Chapter 19 “It’s Time To Build God’s House”
Ezra, Haggai, Zechariah
Intro - Welcome back to ch. 19 in The Story.
It seems like endless weeks that it’s been nothing but bad news for the people of God…things going from bad to worse…because of their sin and unfaithfulness and refusal to turn back to Him, God is sending judgment upon His people re-sulting in a divided kingdom and exile in both Assyria and Babylon…
But today, in ch.19, things start to change for the better…yes, finally, things start to turn around and there is the beginning of a return to God and to their homeland and the city of Jerusa-lem…
The children of Israel have spent the last seven decades as ex-iles in Babylon…their beloved Jerusalem has been ransacked, their beloved temple destroyed…
-except for the bright spot of Daniel and his friends, this era would be just another dark stain on a long and troubled his-tory…
-but now, in ch. 19, a glimmer of light begins to appear that give the people of God a glimmer of hope…
Through the writings of Ezra the priest and the prophets Hag-gai and Zechariah, we discover what God is now up to in both the lower and upper story of His people…and finally it’s good news! Let’s read about it in Ezra chapter 1…find Haggai and Zechariah too…
turn to Ezra ch. 1…prayer…read Ezra 1:1-5…
A remarkable turn of events! God moves the heart of Persia’s great king Cyrus to show great favour to the Jews in exile and give them permission to go back to their homeland… to Jerusa-lem, to rebuild their temple…and he even gives them the re-sources to do it…
Why is this happening you ask? For a couple of reasons: the time of God’s judgment on His people for their sin and rebel-lion is complete…and God is being faithful to His promise made many years earlier to restore His people and not only re-turn them to their homeland but also to Himself and His heart…
So God sovereignly moves the heart of a powerful, pagan king, who sees himself as appointed by God to send the exiled Jew-ish people back home…
As a matter of fact, God calls Cyrus “His shepherd”. Is 44:28: “When I say of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd,’ he will certainly do as I say. He will command, ‘Rebuild Jerusalem’; he will say, ‘Restore the Temple.’” (150 yrs before this hap-pened!)
This so clearly illustrates how sovereign God is over the events of this world…and world leaders…
Because of God’s sovereign plan and purposes for humanity, He will do whatever it takes to accomplish His mission…that’s an upper story truth…Pr. 21:1 The king’s heart is like a stream of water directed by the Lord; he guides it wherever he pleases. (NLT)
-is it possible to believe that God can turn the heart of our Prime Minister? of the US President?
So in 538 BC, 50,000 Jews prompted by God and funded by Cyrus, make the 1400 km trek from Babylon to Jerusalem to begin rebuilding the temple of God…(that’s like from here to Victoria!)
Today’s story should resonate loud and clear with us here at Northgate because very soon, we will be entering a new season in the life of our church.
-with my stepping down as senior pastor and a new, transitional pastor taking my place, our church is being given an opportunity from the Lord to build up this temple, this house of God…God is inviting all of us as His people to make a com-mitment to build our church, to seek God for His plan for our future…to contribute to its health, growth, effectiveness, fruit-fulness, capacity to bring God great glory here in Edm and be-yond…
Just like the title of this message, it’s time to build God’s house…
So as we discover how God’s OT people went about doing just that, we will also learn how God wants us to go about rebuild-ing His house right here at home called Northgate Baptist Church.
Five God-given Strategies for Building His House:
1. God must move hearts Ezra 1:1, 5
-the first and most important aspect of building up a church body, a house of God, is that it has to be done by people who’s hearts are moved by God through His Holy Spirit…
-in other words, God must motivate you, call you, invite you into this process…
-to build up a church as human beings, we need much more than just our human wisdom and strength…
-if we think we can come up with great ideas and plans through our limited human wisdom and understanding, then we are falling far short of what God wants to do…
-when God moves people’s hearts, He also equips us with His wisdom and power and ideas…
-all we need to do is seek Him for those things, ask Him for His wisdom and understanding…
Proverbs 3:5-6 will never be more necessary for us here at Northgate as it will in the months ahead:
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
So as you are invited in the next while to be part of en-visioning a future for Northgate…Who are we? Who are we meant to be? What kind of senior pastor do we need? Please, please, please, seek the Lord first with these questions…
…get on your knees and ask God what His plans are for Northgate…don’t fall into the trap of human wisdom and un-derstanding…
Psalm 127:1 Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders la-bor in vain.
2. Prepare for Opposition Ezra 4:1-5 …read…
-chapters 4 to 6 are all about the opposition that Ezra and the builders of the temple had to endure, which involved ridicule and threats and also legal action against God’s peo-ple…a letter to the king claiming that the building project was never sanctioned in the first place…
-while the matter was cleared up through more letters from the King himself, this opposition did discourage the builders…it really slowed the work done…
But there’s this really neat verse in Ezra 5:5 “But the eye of their God was watching over the elders of the Jews, and they were not stopped…”
When you start doing spiritual work, like building up a church body…you will always encounter spiritual opposition from the enemy of the church and of Christ, Satan himself…
-we just have to be prepared for it, not surprised by it…and have the faith and courage to believe that God will pro-tect us through it…and difficulty is no reason to give up…
-be armed with spiritual weapons of warfare - prayer, the word, support from each other, obedience, closing the door to Satan…
And God will make sure the rebuilding gets done… …read 6:14-15…
3. Beware of Priority Drift Haggai 1:2-4
Now one thing I didn’t mention about the temple re-building process, was that it took longer than it should have. Somewhere along the way, the work came to a halt. For some reason, the builders lost their focus and gave up.
Ezra 4:24 “So the work on the Temple of God in Jerusalem had stopped, and it remained at a standstill until the second year of the reign of King Darius of Persia.”
There was actually a period of sixteen years, where the build-ing project sat partially done…like an abandoned construction site…similar to what you sometimes see in the city…sixteen years! Why?
We have to turn to the prophet Haggai for the answer. He says in Haggai 1:2-4 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “These people say, ‘The time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord’s house.’”
Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your panelled houses, while this house remains a ruin?”
Randy Frazee in his book The Heart of the Story says: Little by little they lost their focus. They began to turn less attention to the house of God and more attention to their own personal pro-jects. Who knows why? Maybe stacking stones was too tire-some. Maybe the criticism was too irksome.
Or more likely, they just started thinking about their own stuff - their own businesses, farms, enterprises, houses. One by one they quit showing up at the work site. And then one day, no one came.
I can almost hear their well-intended rationalizing: “We’ll get back to it. Maybe next week, or next month. Certainly before next year. But first I have to get my crops harvested. Then I have to finish putting a new roof on the house. Once I get caught up on things, I’ll come back to it. (p.169).
Sixteen whole years passed until God spoke to the people through the prophet Haggai…read 1:4-9…
God is speaking very clearly to His people about what happens when our priorities drift away from God’s and we be-come self-focused and pre-occupied instead of focused on God and His priorities…
He warns when that happens our lives are marked by futility…we plant much but harvest little…we eat but are never satisfied…we never seem to be making any progress…
…it’s like our pockets have holes in them…lots of en-ergy expended, little results…
God is asking us to give careful thought to our ways and ask if our priorities have drifted away from Him and His house and His kingdom…and if so, then to readjust our priorities so they line up with His…
Many of us have been blessed by God with “panelled houses”…we have so much to be thankful for…but in the pro-cess we may have allowed the good things to gradually edge God out of the centre and squeeze Him into a basement closet…
Speaking of ignoring God’s house, it’s sad that we can’t find anyone to give leadership to the care of our building…a trustee lead…in many ways our building is being ignored and falling into disrepair and that is not a good message to the people in our community…
I’m praying that God will stir the heart of someone here to rise up and take on the role of helping our physical building stay in good shape…
God wants to stir up a spirit within us to do the work of build-ing His temple again…and that’s exactly what He does with the people that Haggai is speaking to. Look at 1:13-15…
4. Be Open to Something New Ezra 3:10-13
A really interesting thing happens when the foundation is laid for the temple in Jerusalem. Ezra talks about it in 3:10-13…read…
There were people who had seen the first temple, the temple Solomon built, which was bigger and grander than this second version of the temple…and they were so disappointed…they wept aloud because they thought the glory of the old temple would never be matched by this new one…
There are always people in a church that believe the glory days are in the past…that the church was at it’s best some years ago when this and that was happening…there are always those who long for the past and keep looking back and wanting to recover what was…
-and then there are others in the church who are looking ahead and believe that the church’s best days are yet to come…
What can be done about this? Let’s listen to what God says about it:
Haggai 2:3, 9 ‘Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it not seem to you like nothing?
The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the Lord Almighty.”
God does not live in the past. God is in the present and the fu-ture. He asks us to remember the past in terms of what He has done…which gives us faith for the future. But God looks ahead and promises future blessing. Is 43:19, “See, I am doing a new thing”.
The way to live the Christian life is like driving a car…looking ahead (future)…occasionally checking the rear view mirror (past)…going forward to where God is at work…looking back to remember what He has done…
So it’s good to think about Northgate’s past and be thankful for what God has done…expand… But it’s important to think about it’s future with faith and expectation. And when you think about the future of Northgate, what God wants the church to look like, be open to something new. Do not make the mis-take of reaching into the past for the blueprint.
Church must be relevant to the changing culture we are called to reach. And while we will never change the message, the Gospel…never alter or compromise it…we must change the method, the delivery system, so that the message can be heard and received by new generations…
Be open to the new thing God wants to do here at Northgate…
5. Expect God to be faithful to His promise to bless
Zechariah 8:3-9…read…
That is God’s charge to us at Northgate…”Let your hands be strong so that the temple may be built.”
Conclusion
The question is, are you willing to be part of building the future of Northgate Baptist Church…in the ways that He has shown us today from His word?
As I step away as your senior pastor and God puts a transitional pastor in place, God is wanting to move your heart and stir up your spirit so that you will be part of the building of our church according to His plan…
-if that’s you (and I hope it is many of you), then tell Ralph Korner, our Moderator, that you’re on board…ready to be on the building crew…tell the LC, the staff…tell the new pastor…tell your friends…tell the Lord…
-go to the meetings…speak up…have a voice…say what God gives you to say…
And for all of us, let’s ask God for the faith to believe that He is in charge of this change…that He is sovereign over these events at our church even if we don’t like them or are uncertain about what lies ahead…Jesus is the Good Shepherd of NBC…
-let’s approach this journey with faith rather than fear so that we can all come through it stronger and healthier and bolder than ever before…so that one day we can look back in the rear view mirror and say, “that transition time in 2017…God really used that to move us forward into great things for Him and His kingdom…”
Prayer…Worship…