Ezra 5 - Rebuilding pt.2

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Thank you worship team. Good morning everyone. I had my eyes closed and was worshipping with my eyes closed and realised the song's nearly over, I better get up and open God's word and get on with things. Such a joy it is. How are we going with the integrated study? You're finding it a challenge, you're finding it informative, you're finding it sort of affirming or you're finding it, yeah being there done that and bought the t-shirt and it's not really new. It's great that God brings out so many different things that's what I love about the integrated study is that when we have our multiple authors together and you start to read through and flip through the study book you can just see God's hand at work in people's lives. It's a great privilege isn't it to be in fellowship with God and in His work and how He's invited us to be part of that and I encourage you to really sort of do business with God and try and just get through the questions as quickly as possible and really sort of engross what He's trying to say. Towards the last part of the intro for my study it says about the building process and how this part of Esra is a mix of that and I want to encourage you that as a church and we have been led towards by the Lord to do a building, a community building we're not sure what that looks like, we're not sure how long that's going to take we know God has got His hand in it and He's planted that seed of thought. Prayerfully it won't take 25 years as we've learned so far through Esra, through Dave and Dylan and Duncan teaching us so far. But we pray that the Lord will continue to go forth and that's why it's important to come and pray together to fill that sense of God's unity and that sense of just where God's leading us as a people and see what He does and how He changes things. And that's what this study is about today, it's what this passage is about today. It's about how God intervenes and how God keeps His hand on the trail as things are being built. Let's pray. Father we thank you Lord that as we come into your presence, Father open your word Lord we've been worshiping you in song and Lord's just been lifting our hearts up to you. Father we worshiped Lord when we read about Revelation Lord and what it will be like. Father in the meantime we're here in the world. Your people seeking your purpose, your desire, Father to know your peace in our hearts and Lord we pray as we continue to pray. Lord work through our lives with you. Lord that you'll teach us things and you're in a fresh. I'll be thanking you for this word of Ezra and Lord if you're accompanying Book of Nehemiah that just seems to fit together so perfectly that Father that it gives us a message for us. Lord I pray the words will speak, Father will be your words in your name, amen. I encourage you that as we read through I'm not going to read the whole of chapter 5 I'm just going to read some of it and jump over little bits of it because there's some parts that I just want to focus on today and encourage you through that. Okay so when we have a look at the first part of this it's about rebuilding part 2 so we're looking at renewed hearts and when we think about this you think well what has to happen I'm looking at heart transplant Pastor Doug. I'm not getting a stint put in but what it's talking about it's taking all the things we knew about building God about His purpose and refreshing our hearts and that and being prepared for that, being prepared to open our hearts to God for new teaching, fresh teaching and a fresh understanding and sometimes we can get a little bit in the in the lane way and we decide oh I know about this side I want to go into that way but this chapter breaks down to three parts for me and I'll share them with you. So chapter 1 verses 1 and 2 stirred by revelation and the Spirit of God. 3 to 20 is disruption interference and confusion. We've all been through some of that and 11 to 15 testimony confession and declaration. Let's start shall we. Let's have a look at Ezra 5, 1 to 2. I think the words are going to be up, yep they're up there for you. Now Haggai, the prophet in Zachariah, the prophet at a senate of Ido, prophesied to the Jews in Judea and Jerusalem in the name of the Lord Jesus, the Lord God of Israel who was over them. Then Zerabbabel, son of Sheolite and Joshua, son of Josodak, set to work to rebuild the house of God in Jerusalem and the prophets of God were with them supporting them. When we go in an adventure or on an adventure or we start to venture into things we need to sort of understand I suppose around hearts what's the preparation for this. When we went to build our shed we just thought I'll just build a shed that I want and I'll build it in a backyard and it'll be all these wonderful things and then when I went to see the shed people they said oh there's new council regulations the eve of your shed can't be closer than 930 millimeters from your existing dwelling and it has to be 600 off the fences. So my shed that I had my heart's desire on became a smaller shed. I was able to quickly elongate it a little bit longer so a little bit more shed. We need to know I suppose in life the things we may have in mind God has a different purpose and understanding for and sometimes he needs to trim that down a little bit. As we read through this passage we find that in Ezra 5.1-2 that they're inspired, rebuke and there's courage. Now it doesn't say in Ezra what Haggai and Zachariah said but if you read in Haggai chapter 1 and Zachariah chapter 8 you will find what God is saying to the people and last week when Dave was sharing he was saying that in chapter 4 they were, the people were distracted by their own things. They laid the foundation at the temple but they hadn't actually gone on with it. They'd gone oh well we got that done let's celebrate awesome us and let's go and look after our houses now because we need somewhere to live and they get rebuked by that. Haggai 1-14 the phrase had popped out to me when I was reading through that was say give careful thought to your ways. This is a challenge from God isn't it? Give careful thoughts to your way. You know how we greet people and say have a great day, have a great weekend. Could you imagine as a church we all started saying things like give careful thoughts to your ways this week. A bit like when we change the language from criticism to observation. Remember that? We don't use the word criticism in this church anymore. We use open observation pastor. Be careful give careful thoughts to your ways. In Zechara 8-9 the key verse that comes out there is let your hands be strong so my temple will be rebuilt. Let your hands be strong so my temple will be rebuilt. Both of those prophets in the lead up to those phrases emphasise to the people that they were being distracted easily. They were doing their own thing. They were getting sidetracked onto things and their own strength, their own thinking and missing out what God had wanted them to do. Here he is bringing them back. It says there that Haggai and the prophet and Zachariah the prophet descended and prophesied to the Jews this is what's going to happen get yourself sorted, get yourself organised how about we do this under God's power and plan and then it says it's a wearable which was the overseer for Judah and Jesuit started at the temple again and then it says at the end in chapter 2. I love this part. It says standing beside them, well the prophets were watching over them so they're standing beside them and cheering them on. That's how I translated the Hebrew there standing inside them and cheering them on so not only were they saying guys get to work they'll participate with them standing with them. Don't you love that encouragement you get when people do that with you? I know that Collette has been organising the recovering of the chairs and we're pretty well on track here Collette. I think we're doing great guns by the look of it. But Collette doesn't say hey look I've organised this go and do it. Collette comes over and she watches over people. She gets along besides encouragement. So when we're in life and when we're in a building and a project we need to keep asking God please be present with us. We don't exclude you from this we want you to be part of who we are. If you're a new person to Christ or you're just seeking Christ for the first time He wants to walk beside you. He doesn't want to just set you adrift. He wants to put you in a community and that's why church is important. Church is important because it encourages one another. When our hearts align with God's then He is in the presence there as well. These are the words out of Haggai just to be clear for you. And the word of the Lord came to the prophet Haggai. It's time for you yourselves to be living out of your panelled houses while this house remains in ruin. Then Haggai said let the messengers come before the Lord and declare that I am the Lord. So the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerarrable and Chilotile, the governor of Judah and the spirit of Joshua, the High Priest and the spirit of the whole remnant of the people then they began to come to get on the work of the house of the Lord. The prophets said these words and they came into their presence and are encouraged by it. Are you encouraged by that? Is the temperature a bit too warm in here? I'm starting to feel a few. If this was a cartoon I'd see little Z starting to fall. I'm not being critical. I know I feel a bit sleepy too. And then we have the next passage. These guys are doing what God wants them to do. So surely all the obstacles are removed. Surely now because they're doing what God wants them to do they're not going to have any more hassles because being a Christian is so easy in life. Once you become a Christian you never have any problems again. Do you? Look at everyone laughing. Pastor Doug, you joke. Let's read the next passage. At that time, Tananaya, governor of the Transufrates and Sheetha Bozane and their associates went to ask them, who authorized you to build this temple and finish it? They also asked for names of those who were in the construction of the building but the Lord was watching over the elders of the Jews and they were not stopped until the report could go to Darius and his written copy received in reply almost like a union meeting. Who gave you authority onto this building site? I want the names of everybody. And so we have this situation now, don't we? We see where it's under whose authority are you building? And whose authority are you doing the things you're doing in your life? See what we have a danger of doing sometimes is we compartmentalize. So we say, well we're doing church stuff so that's under God's authority but I'm doing this sort of thing over here, well that's under my authority. I'm doing this under here, that's under my boss's authority. But if you have the heart that says everything's under God's authority that's a different twist on it. But these guys were cunning. Tanner and I and his mates, they got in there and they started to undermine and ask the question under whose authority. Which could be quite off-putting if you don't have the sign permission to do it then how can you go ahead? Satan loves to attack us in different ways. One of the commentaries I was reading, they use these two words and you may be able to relate and sort of twig this in your life. So Satan uses seduction. So in Israel 4 we learnt that some of the other people who weren't tribe of Judah, who weren't Israelites, weren't Hebrews, they wanted to help and straight away they were rebuked. They wanted to get in there and water down the faith base. They wanted conditions approved. They wanted to do a part their way so they could still do their things. And God was quite adamant that no, you cannot come in and do that. You do it my way or it's the highway. So Satan uses seduction to get underneath the truth of Scripture. It gets underneath what's in our lives. He tries to get us into thinking of things that take us off course. Things that can distract us. He tries to put thoughts of that. Do we really want to do that? Come on, let's just move this way. Are we really saying that? Because I don't think that's right. One of the things that everyone who comes up and preach particularly our pastors will always say, read the word yourself and test it. Is that right Dave? Because yeah, we're doing what God faithfully wants us to say but you might say, oh I don't understand that. Will you read the word and pray about it? So he does this seduction thing. And when seduction doesn't work, we can't calm them over. Then we have chapter 5. The oppression starts. Stop right there. Thank you very much. Stop right there. Thank you very much. He uses things like, how dare you do this? How can you start that and try and finish this? Because whose authority were you there? They had no idea. They were just making up. But Tananaya was pretty full on about this. He wanted to make sure that opposition was going to stop what was happening because he wanted to control it. He didn't want these Hebrews to have control. Satan doesn't want Christians to have control. He doesn't want to have the victory in Jesus Christ. He wants them to be oppressed. He wants them to think about the struggle instead of the victory. He wants to think about what's really holding him back instead of laying that down before the Lord at the foot of the cross and moving on. He uses subtle methods. Legal jargon and red tape. Fear and extortion. Threats that come in. One of my favourite go-to thoughts, and you can agree or disagree, is that when you're doing something as a believer, and you have this feeling it's not quite right, it's one of two sides of the coin. One it can be you can feel accused, you feel guilty. The other one you can feel convicted. When we feel accused, we feel guilty because Satan wants us to think we're not worthy. But we're convicted of the same thing. And the conviction comes, and that comes from God, and the result of that is love. The way to break it up in your mind is when you're prompted you're doing something you shouldn't be, and you think, do I feel bad about this because Satan will make you think you're not a very good Christian. You're pretty yuck at this. You've got no authority here. But if you respond to it in conviction from the Holy Spirit, the end result is love. It's restoration with God because we confess and come back into His presence. We say out loud, sorry Lord. You want to put it to the test? Try driving in Moirfield. Anywhere in Moirfield right. It used to be in the peak hour, now it's any time of the day. Drive along, and someone does something, and then you get convicted by the Holy Spirit. I'm going with that one anyway. But it's interesting how the enemy does work, and it talks about in Scripture later on, particularly Paul was talking about this in Corinth. He's talking about how people who are pretending to be priests, and pretend to be Christians, and undermining and using insidious methods. And this is what he says when he elongates that out in 1 Corinthians, sorry, 2 Corinthians 11 14, and no wonder for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It's not surprising then that his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. The end will be the actions deserved. Never thought of that. There are people who sometimes are good at pretending to be Christian. Sometimes it's intentional, sometimes it's not. They're just using it, or reacting out of the human spirit. So what we're teaching here is that the Hebrews are there and they're building the temple, and this tenenoid comes and starts throwing all these accusations at them, starts getting to think twice about what's going on, and tries to be all legalistic, and tries to undermine them. And then we learn too that later on in Revelation, the church of Pergamum had the same conviction against them, that the Satan was in their midst, and he was leading them astray. This is what the Lord says, I know where you live, where Satan has his throne, yet you remain true to my name. You did not renounce your faith in me, never even the days of Antipas. My faithful witness, who was put to death in your city, where Satan lives. Being in the presence of the evil one doesn't mean you defeat it. Just means to be conscious of it. Just means to say, Jesus is my Lord and Saviour, and I want to discern these lies. I want to discern these thoughts that are coming on me, and whether or not they're from him, whether they're from God, or whether they're from Satan. And because he does this, he tries to then undermine all that God's work is done. As I said earlier, as a church, we've been led down the path that God wants us to extend our building. We want to make, not because we want to grand gesture towards God, but the cathedrals of old. But because we want to have a place the community can come and encounter God. That we can build a base from, that we may be able to go out in the community and win souls for Christ. Be the good news in the community. We're going to enter into this with our eyes where? On the plans, on whether or not I get two pedestals, or two urinals, or we have our eyes in heaven. And say, Lord, we want to watch you. We want you to go before us. Because when he builds the church, we won't labor in vain. He builds anything we won't labor in vain. We can't be distracted by that. We can go to the next passage. A copy of the letter with the tenor Nair, the governor of Trans-Euphrates, and Sheetar Bezoni and their associates. The officials of Trans-Euphrates sent to King Darius. The report they sent him reads as follows. To King Darius, cordial greetings. I like cordial. Do you like cordial? I looked at that and I thought, I wonder what the Greek for cordial is. I wonder what the Hebrew is for cordial. I didn't do Hebrew at Bible College. Not in depth. I wonder if it was thickened syrupy. I mean something thickened syrupy. Now cordial is a funny thing. Because back in the day when there was not a whole proliferation of soft drinks, cordial was one of the treats we had as kids. But you know there's no directions on cordial? How to serve it? It just says serve to taste. How good's that? Every person here would have a different taste of cordial. Now if you're from that generation who hasn't encountered the joys of unsupervised cordial making, ask your parents first. Don't tell them Pastor Doug said it's okay. But there's two things to review that. In cordial there's the supervised and unsupervised. The supervised is when you watch them pour the cordial. It's the syrupy. They pour it into the glass about that much. Then fill the rest with water. But your parents aren't there when you're a latchkey kid from the 70's. You said I'll have some cordial. You go yeah 50-50 baby. And you pour the syrupy and it goes right up. Then the water goes in. You sort of mix it around. Then you drink it. Then you're wired. It's even more apparent when you're in a ministry like youth group. And you ask someone from the leadership or the eldership to come over and help out serve supper. And they serve it because they've come out of the war. They serve it with such reservation you get about this much cordial in the glass. And the kids go we can see through this. And then the youth leader comes along and he makes the cordial up. And he sort of pauses as he pours it in. And the kids go home wired. Cordial readings. How would you like to be considered before God? 50-50 full strength or watered down version? Because I think there's a bit of that understanding in all of us that our heart would say we want to be strong in God. And yet sometimes we water down the spirit. We water down the cordial. We've got to be wary of it. So here we have a tenenoir ride into the king. The king should know that we went to the district of Judah to the temple of the great God. The people are building it with large stones and placing the timbers in the walls. The work is being carried on with diligence is making rapid progress under their direction. We question the elders and ask them does the authority to build this temple and finish it? We also ask them if their names so that we could write down the names of the leaders for your information. As they went through that and as they were giving people a hard time we get to the bottom of the issue, don't we? We want to know what's going on. We want control over this. I love the fact that people were so invested in it. They already had the large stones in place, already looking at the timber beams. And they turn and this is their response. Their response is one that you can only say comes from people who have been doing business with God. Their answer was this in verse 11, we are the servants of God of heaven and earth. We are rebuilding the temple that was many years ago. One great king of Israel built and finished but because our ancestors angered God of heaven he gave him into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, the Chaldeans king of Babylon who destroyed this temple and deported the people to Babylon. We're in the first year of King Cyrus first year of King Cyrus Cyrus decreed to rebuild his God, to build the house of God. He even removed the temple of Babylon from the temple of Babylon, gold and silver articles of the house of God which Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple in Jerusalem and brought them up to the temple in Babylon. Then King Cyrus gave them to a man named Shezbazar whom he had appointed governor and he told him take these articles and go and deposit them in the temple in Jerusalem and rebuild the house of God in its on its side. People's response was an honest one. People's response was honest. They actually said look we're doing this because we're so good we've got the skills. I've been involved in several temple buildings and here I'm just going to tell you how it is. The response wasn't that it was a humble reaction to God as a lesson for us there I believe as people of faith as those who profess that Jesus Christ is Lord and Saviour. There was testimony, confession and declaration woven into this reply. First of all verse 11 we are servants of the living God we are his servants. We're not his masters we're not his interpreters, we're not his second in command we are his servants. We are here to serve our God. Can you say that statement yourself in your heart that I am a servant of the living God? Is he number one? I have got no answers I'm not trying to control him I am his servant. The temple was commissioned to David King David and completed by King Solomon. Names aren't mentioned for whatever reason probably because it was so long ago that it would have confused the situation because it would have gone off on a sidetrack but they knew in their heart of hearts they had been taught that the temple had been built by Solomon and completed. And it was finished it was very important to understand that it wasn't just half heartily done it was finished. And then they confess we angered God. We were too self-centered to repent so here we are too self-centered to repent. Many many prophets warned of what would happen if they didn't repent. They ended up in Babylon the temple got destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and as his policy was decimate and repopulate. Exile everyone back see take away their identity of the land because the identity of the land was the promise to the Jews the Abrahamic covenant. Get rid of all that we didn't listen. Here we are rebuilding the temple. Here we are coming out of being exiled. As Dylan shared with us a couple of weeks ago is that the numbers done in history that the percentage of people returning to build was only a minor percentage of the whole of the exile group so they didn't wait for popularity contest. They said Lord here I am send me. And they went we angered God we were too self-centered to repent so here we are. And then miracle of miracles the pagan king Cyrus has a change of heart. Wow that's amazing a pagan king has a change of heart God had fallen upon Cyrus and said this has got to stop this is where it changes now I want my people to return and so he did that sometimes we struggle with those in authority over us don't we we struggle with what's the council doing now why is the government doing this what do we call to do as believers pray for them pray for those in authority over you they may know good favor in the Lord you pray for their salvation you pray them into the kingdom you pray their hearts will turn from being hardened and being under statistics to being sensitive to the needs of the people Lord had intervened on half of the people of Israel and changed this pagan heart what a miracle what a wonderful thing if you talk to Terry Young you'll find that being a Christian in parliament is no easy feat it's a struggle when life is going well privately it's a struggle and then it goes into 14 and 15 I was reading this I thought Lord why is this important because details matter God is in the detail it says in 14 14 to 15 I'll read it through again don't go back on the slide but it says in 14 he removed from the temple of the Babylon the golden silver articles the house of God which Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple and brought them to the temple in Babylon then King Cyrus gave to the man named Shesbazar whom he had appointed governor and he told them take these articles and go and deposit them in the temple in Jerusalem and rebuild the house of the Lord on its site details matter in the kingdom of heaven economy details matter God looks after the details as we go into our building understanding and trying to work ahead so we're going to try and work out those details before God reveals them to us it's human nature be like who doesn't sit down and plan their trip I can testify that after being with Dillon for 18 months in ministry there's been a lot of times not all the time and probably only 10% of the time we talked about the Cape trip and he wanted to make sure he gets it right we're in the same as I said the same home group with the MFG Disobishev group and our Disobishev group right from the get go we're talking about the trip to the Cape it's in our nature to want to do the details when it comes to what we're doing as a church God is in the details we need to ask him to reveal those details to us the important ones first the significant ones first not what we think is important in our Christian walk we need to say Lord what are the details of my life that I need to do business with what are the things that I'm struggling with because you're a faithful God you'll walk me through it and more importantly their heart was we're under God's authority under God's authority to get this done under God's authority to see this through to the end and what I love about chapter 5 is it's an introduction to chapter 6 because we're going to hear next week what Darius' response is we're going to hear what he says in response to this letter that was written with these accusation these queries these confusions these things that are trying to pull it apart and so you can read ahead and find out what the answer is and I pray to the preacher next week we'll do it justice it's me actually by the way let's pray that I will do it justice I was waiting for someone to giggle but no one giggled obviously you haven't read ahead in the chapter that's fine it's a big study as I prepare oh Stuart and Angela I'll have to make sure I get it right so where does that leave us with new hearts are needed that's the title of our sermon series title of the integrated study series when new hearts are needed it's going to be needed fresh hearts not old hearts not hearts that are hardened or hearts that have been scarred but we need new hearts for God these are some of the things I'd love you to contemplate on and I'm going to do it today those who are serving morning tea I'm going to ask you to remain in church worshiping God because God's in the details before you go out to get morning tea ready we've got two songs to finish with so if you're in the habit of getting up during the last song or as some have noticed getting up while the pastor's praying I understand your enthusiasm to serve don't get me wrong we love people with serving hearts but I'm going to ask you today to plant your carcass I'm going to ask you to sit in the presence of the Lord as we worship in music to close the service with the following things that I'm going to share with you and do business with God please avoid talking to people for a while just spend time with God so that we can be a people with renewed hearts so that we can be those who are doing what God wants us to do this is my encouragement in this last slide reflect on his goodness and his mercy I'm sure that's what the Hebrews did was they were responding to ten an hour reflecting on God's goodness and mercy if God lays it on your heart repent from the things that distract take away those things that distract Lord help me to push those to side because I need to spend quality time with you don't want to be distracted Lord I'm not thinking about lunch or whether or not the kettle's boiled Lord whether the coffee machine's going Lord I just want to repent from the distractions refocus your priorities to his plan be humble after say hey we got it wrong we're repenting of that that's your plan for me and my life as well as us as a church reject the lies and schemes of the evil one because he will try and be insidious he will try and pull you apart he'll try and make you doubt he'll try and make you struggle you have the victory in the cross Jesus died on the cross that we have no more with sin he takes away Satan's power you can claim that and say no Jesus died on the cross Satan get behind me respond with respect and reverence I learnt this from watching and reading through with these guys they responded with respect and reverence they didn't throw tools and bits of building material at ten an hour they just responded and that's what I ask you to do to spend some time responding with the Lord receive his grace love and mercy sometimes that's hard to do when you think you're not worthy but Satan's going to try and stop that I understand that but if you have repented you can receive his grace and mercy if that's for the first time praise God hallelujah if that's just a little time now you've been trying to battle through things praise God hallelujah it's all important before God and lastly rebuild with renewed hearts rebuild your life with renewed hearts rebuild with God with new hearts rebuild relationship with renewed hearts because when we're sensitive to the spirit he points things out and says you need to deal with this now I'm merciful and just I'll restore you into righteousness those who confess to me as I said I'm going to pray now worship team I'll get you to come up those on coffee cart and and morning tea I'm going to ask you to humbly ask you to resist the urge to flee out to the kitchen spend time with God two songs two whole songs I know you're going to be chappin' at the bit I'd encourage you that you'll do business with God it'll give him all glory let's pray father we thank you Lord that you meet us right where we are thank you father as you taught the Hebrews Lord with their distractions about temple building that father you spoke to the heart of the matter that they needed to do get business with you do right with you Lord understand that rebuke comes sometimes but Lord comes with love and grace and mercy and I pray for each person here Lord as we go forward as individuals before you was personal in relationship with you Lord as a church Lord we go with you and before you Lord with humble hearts renew our hearts each day I pray refresh us each day Lord Father your children may know your presence in a real way Lord help us to Lord bring victory over the lies and schemes of the year one help us to see them Lord and just rebuke them ignore them and put our eyes on you Father I thank you Lord that as you move father that things will happen Father we've sung already Lord unless you build the house Laborers strive in vain Father we want to be in step with you Father we want to be led by you Lord as we go into this season of prayer and this coming weeks Father we don't know how long that season is going to last but Father we pray for opportunities to get together to pray together as your people Father to lift up your name to encourage one another Lord to come into your presence in that personal way well we thank you for every opportunity to give us to worship you we thank you Father that you take us Lord as sinners and Father restore us through your spirit and we acknowledge that you are our Lord and saviour and with nothing can snatch us from your hand we thank you for that promise we ask this in your name Jesus amen