Building the Foundations

Ezra

August 17, 2003

Introduction

A. In the Hebrew Bible, Ezra and Nehemiah is one book. Ezra’s focus was on the people’s spiritual life while Nehemiah’s focus was on the walls of the city for the protection of the people.

B. The Book of Ezra is a picture of a soul coming to God. It could be a person coming to God who had rejected God as a child or young adult. It is the story of how Israel after it years of being in Exile away from God, returned to rebuild the foundations of commitment to God for thousands of years.

C. Foundations: e.g. my own home… importance of foundations

D. The number of people who returned initialing was about 50,000 people. The shepherds had become shop owners and leaving all the possessions to rebuild their homeland and the worship of God was too much for most to give up.

I. Their Calling

A. The impetus is of God (1:1)

1. “The Lord moved the heart of Cyrus…”

2. Jn. 15:16 “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit”

3. God is calling even this morning…

4. Ezra 1:5 “Everyone whose heart God had moved…”

5. The response is from you (“work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that works in you both to will and to do his good pleasure.” (Phil. 2:12) )

6. It cost them significantly to leave Babylon… this idea of coming to Christ to get fully actualized and reach your natural potential is an Eastern religious invasion of the Gospel.

B. The importance of the altar

1. This is the central feature of the Temple

2. It was the place where sins were forgiven and intercession was made. It symbolized the whole of their worship. It was built in the open and was a testimony of their faith.

3. The first step after God calls us is to respond and go to the Altar of God. That is the Cross of Christ where once for all time our sins were forgiven.

4. Have you established your altar? Is it built as a center feature of your life?

5. Notice that they built “despite their fear” (3:3)

6. Then they celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles (In-gathering) which marked their nomadic nature had been brought to an end.

C. The importance of the foundation

1. The next step was to lay again the foundation of the Temple

2. What are the foundational aspects of your relationship with God?

a. Prayer, the Word, Fellowship and sharing your faith

b. Foundations in your home: prayer, the Word, fellowship and sharing

3. An interesting emotional conflict was seen when the foundation was built: some were happy and some were sad. There is joy in returning and sadness of the loss of what could have been if we’d never left because of our sin.

II. Their Conflicts

The enemy of our lives does not want us to rebuild our worship and will do whatever he can to stop it. His strategies have not changed over time and so we can be warned by the example of Israel.

A. Compromise (chptr 4)

1. What was wrong about accepting neighborly help in building the Temple?

2. These were the “enemies” of Judah and Benjamin. They were what became known as the Samaritans. They were mainly transplants from other countries mixed with a little Jewish blood. They worshipped YHWH in a superstitious way while they served Baal.

3. Rather than making a full commitment, there is always an excuse to do something short of that… having it on our terms rather than God’s.

B. Discouragement

1. When compromise didn’t work, the enemies tried discouragement and they hired “counselors against them to frustrate their purpose”

2. Notice that it was a long period of time: 18 yrs. Have you ever had someone criticizing you constantly for years?

C. False Accusation

1. When discouragement didn’t work, making false accusations did.

2. Actually, it was partially true. They used their history against them. They have always been a rebellious city. They’ll never change.

3. Isn’t that the way things are?

III. Their Continual Commitment

A. The problem with blurred boundaries

1. This issue takes a little explanation. People have wrongly interpreted what follows as being anti-Gentile or anti-mixed racial marriage.

2. What happened was that many of the people, including leaders, had married people of other races. All their sexual activity took place around the worship of their false gods.

3. These people were laying down a foundation for a restored Jewish homeland as an inheritance for all succeed generations up to the Messiah.

4. This is a multifaceted problem.

a. It is short sightedness… not realizing the impact upon the children.

b. What they had in their heart could not be seen by their own children let alone succeeding generations. They had to have a pure and clear and public foundation.

B. The price of returning

1. For a person to come back to God and relay that foundation will take giving up the other things that filled the time before.

2. For a person to come back to God it may take a sacrifice that to you would be like cutting off your right arm.

3. This was serious business. It is not about you coming to God to feel good. There is a war on against you and your children. Join the battle and you’ll suffer discomfort. Stay in your comfort and suffer eternal loss.

C. The Source of Encouragement