taken care of, building permits, inspections, surveys, etc.

• In all actuality - it feels like they’re moving really quickly considering they lack modern construction methods.

• We’re told that they also get all of their project managers in place.

• The Levites are given the primary oversight of the project.

• It says at the end of v. 8 that Levites who were 20 and up got tasked with this responsibility.

• Previously, Levites had to be 25 to serve - but now the age has been reduced to 20, indicating that they’re dealing with a scarcity of Levites.

• And of course, Jeshua and Zerubbabel are involved in the project as well.

• We aren’t told how long it takes to get the foundation in place.

• It is implied that this takes place fairly quickly.

• They get enough of the foundation laid so that the footprint of the building is visible.

• But beyond that, we don’t really know how far they got.

• But then again, the point of this text is really not about the foundation of the temple, it’s what happens next.

• Once the foundation is ready, the people gather for worship.

This is a good reminder that any opportunity is a good opportunity to worship (vv. 10-11)

• Herschel Hobbs tells the following story:

My Favorite Illustrations Worship as Only a Habit

Satan was standing outside a church building one Sunday morning. Inside, the people were singing, praying, and listening to preaching. A passerby asked Satan if that did not bother him. With a demonic, sneering laugh he replied negatively. Then he added, “They get that way on Sunday, but they will be all right on Monday. It’s just a little habit they’ve acquired.”

• Well, it really shouldn’t be a habit - it should be a treasure.

• At the same time, we don’t really need an occasion, but when an occasion presents itself, we should absolutely take it!

• Worship should be something that we do to delight in the great salvation we have experienced.

• It should be something that we do in response to God’s hand at work in our lives and our churches and our community.

• I know many of you watched the Kirk memorial service a couple of weeks ago.

• That funeral began with an amazingly powerful time of worship that lasted for almost two hours.

• Even a funeral can be a time of worship - in fact, I would argue that it SHOULD be a time of worship, especially if it is the funeral for a Christian.

• I’ve noticed in recent years that this happens less and less - especially as funerals have moved away from the church and into the funeral home chapel.

• Instead of worship, we see the funeral being boiled down to a couple of the deceased’s favorite inspirational songs, played over a PA system.

• I would encourage you, as I know a lot of you have some ideas about what you want to happen at your funeral…remember this:

• Your funeral isn’t for you…It is about you…not for you.

• If you want to be a blessing to your family, give them an opportunity to worship their Creator and Savior at your funeral, not listen to Vince Gill or Alan Jackson played over the speakers at the funeral home.

• Here in v. 10, we see a very formal worship time that was clearly planned for the occasion.

• They had all their instruments - trumpets and cymbals are specifically mentioned.

• I can’t imagine what that must have sounded like.

• It certainly had to be loud.

• They were even wearing their vestments. They showed up in uniform!

• It’s also clear that they read their bibles before they showed up for worship.

• The first clue is the end of v. 10 - it says that they sang according to the directions of David, King of Israel.

• They weren’t just making it up, playing what sounded good.

• They wanted their worship to be pleasing to God.

• The best way to guarantee that our worship is pleasing to God is to make sure that it is biblically solid.

• I’m sure we don’t get the full extent of their worship, but we do see this little chorus that is recorded for us in v. 11.

Ezra 3:11 ESV

¹¹ And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the Lord, “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever toward Israel.” And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.

• It says they sang responsively…that means the priests called out a few words and the people replied.

• They probably did this many times over and over again, and at some point the worship leaders stopped and said something like, “Ya’ll should praise to the LORD!”

• And they all shouted.

• That chorus they sang, it was a well known song that has been part of the Jew’s song book for some time.

• In 2 Chronicles 5, they sang this song when the Ark of the Covenant was first brought into the Temple.

• In 1 Chronicles 6, they sang the song when David brought the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem.

• The prophet Jeremiah even cites this song in ch. 33, saying that this will be the song that will be sung when Jerusalem’s fortunes are restored.

• This is a really good reminder to make sure that the songs you sing that are supposed to honor Jesus are actually biblical songs.

• If you hear a song and you’re not sure, look it up.

• And if it isn’t biblical, toss it out. Don’t let it become part of your song book.

• This is a conversation we have all the time as pastors and elders.

• We don’t want to sing songs that aren’t biblically sound.

• Returning to Ezra 3, what takes place next is probably a little unexpected.

There are two responses to the foundation, which raises two concerns for us (vv. 12-13)

• In this crowd, you’ve got a wide demographic of ages.

• There are those who were born in Babylon, so they’re returning to Israel, having never seen it before.

• They’re a new generation of God’s people, honestly experiencing the reality of God’s promises for the first time.

• The prophets have told them this was coming. And it’s here.

• They have the hope of what tomorrow holds.

• It’s as formative for them as the Exodus was for their ancestors.

• Then you’ve got those who were alive at the time of the exile who are returning home.

• This group has a lot of memories of the city. They remember the Temple.

• It had gotten run down and ratchet in their lifetime, but it was still there, even if it was only a shadow of its former glory.

• We’ve got these two groups and as the foundation, the footprint of what will become the second temple, both of these groups have emotional reactions.

• The first group shouted for joy.

• The second group expressed open lament and sorrow.

• Their cries and shouts merged in such a way that it was impossible to tell the difference.

• I think there are two cautions here that we would be wise to pay very close attention to.

First - we need to make sure we don’t miss the reality of what God is doing today because we’re too busy longing for something that no longer exists.

• Their sense of loss had to be unimaginable.

• These people had marched 900 miles to Babylon years ago.

• They’ve marched 900 miles back with nothing more than what they could carry.

• The last time they left, their home was intact.

• That is no longer the case.

• The glory of what they knew reduced to a the equivalent of a concrete slab

• I imagine it would be the equivalent of going back to your neighborhood after a major tornado or storm took everything.

• But just because the physical is gone, it doesn’t mean that the intangible things are gone…

• It is okay to grieve things that are gone.

• God gave us grief in our default programming.

• That isn’t something that we picked up in the Fall.

• What we did pick up in the fall is for our emotions to become controlling.

• And just like anger can get the best of us, we can become mastered by our grief as well.

• The hard dose of truth for this group of exiles is this…

• It’s gone. It’s all gone.

• It’s never going to be the same again.

• It also appears as if they have sanitized their memories…

• The first temple is gone, but so is all of the idolatry and paganism that brought about its destruction.

• It is HIGHLY unlikely that any of these people would have any recollection of the righteous reforms brought about in King Josiah’s day.

• If they were born on the day Josiah died, they would be 71 years old at this point.

• Instead, they’re growing up under the wicked kings that came after Josiah.

• So, yes, the temple is gone - but so is a lot of the awful stuff that was going on in their lives while they were growing up.

• But now, in this moment, God is absolutely doing something new.

• They knew their Bibles enough to know that Cyrus was the king that Isaiah mentioned before they were even born.

• They had just experienced Cyrus doing exactly what was prophesied about him.

• This older generation of exiles were experiencing the same fulfillment of God’s promises as the younger generation, but they didn’t share the same excitement.

• However, they couldn’t see what God was doing because they were stuck on everything that was gone.

• In that way, we can create an idol out of the past.

• We miss God’s hand because we’re looking back to what we deem to have been better times.

• And frequently, those better times are only better because we’ve scrubbed our memories of all the less-than-flattering details about the past.

• We can’t see the blessing that is sitting right in front of us because of this desire to re-create that which cannot be re-created.

• If we’re not careful, we can have a tendency to do that in church as well.

• We have these fond memories of what church used to be like.

• And we all have a golden era that we harken back to.

• For some it was when we sang out of a book instead of from a screen.

• Or it was when the music sounded a certain way

• For others it was when the preacher preached a certain way or dressed a certain way.

• Maybe it was when everybody used a particular translation of the bible.

• Maybe it was when certain people were still around, or still alive.

• There’s absolutely nothing wrong with missing those things that have lapsed into history.

• The problem comes in when we can’t look forward to God’s next move because we so desperately want him to recreate his last one.

• I was talking to an older pastor this week about this very subject and he said that we have a tendency to fetishize the past.

• When we do that, it causes us to have the perspective that anything that isn’t like it used to be is somehow less-than.

• And instead of ecstatic supporters of God’s work in our current moment, we end up becoming curmudgeonly museum curators doing everything we can to preserve that which is no longer useful in the present moment.

• You might have heard the saying that history repeats itself

• That may be true in some ways.

• But my bible tells me that history is progressing toward a clear end, it certainly isn’t moving in retrograde.

• The prophet Haggai spoke directly this group of people and challenged them thusly:

Haggai 2:3–9 ESV

³ ‘Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes?

⁴ Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts,

⁵ according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not.

⁶ For thus says the Lord of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land.

⁷ And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts.

⁸ The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts.

⁹ The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts.’ ”

• Even the prophet Haggai is calling the people to look beyond today and consider where God is leading tomorrow.

• Because God is winding down this story and at some point, he is going to make all things new and everything in that day will be far superior to anything we could ever imagine.

Second - we need to make sure we don’t ignore important lessons from our past because we’re too focused on things that haven’t yet happened.

• In the same way an older generation might be tempted to venerate the past, a younger generation needs to be wary of demonizing the past.

• As pastors and elders, we frequently talk about the differences between generations (especially since this is very much an inter-generational church).

• The older generations tend to want to hold onto everything.

• The younger generations typically want to burn everything down to the ground.

• Both of these perspectives are errant.

• It is a foolish thing to ignore where you came from.

• The prophet Isaiah cautioned his generation of the same thing.

Isaiah 51:1–2 ESV

¹ “Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the Lord: look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.

² Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for he was but one when I called him, that I might bless him and multiply him.

• Abraham and Sarah were long gone by Isaiah’s time, but he still reminded the people to look to those who came before them to understand something of their current situation.

• But God is doing a new thing…that’s where we need to invest our resources.

• While you’re not wrong in asserting that, you do have to remember that God’s actions are never inconsistent with his revealed character and nature.

• He may be doing a new thing, but it’s coming from a very old place.

• And the better we understand our past, the better we can understand what is taking place right now and in the time to come.

• There has been a lot of talk in Christian circles about whether or not we are experiencing revival in the church today.

• There have certainly been indicators.

• But the way we understand that is to look back to see how previous awakenings and revivals have unfolded.

• Not because we want to see them re-created, but because they give us insight into what is happening today.

• So allow me to distill this into practical application…

• We need one another to move forward.

• We need the wisdom of those who have walked with Christ for decades.

• We need the enthusiasm of those who have only recently tasted the joy of the LORD’s salvation.

• At the same time we need the best of one another.

• We need those of you who have served Christ for decades to do everything they can to pour gasoline on the Holy Spirit fire that is burning in this younger generation.

• And we need those younger generations to greedily consume all of the knowledge and experience that they can from those who have gone on before them.

• And instead of it being old vs. young, it should only and ever be light vs. darkness.

Invitation

• One of the greatest loses in history took place when the Library of Alexandria burned in 48 BC.

• With its destruction, many historical records from the ancient world were lost.

• Some might say that all those ancient works were irrelevant to us today, but history is never irrelevant.

• The past is always teaching, always instructing, always warning.

• The past is always calling on us to learn, but it is never beckoning us to linger there - because the reality is that we cannot linger there.

• History is always moving foward.

• And God is working today to bring his plans for tomorrow to bear.

• As God’s people, we need to be present for God’s business in the world today.

• Learning from yesterday, holding out hope for tomorrow, that we might make the greatest difference in our world TODAY.

• As Christians, we can fall into many traps in this.

• We can get stuck in the past, wishing for a revival of that which is forever gone.

• We can get stuck in the future, being so heavenly minded that we’re no earthly good.

• Or we can develop tunnel vision and only look at what is right in front of our face.

• But since God is a God who was, who is, and who is to come, then we must have our perspective shaped by the past and informed by what we know for the future, so that we can honor the LORD with every present moment of our lives.