What if God wanted to do a “New Thing?” What if that “New Thing” was to restore a nation? What if God “stirred the hearts” of “His people?” What if one of those people whose hearts were “stirred” was yours? How would we know if it was our idea or God’s?
Sunday we are going to visit one of those events when God steps in and “re-awakened” not only the hearts of His people but “awakened” the hearts of pagan rulers. That hope is not a dream; it happened and the time is called “The Restoration of the Nation of Israel.” It is recorded in the Scriptures.
These are stories of our Fathers; they are our stories. What God did once He can and will do again. In these awakenings we learn what it means to know God. As the Proverbs proclaim “Keep these words in your heart… when you walk they will lead you… when you sleep they will keep you… when you wake up they will advise you… they are a lamp…a light… the way of life!
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Buddy Hoffman
Series: One Story: Digging Deeper
February 24, 2013
Return: Restoring Worship?
Isaiah 40:1-6; Isaiah 44:24-28; Ezra 1:1
If you have a Bible with you, open it up to Isaiah 40. It is our heart at Grace that you really not just hear the Bible taught, not only you’re in the Word, but that the Word is in you. This particular little folder, we make no money on. As a matter of fact, I think we lose a dollar. It has a One Story that goes along with it. If you will look at that story, there are 12 episodes, there are 12 symbols, there are 12 colors. It’s the narrative sections of Scripture.
We went through this once. Now we’re going to do this in a deeper way. We may come back and preach some series out of those whole things. Does anybody remember what episode we were in last week? Oh yes! Who said that? I would give you something if I had it. Exile! We were in Exile. Exile is where God allows you to go physically where you already are spiritually.
It’s not like God says, “Okay, I’ve had it with you.” Boom! It’s like the children of Israel had just turned their backs on God. First Kings, Second Kings, which was originally one book, is basically a book written answering this question…Is God fair? Because he allowed these things to happen. But it shows the corruption of the people who called themselves people of his name.
I used to read the Bible, and some of the things just bothered me terribly, because it was like Elijah goes in and he cuts the heads off of 400 prophets of Baal. That’s bad. I don’t know about you, but if I knew a preacher who cut the heads off of 400 Presbyterians because he was Baptist, I’d be going, “You may think you’re right, but that’s not right. That’s not right.”
You need to understand, when you read the Bible, it’s not like denominational rivalries here. These prophets of Baal… By the way, we had a baby born this week. Yeah. He was so big, he wasn’t a baby; he was a toddler. You saw my Facebook posting. They couldn’t even get his footprint on the footprint thing. I mean, the kid… I tried to get them to name him Goliath.
I was up there, and Joy said, “Do you want to hold this baby?” I said, “Yes.” I’m holding this baby, and he’s making these cute, little sounds. They have that soft little skin. Now I’m going to take you somewhere you’re not going to like, okay? What was going on here is the prophets of Baal… It was a fertility cult, and literally, they would take the babies they prized the most, and they would lift them up on an altar.
It had a slide with all kinds of cuts and all kinds of razor blades, bronzed sharp instruments, and as they would slide down this chute, it would slice them open, and they would land on a bronze pan that was heated by fire, and the smoke of these babies’ offerings would go up. They would praise god, and they would have sex of all sorts all around the throne. This is a pagan, perverse, unimaginable death cult. Do you understand what I’m saying? They deserved death. They really deserved death.
You see this over and over and over again. There come times in the history of Israel where they actually start doing this in the temple itself. Now can you imagine that? I know this is not like PG-13 Sunday morning Sunday school stuff, but I feel guilty when I edit the Bible. I didn’t write the Bible. It’s my job to teach the Bible.
I know some of you are sitting there, going, “Honey, put your fingers in your ears. The pastor is going someplace we don’t want to think.” But that is what is in the Scriptures. That’s what was going on. That’s what Kings is about. Then Chronicles is about…Is God faithful? Because this is the insane thing.
Listen carefully to what I’m about to say. Even though Israel became as perverse as the Canaanites, God still loved them. Let that sink in just for a minute. God still loved them. God still loved them. God still pursued them. God’s heart broke for them. Over and over again, you read in the Prophets, “How can I let you go? You are my people.”
Now any of you who have children who have done things that really they have gone astray from what your heart would be, and maybe done some things they’re ashamed of and you’re ashamed of, and you have a heart of a parent, you understand that even though your child can do things you don’t agree with, your heart still loves them. The whole time they’re in the mess they’re in, you’re praying and saying, “God, how can you use me as an instrument of love to bring them back to the heart of the Father?”
I’m just going to say this to you. It’s incredibly important that the church, because we are the body of Christ, we have to speak truth, but we should always speak it in love. The church should never be allowed to be perceived as a people who hate people. Listen. If you hate people, you do not have the heart of God. You don’t. God so loved all the Americans. God so loved all the American Protestants. God so loved all the American Catholics. God so loved all the Reformed Theology people. Huh?
I don’t want to get into any arguments with any of you Reformed people. I was at a meeting one time, and I love him, Sproul. He’s a great theologian, amazing teacher. I was sitting at a table. He comes over. It was a dinner for those who were speaking. We were sitting there, and he looks over at me. He says, “Are you Reformed?” I mean, he didn’t even ask me if I liked my chicken!
I said, “Mostly.” By the way, Mike is Reformed. I just want you to know Mike Williams is Reformed. He said, “Let me guess. I know what part you have the problem with. You have a problem with the part of limited atonement.” I said, “No, I have a problem with the Bible, because it says in 1 John 2:2, ‘And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.'” (1 John 2:2)
He goes, “You just don’t understand what the Bible means when it says world.” I said, “I think I do.” So, I’m not going to argue about that! Here’s the reality. God loves us! He proves it over and over again. Now then, here’s where we are this week. We were in exile, and God says, “Okay, that period of time of exile, I am going to call you home.” He does it in this absolutely amazing divine fashion that is only fitting for God. He does it in this amazing way.
Now then, here’s what I want to do. We’re not going to cover it all this week, but there are two sides to your handout sheet. One of them is an outline, and I’m going to come in and I’m going to cover some of this, but some of this, you’re going to have to do some homework and do some thinking over.
The other side of the sheet is a graph. I know that for some of you, if I was preaching at Midtown today, all the engineers would be going, “Oh, got a graph. This is good.” I would be getting emails like Thursday, “You’re off two years over here.” This is a graph. For some of you, your eyes glaze over. You go, “A graph? What is that?” I’m going to explain it to you, because this is a map.
This is going to tell you how you put the pieces of the puzzle of this period of time together. It’s a little over 100 years. It’s the return. It’s not the end of the story. There are about 500 years from the return all the way to the time of Jesus. That’s an approximate statement.
If you look at this graph though, this main black line, that is the periods of time. Some of you are going, “Wait a minute. It goes from 540 to 420.” Okay, in BC, Before Christ, it goes down. It counts down. It counts down. After Christ, it counts up. Do you have that? What happens before Christ? It counts down. So like if you’re looking back, it’s like counting up, but if you’re looking forward, it’s counting up. If you’re standing at Jesus, it’s counting back down. What you find is that black line there.
On those kind of gray sheets, if you look at the front of this, there are six books involved in this particular episode. It’s the Return. The symbol is a brick. Now the reason we chose a brick is because they’re going to be building. They’re going to be building the city. They’re going to be building the temple. They’re going to be building the walls. This is a building period of time. It’s not going to happen just overnight. It’s going to take a long period of time for this to happen.
This is incredibly important for us all to understand that the actions of one generation impact the next generation. The choices of this generation impact the choices not only of your children, but of your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren. Every generation has the responsibility to not only reach the next generation but disciple the next generation, and not only the next generation, but the grandchildren.
So you have six books. You have Ezra, Nehemiah. What is Nehemiah known for? Building the wall. Now then, if you read this just kind of in the order you find in the canon of the Scripture, there’s Ezra. He comes first. He’s 15 in order. Nehemiah is 16 in order. Esther is 17 in order. Now this is really important, because I don’t know that we’re going to even have time to get into Esther, but Esther does not live in Jerusalem, does not live in Babylon. She lives in Persia, and God uses Esther to set the scene in Persia, the world power, for everything else.
God uses her way over (let’s use the terminology we know) in Iran. Let me ask you, if you can even register this as a possibility. Suppose Tehran, the Supreme Commander, Ahmadinejad, came out tomorrow and said, “We think the Jews have been mistreated, and we have decided we’re going to sign a peace treaty with them. Not only we’re going to sign a peace treaty with them, but we have lots of oil, and they don’t have any. We’re going to build a pipeline from Iran to Israel so they don’t have to worry about it.
They have water problems over them, and we have lots of water over here. We’re going to send water and oil to Palestine and to Israel to make sure everybody is okay over there, and they have to quit fighting about stuff.” Now what would you say? Not a chance! No. Listen. I’ve been to Iran. I’ve been to Tehran. I’ve been to Qom. I’ve sat down with these leaders. Their favorite people are not Jews. By the way, they’re Persian, and they don’t like Arabs either, but that’s just beside the point.
So you have Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, which is a jewel in there. Then there are really three prophets here, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. If you just read those books, you’re going to get a little bit lost in the timeline, which if you turn this over, I’m going to show you what the timeline is. Some of you are going, “I came to church to be encouraged, and now Buddy is taking me through a dadgum timeline.”
Here’s what the book of Proverbs says about God’s Word. He says, “If you listen to God’s Word, if you saturate yourself in the Word of God, if you listen to the stories of the fathers, when you go they’ll lead you, when you sleep they’ll keep you, when you awake they’ll advise you.” Do you hear that? When you go they’ll lead you. They’ll show you what you should do. These stories, if you get them in your mind, the Holy Spirit will pull these stories up.
I know this because when I broke my leg a few months ago, I was lying out there on the sidewalk, and my tibia was jammed up through my knee, and I knew I had messed that thing up so badly. But I am a Southerner, and do you know what a Southerner’s default is? If you don’t acknowledge it, it doesn’t exist. How many of you are Southerners and believe that’s true? You can have a crazy Aunt Ethel, but she’s just eccentric. Never mind she dresses up and walks outside. She’s just eccentric.
Now I’m lying there. I know I’ve shattered my leg, and I’m thinking, “Oh maybe I just twisted it. Maybe it just snapped because it likes to snap.” But do you know what? My mind went immediately to the story of Asa. Isn’t that interesting? He’s a king. At the end of Asa’s life, he didn’t call on God. He just went to the doctors. There’s nothing wrong with going to the doctors because I went to the doctors, but I didn’t want just what the doctors could do. I wanted what God could do.
Does anybody want what God can do? Yeah! You think as a church we’d like what God can do? Not just what we can do. Not the best we can imagine, but the best God can imagine. So these stories, I’m just telling you right now, they’re hidden treasures, and some of you don’t know them. It’s our job…
Listen. I’ve raised three kids. I have eight grandkids. Do you know what you do? Does anybody try to feed kids? They decide they don’t want to eat, so you turn into an airplane. “Here comes an airplane! Open wide. Airplane has to land, because you need this food.”
Here’s the way you can be. You can just say, “Ah, I just want the milk. Just give me the milk!” Some of you are actually out there going, “I think I’m ready for a T-bone.” Now this is T-bone. This is where you can get into this yourself. If you look at that other side, here’s what you find. In 538 (do you see that first line?), that’s Ezra 1-6.
Now this is what you need to know about Ezra 1-6: Ezra is not in there. He just wrote it, okay? He writes it and he records it, but he’s not in there. Most scholars think that Ezra (he’s a scribe) also wrote the Chronicles. But this is Ezra, and the key characters in that first episode (do you see number 2?)…
First…Who was Cyrus? Secondly…Who were Zerubbabel, Joshua, Haggai and Zechariah? Those are the key players in the first wave of return. I’m going to come back and look at this, but here’s what you find. There is what that is. The first wave of return is about right worship. Some of you were here last week. You heard us talk about exile. What do you do when you’re coming out of exile? What do you do? You’re coming home. How do you know what to do?
What is number one in regard to coming home and getting your life oriented properly is getting your heart oriented properly. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind. This is Deuteronomy. What kind of theology should we embrace? Here’s the theology. Love the Lord your God with your heart and your soul and your mind. The first question we ought to ask ourselves every single morning is…God, how can I love you well today?
Let me ask you something. What kind of church do you think we would be if every husband measured the success of his day based on whether he loved his wife well? What kind of church do you think we would be if every wife in this church measured their day, calibrated their day, with, “Did I love my husband well today? Did I love my children well today?” Do you know where that starts? Loving God. Loving God passionately.
If you don’t have that one nailed down, then you can get all the church activities nailed down, and it becomes really pretty useless. It becomes a burden. It becomes bill paying. It becomes legalism that just eats out the very nature of who you are. Loving God. That’s worship. This Ezra 1-6 is about, “Okay, we’re going to let you go home.” What do you do first? What you do first is you get worship right.
Now then, here in Haggai and Zechariah, do you see those dotted numbers there, or that dotted line? It’s because his prophecies move all the way over. They have impact all the way over to the return of Jesus. Look across that line. You have Esther. Esther sets the stage for the return of Ezra and Nehemiah. Ezra lands in this city about 12 years before Nehemiah lands in the city. Ezra is the spiritual leader of the city. Jeremiah is the spiritual leader of the city. Then you have Malachi, which is the last prophet, and it applies to the third return.
The second return is about the Word. We’ll look at that with Ezra, that he came back and he looked at what they had done and what they hadn’t done, and he preaches the Scriptures. We’ll talk about that. Nehemiah comes back as governor, appointed by the king of Persia, and he says, “We need walls.”
Let me just give you an insight in when you’re reading Nehemiah why walls matter. This is important. Why should a city have walls? There’s one obvious reason. Protection! In those days, it wasn’t like… Nobody goes to bed at night and thinks, “I wonder if Norcross is going to come over and take us over. Have you thought about Norcross? Man, they’re dangerous up there in Norcross. They could come…”
“Have you seen that massive mall they’ve built up in Duluth? Man, they’re colonists. They may want to come over and take over the Avenue.” Nobody goes to sleep at night thinking that way. We don’t have to build these walls around our city. But all of our cities that are really cities have something, and do you know what they’re called? What defines a city? City limits!
You are entering Snellville, the most disorganized city in America. If you’re here on the council, I’ve already told you that, and you know I believe it. I think we ought to raise up a whole other group of council members to run Snellville. They don’t even have to be graduates from high school. I don’t care who’s mad about it. I really don’t. I’m just fed up with it. I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t really care. I’ll say it again.
All over America… They can’t really hurt us. We’re not in the city limits. All over the State of Georgia, city councils sit around, and when they don’t know what to do, they look at themselves and say, “What would Snellville do?” and they do the opposite! Yeah, I know we have people who sit around and work for the City of Snellville. God bless you. We pray for you. The book you should read is Nehemiah.
Ah, this is going to come back to haunt me, I know. I’m probably going to get three tickets in Snellville this week. Why do I do that? I think this is going to have to be edited. Could I get you all not to tell anybody I said this? Have you ever said something and you go, “I shouldn’t have said that”? Hey, let’s keep that between me and you. Let’s not let that one out.
Here is why walls matter. I’m in trouble already. Here’s why walls matter. Without walls, you aren’t a city. You don’t have identity. The walls are what define your citizenship. It’s who you are. Your walls define your citizenship. Your boundaries. We are United States citizens. Do you know why? Because we have citizenship here.
Now this is important. I don’t have time to get into it, but who defines you? Do you let the world define you or do you let God define you? Do you let the world tell you who you are or do you let God tell you who you are? This is really, really, really important. Okay, I’m going to take you through this.
1. Who was Cyrus? If you have your Bible, open it up to Isaiah 40. Some almost 200 years before this period of time, God spoke into the prophet Isaiah, and he says in chapter 40, “‘Comfort, comfort my people,’ says your God. ‘Speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Tell her that her sad days are gone and her sins are pardoned. Yes, the LORD has punished her twice over for all her sins.’
Listen! It’s the voice of someone shouting, ‘Clear the way through the wilderness for the LORD! Make a straight highway through the wasteland for our God! Fill in the valleys, and level the mountains and hills. Straighten the curves, and smooth out the rough places. Then the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all people will see it together. The LORD has spoken!’ A voice said, ‘Shout!’ I asked, ‘What should I shout?’ ‘Shout that people are like the grass.'” (Isaiah 40:1-6)
Now here’s what it’s talking about. It’s that God, in the first 39 chapters of Isaiah, speaking some 200 years in advance, is saying, “You’re going to go into captivity. The kings have led you astray. Things have gone badly, but listen, there is hope. There is hope.” Look over to chapter 44. Look at verse 24. “This is what the LORD says—your Redeemer and Creator: ‘I am the LORD, who made all things. I alone stretched out the heavens. Who was with me when I made the earth?
I expose the false prophets as liars and make fools of fortune-tellers. I cause the wise to give bad advice, thus proving them to be fools. But I carry out the predictions of my prophets! By them I say to Jerusalem, “People will live here again,” and to the towns of Judah, “You will be rebuilt; I will restore all your ruins!” When I speak to the rivers and say, “Dry up!” they will be dry.'” Now look at this. “‘When I say of Cyrus…'” (Isaiah 44:24-28) Some 200 years before Cyrus is born, God says, “There’s going to be a king, and his name is going to be Cyrus.”
Think about predicting elections. With all the polls and all the names, it’s hard to even figure out who’s going to win. Imagine this. Some 200 years in advance, God says, “Comfort my people, because here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to raise up a king and a kingdom that does not even exist.” That kingdom, by the way, is modern-day Iran, moving up into Afghanistan and Pakistan. It becomes a massive kingdom, the Medo-Persian kingdom.
But Cyrus takes it over. I started to say you can travel to Iran today, but I wouldn’t recommend it. You could theoretically go to Iran today. You can go down to the city and visit the tomb of Cyrus. You can go to the British Museum and see the Cyrus cylinder that issues the decree to let the immigrants go free, to let the captives go free.
Not only that, Cyrus says, “I am not only going to let you go free; I’m going to finance it. I’m going to pay for it. I want you to go home. I want you to go rebuild the temple.” Cyrus becomes one of the greatest leaders. By the way, he is the symbol of religious tolerance for all history. We look at Iran today and we see immense religious oppression and oppression of women and oppression of anything that is not PC.
Literally, since 1979, when Khomeini took over, Persia became an aberration of itself. Iran has the longest history of religious toleration of any culture in society in the world. I wish I could take every one of you with me to Tehran. When I was in Tehran and on the campuses of Tehran, Iranians would walk up to me and say, “We love America. We love America. You tell your friends in America we do not hate America.”
Now I know the media says this and Ahmadinejad says that. There is an immense problem. I do not want to minimize this. But when I walked through the campuses of Tehran, it felt like the campuses here in the 1960s. Does anybody remember those? Yeah. There’s revolution coming, and there is a crop of young people coming up in Iran that those old people, they’re going to die. I don’t want to get into politics here today, but we need to pray for the people of Iran. We do.
We need to pray that God gives them wisdom of how to recover their right place in the world, which is really one of the best friends Israel ever had. Really. Honestly. Okay, two other people agree with me on it. But I’m not talking politics here; I’m talking peace. That’s not political; that’s Jesus. He’s the Prince of Peace. Amen.
So you have Cyrus. You’re going to go back in your Bible, which seems like you’re going back chronology wise, but you’re not. You’re actually moving forward chronology wise. Look at the end of 2 Chronicles, and there you have the Cyrus decree. Now that Cyrus decree is incredibly important, because here’s what he does. He makes a decree, and that decree is bound by the law of the Medes and the Persians.
Do you remember that with Daniel? When the law of the Medes and Persians is put in place, it means that law is irrevocable by any king who comes along later. He says, “Go home.” Look at Ezra. Turn the page. Ezra 1: In the first year of Cyrus, and he makes this thing. He says, “If you want to go home…” There’s a really important phrase there. It’s also in Chronicles.
“In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, the LORD fulfilled the prophecy he had given through Jeremiah.” That’s on your notes, by the way. “He stirred the heart of Cyrus…” (Ezra 1:1) Boy, that’s an important phrase. Here’s what he did. He reached in and he stirred the heart of Cyrus. Look at verse 5. Then God stirred the hearts of the priests and the Levites to rebuild the temple. God reaches in and does something that is absolutely supernatural. It is of God, where God does something and he just reaches inside people and starts creating a stirring.
One of the things that I just absolutely love, when God is in something, it isn’t one man or one people’s idea. It isn’t something somebody is trying to force down you. It’s something you start talking to people, and they start saying to you, “I was praying about that. That was in my mind. I was reading that passage of Scripture, and I was thinking about that at the same time.” That’s how you know something is of the Holy Spirit, when it’s not just a Baptist thing or a Presbyterian thing or a Pentecostal thing or a Methodist thing or whoever I’m leaving out. God starts stirring in and God starts doing things.
2. Who were Zerubbabel, Joshua, Haggai and Zechariah? Zerubbabel is the great-grandson of Josiah. Zerubbabel’s name literally means born in Babylon, but even though Zerubbabel was born in Babylon (I love this), he is not going to die in Babylon. You may have been born in a family without any spiritual legacy whatsoever, but let me tell you something, you don’t have to die there.
You may have been brought up religiously illiterate. You may have been brought up religiously legalistic. You may have been brought up religiously that it was just oppressive. You may have even been brought up in a religion that abused you physically, sexually, morally, financially, and everything else, but you don’t have to die there.
You can be sure of one thing. Zerubbabel was raised on the stories of his great-granddaddy, and they told him the stories of revival and what the temple was about and what sacrifices were about, and all these things. Daniel is reading the scroll of Jeremiah, and they know these stories. Then all of a sudden, these prophecies start boom! boom! boom! Then Cyrus says, “Whoever wants to go home…” and Zerubbabel goes, “I’m in! I’m in. I want to go.”
The second name here is Joshua. It’s translated a little different in the English versions. It’s Joshua, Jeshua. It literally is the same name as Jesus. That’s what it means. Savior. Deliverer. He’s going to be the high priest. God puts that in Jeshua’s heart. Zechariah is addressed a lot toward encouraging the high priest. Haggai is a small book, and it’s written primarily to encourage Zerubbabel. He literally just says in the book, “To Zerubbabel.”
3. Why worship first? Why did they start with worship? Look at chapter 3. “In early autumn, when the Israelites had settled in their towns, all the people assembled in Jerusalem…” The best translations literally say as one man. Everybody came together. They were unified. “Then Jeshua son of Jehozadak joined his fellow priests and Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel with his family in rebuilding the altar…” (Ezra 3:1-2) This is before they rebuild the temple. They rebuild the altar.
Down on the bottom of your sheet, there are a bunch of references. If you want to take some time about the altar builders of the Bible, you can work through that devotionally. It’s down on the bottom of your sheet.
So they rebuild the altar. “They wanted to sacrifice burnt offerings on it, as instructed in the Law of Moses, the man of God. Even though the people were afraid of the local residents, they rebuilt the altar at its old site. Then they began to sacrifice burnt offerings on the altar to the LORD each morning and evening. They celebrated the Festival of Shelters…” (Ezra 3:2-4)
Do you remember what that is? That’s the Festival of the Booths. That’s where they would go outside to remember how God was faithful to them as they went through the wilderness, that God gave them manna. God protected them from their enemies. Once a year, for a week, they would go out and they would just live outdoors to remind themselves of how far God has brought them. Boy, that’s a great thing to do, isn’t it? Do you ever do that?
Do you know what I do sometimes? Sometimes on Sunday morning, when I wake up way early, I’ll get in my car, and I’ll drive over to the daycare center where Grace started. I’ll just sit in the parking lot. Do you know why? Because I want to remember how good God is. Then I’ll drive over to the old location and just sit in the parking lot, and I want to remember how good God is.
I was down at Emory this past week, and I drove over to the little place where I used to get physical therapy. I had polio when I was a kid, and my mom and dad took me to physical therapy there for years and years. I just sit there, and I just want to remember that God is faithful, and this journey he takes us on is phenomenal. Do you understand that? We’re to remember how good God is. Yes. The whole nature of Communion, Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me.”
So they worship, and they offer sacrifices They gather together. There are some lessons here, and they start building the temple. Even Zerubbabel gets his instruments out, and he’s building the temple. He isn’t acting like some king upon a throne. He says, “I’m in there.” Look at verse 10. “When the builders completed the foundation of the LORD’s Temple…”
There is something that happens here. “…the priests put on their robes and took their places to blow their trumpets. And the Levites, descendants of Asaph, clashed their cymbals to praise the LORD, just as King David had prescribed. With praise and thanks, they sang this song to the LORD…”
This is Psalm 136, and it’s repeated over and over there. “‘He is so good! His faithful love for Israel endures forever!'” (Ezra 3:10-11) Sometimes that’s translated his mercy endures forever, his love endures forever. The word is checed. It’s the fact that God will not let us go. It’s his covenant love. It’s the agape love of the Old Testament.
“Then all the people gave a great shout, praising the LORD because the foundation…” This is not the building. The building is coming later, but this is the foundation. “…of the LORD’s Temple had been laid. But many of the older priests, Levites, and other leaders who had seen the first Temple…” Look at this. “…wept aloud when they saw the new Temple’s foundation. The others, however, were shouting for joy. The joyful shouting and weeping mingled together in a loud noise that could be heard far in the distance.” (Ezra 3:11-13)
Do you see what you have here? They build the foundation. They repair the altar. They start up the sacrifices. The younger crowd is going, “Yes, God! He’s good!” They write a song about it. It goes in the Psalms. “His mercy endures forever. His mercy endures forever.” Sometimes people will say to me, “I don’t like these new songs. They’re so repetitive.” Do you know what I say? “Have you read the Old Testament? Have you read the Psalms?” This is a psalm that every second phrase is, “His mercy endures forever.” So if you don’t like repetitive songs, you need to rip out a bunch of your psalms, and I don’t think you’re that bold.
They sing, but in that number, there are a group of people who remembered the early temple, the temple that was so golden and so big and so massive and so impressive, and all the sacrifices. They’re looking at this kind of hole in the ground with just the burnt offerings, and their hearts are weeping. They’re crying. They’re saying, “Oh, it’s not like it used to be! It’s not like it was.”
Let me just tie this up with three things on how do we stir our hearts for God, and how do we allow our hearts to be stirred for God?
1. Dwell on God. What does it say? He is what? Come on. It’s in your book right there. It’s in your passage. He is what? He’s good! He’s good! You can trust God. God’s good. God’s good. His mercy endures forever. Even when we abandon him, he will not abandon us. He just keeps on pursuing us.
How many of you have ever found yourself running from God and feeling like a hound was right behind you? You’re like not in a good place and you’re just like the hounds of heaven are just nipping at your feet, and you feel like, “I have to run harder,” but God just keeps on. Then you turn around, and you say, “Okay, I give up.” This hound that is baying, just all of sudden turns into panting.
You can’t outrun God. I’m just telling you that right now. You can get away from Grace. You can get out of my voice, which is probably helpful. You can run away from everybody who resembles God. You can get out of your family, but I’m going to tell you something. If you are his, God will continue to pursue you. He will climb in bed with you. He will wake you up in the middle of the night. He will send people across your pathway. He will speak to you in visions and dreams.
Now I know some of you don’t believe in vision and dreams, but they happen anyway. You can go, “Well, I’m a Cessationist.” God bless you. He’ll keep talking to you. He will. I promise. He’ll speak to you in his Word. He will continue to come after you. He will love you with a passion that has no end. There is nothing that can separate us from the love of Jesus Christ. Nothing. Dwell on God.
2. Sacrifice something. What is that? I don’t know. Ask God. Ask God, “God, what can I give to you?” Now this is Lent. Maybe for you, it’s chocolate. I know for me, it’s not coffee. But give up something. Why? Because God wants it? No, but because every time you sense the hunger for it, it reminds you of how hungry we need to be for God. Give up something. Let me tell you something. What you get back in return will be so much more. I’m not saying this because God needs you or God wants to punish you, but take something out of your life that will remind you how we are to hunger for God.
3. Expect more than now. When you look at now, recognize that this is a foundation for later. This is a foundation for later. You find Zechariah and Haggai in Ezra 5, and here’s what it says about them. “They encouraged the hearts of the people.” Now let me just say to you something about prophets. Here’s the job of the prophet. The job of the prophet is to steer and cheer the people of God. That’s their job.
When you read through the Prophets, so often it sounds like, “Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, woe.” Now here is the reason why. How many of you taught your kids how to drive? Okay. How many of you, when you were teaching your kids to drive, you were riding along, and they’re steering over into the other lane, and they crossed the yellow line, and you’re going, “Right! Right! Right! Please, go right! Please, I beg you! Please, are we going to die! I’m in the car with you. Please, please go right! I’m going to pull this wheel for you. Right!”
They go, “Take your hand off the wheel!”
“You’re going to kill us both.”
“No!”
“Right! Right!”
Or you’ve done this, “Brake! Brake! Brake! Please hit the brakes! I need the brakes! Brakes! Brakes! Brakes!” How many of you have done that in some manner or another? That’s the prophets. They’re steerers. They look at the kings and they see what they’re doing. They say, “Stop! Please don’t do this. You are going to wreck the whole nation. Stop. Please. Do you know what? You are like a wild donkey!” That’s what it says, in other words, actually.
Now the other job of the prophets was to cheer when they were doing the right thing. Like, in Haggai, when these guys are weeping and crying and saying, “It’s not like it used to be…” Whenever people tell me it’s not like it used to be, I want to go, “Thank God.” Who wants to go to the bathroom out in an outhouse? My granddaddy used to say, “The reason they talk about the good ol’ days is because they really weren’t that good.” Who wants to go back to riding in wagons? Good heavens!
Here’s what Haggai says. He says, “Zerubbabel, the glory of this temple is going to be greater than the glory of the former temple.” Do you know why he says that? Because Jesus is coming to this temple. Jesus is coming to this temple. It may not look good right now, but down through time, there’s going to be the incarnate God himself. He’s going to walk in here.
Secondly, you see Zechariah, and Zechariah is talking to Jeshua, and here’s what he says, “With men this is impossible; with God, what is impossible? Nothing! You look at this foundation. It’s not impressive, but let me tell you something. You laid the foundation and God is going to do something beyond anybody’s imagination.”
But here is the big issue. It starts with worship. We have to align our hearts with worship. We’re going to move on to Word and walls, but here’s what I want to do. I want us to take a few minutes. Worship is responding rightly to his Word. I prayed with a lady this morning. Her mother last night committed suicide.
We have people in our church, the people who do coffee back there, Craig, wonderful man, went home from the hospital today. He had had heart surgery. We have people in our church with cancer. We have people in our church with families who have need issues. Some of you need to realign your heart with worship. We want to take a few minutes and we want to pray with you.
I’m going to walk down front here. If you don’t know Jesus as your Savior, I really want to pray with you this morning. I want you to come into the kingdom today. If you just need prayer about stuff, I’m going to come down and pray with you. We have some other people who are trained to pray with you. We have Communion. Reuben is going to come up and he’s going to lead us in public voice worship, but we need to ask ourselves, “God, am I willing to realign my heart with your heart? Let’s pray, and come on.
Lord, we pray this morning. We look at foundations. We want our foundations to be solid. We want our foundations to be on this heart of worship. Lord, we can go through all the motions and be like a family where the husband and wife do all the stuff, but somewhere long back in that relationship, they’re faithful, they do the right things, but they’ve lost their passion for one another.
Lord, we don’t want to have that kind of relationship with you. We look back to the time when you called us to yourself and the times where our hearts were enflamed with you. Lord, we as a church, we’re 30 years old. We don’t want to look back on the good ol’ days. We want to look forward to the grand days. We want to see more church plants.
We want to see more young people. We want to see you do more than you’ve ever done in our lives and beyond our imagination. But Lord, it starts with us because we can’t give away what we don’t have. So we ask you to stir our hearts. We ask it in your name, as we celebrate this Communion, remembering you, as we pray together for one another for just a few minutes. In your name we pray, amen.