Pastor Zach Pummill • May 02, 2021

Sermon Overview

EZRA 3:1–7

Israel returns ready to engage in the work that God has for them. It was time to rebuild worship in a desolate place. What does it mean for us to rebuild worship in the desolate places of our lives and seek God's presence in all things?

Sermon Transcript

Good morning friends, welcome to Rockwall Pres. If you're a guest with us we are really glad to have you today or if you're still new here, we're glad you have joined us. My name's Zach, I'm one of the pastors and you find us in the second week of a new series.

Last week we began this new series and it's a series about coming home. In this series we're looking at the books of Ezra and Nehemiah that tell the story of how Israel returned to the Promised Land after spending years, decades, in exile in Babylon. This was a story of God's faithfulness, it's a story of how God Himself went out into exile to the ends of the earth, to find His people, to gather His people and to bring His people home. And it's a story that could only happen if God stays true to His promises. It's also a story that reminds us that exile and return, this isn't just some historical events - it's also a way in which God works and operates in our lives.

And so we're looking at this story because we too have spent a long season in exile over the last year. And here we are in an exciting season of return, a season of coming home. But how have we been impacted? Israel's exile had a profound impact on them and coming home meant that they had to unlearn all those patterns and rhythms that exile forced upon them because in exile things are different and they had to relearn and recommit to life the way that God intended. And that same is true of us, we want to consider how have we been impacted over the last year? What's changed in us? How have we been changed? What does it mean to come home and recommit ourselves to being the people that God calls us to be?

And so last week we ended with Israel arriving back in the Promised Land. And that's a long journey from Babylon to Jerusalem. It's a long four-month journey home and they have finally made it, they've arrived in their home. And I would have loved to have been there on this journey. Reason is, quick confession, I'm a people watcher. And so if you ever just find me staring at you from across the room, do not be alarmed. I promise you, you are in no danger. So now that it's awkward, I would just say that I could sit in an airport and watch people all day, watch them as they come and go. There's just something to me about the sheer mass of humanity that exists in this world. All the individual lives, the comings and the goings that God watches over.

I'm also an eavesdropper. So I like to listen to people's conversations. I'm like the janitor from the Breakfast Club, I read your notes. I listened through the walls - I don't, but anyways, I listen to conversations of people and you can tell where they're going based on those conversations. You can tell the people that have traveled for so long and they are just ready to be home. You can tell the people that are going to see loved ones. You can tell the people that are going on vacation or the people that are traveling on business.

And I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall to listen to all the conversations of these exiles on this journey. Because their conversations had to be filled with so much hope. The sense of anticipation, the sense of excitement, of new beginnings, hopeful conversations about what the future might hold. But then I'd want to know what it was like whenever all of that hope got a dose of reality. And they had heaviness added to the mix, because whenever they get to the top of that last hill and they overlook the city, what do they see? They see the city walls, the temple, and the altar, all lying in ruins. They didn't come home to a resort with all the beach chairs neatly lined up with perfectly folded beach towels waiting for them on the end. They came home to a pile of rocks and rubble.

And then on top of that came the hostility, because in verse 3 it says, "they were afraid of the people in the land." The Promised Land is not empty, who are these people? Well, the Promised Land is filled with their enemies. It's filled with Samaritans and the Samaritans were a mixed race people, one part Jew one part of Assyrian. And they mixed both religions and worshiped in an alternative way than Israel. And yet they claimed some of the same lands, same locations. And so whenever Israel is carried off into exile, the Samaritans were more than happy to take over all of their empty real estate. So for Israel it's like buying a house and then on move in day, you realize somebody is already living there and they don't want to leave. So it's in this passage that we are introduced to this hostility that will be a major factor in the rest of this story. How will the people of God live in a hostile and unwelcome world?

God called His people home but He also called them home to a desolate place, why? Because God has a purpose for His people. He has work for them to do. So what is that work? God brought them home to rebuild worship in a desolate place. God brought them home to rebuild worship in a desolate place.

And Israel was ready for it. They're ready to go. So often, whenever we talk about Israel in the Old Testament, we're always highlighting their failures and their mistakes and their unfaithfulness. And of course we do, because it's all over the place, but not here, every now and then you do have moments where Israel you see them respond in faith to God and they're obedient and they put their trust in Him. And this is one of those moments. They come home ready to enter into this work that God has for them, because what do we see? Verse 1, it says that "all of the people gathered as one man in Jerusalem." They showed up in their work-day clothes wearing their Rockwall Pres t-shirts ready to go to work in the hot September sun, but why? Is it just because they're excited to be home? That's a lot of work. Why are they so ready?

Well, we know from last week it's because God stirred their hearts. It was God at work in them, bringing them home, bringing them into this work. But I think there's also more to it. It's because they're ready - because of the impact of exile, they're ready because of how God uses exile to stir His people. And in this week's devotion, I tried to lay out and just discuss so we would really think about what life would have looked like, as best as we could think of, for Israel in exile. They couldn't offer sacrifices that were so central to their spiritual wellbeing to remove their sense of guilt and shame, they had to live in it. They couldn't go and just find a priest anywhere, they were scattered. They may or may not have had access to a priest to teach them God's word. How do you think you and I would fair if we couldn't read the Scriptures for years and decades? Because they didn't have Bibles. How do you think we would do if we just operated off of memory?

In exile, they were disconnected from their people, their place, and their purpose, which means no matter how much and how hard they tried to remain faithful, it was an uphill battle from start to finish, why? Because exile's hard. Exile is hard, it's the place where our effort is exhausted.

How about that last year for us?

Marq and I talked this week about how we both had really grandiose plans whenever the lockdown began last year. We went into it just thinking that we were gonna really use the time well and make the most of it. Marq talked about how he had a big old stack of books on his desk, that he was just going jump into the deep end.

For me, I just knew my prayer life would increase exponentially. I just knew I was gonna read through the Bible and really focus my heart in prayer and thinking through the vision and the future and the mission of RPC. Maybe I'd throw in a PhD while I was at it. And I just knew that I was gonna get to those flower beds and win Lawn of the Month. But no, those flower beds still look post-apocalyptic.

And it turns out life looked different than both of us thought. That stack of books went unread. We found prayer was an absolute struggle. Exile exposed a sluggishness in our hearts despite our better intentions. We found ourselves feeling untethered, disconnected, unsettled for reasons we couldn't explain. We tried to figure out why we felt so busy when everything was shutting down.

So how about you? Maybe you experienced some of those same things and life look different than you intended. Time you thought you'd spent doing one thing ended up getting swallowed doing another thing. Time you wanted to use well, ended up being time that was wasted. Maybe you found yourself pulled in a thousand different directions and you kept wondering to yourself, "Why do I feel like I'm just trying to survive? Why do I feel like I am just trying to get by day-to-day?" It's because exile has a way of narrowing you down, your life, boiling it down to an urgency of the present. It just feels like a spell gets cast over us. It just feels like a spiritual malaise that's hard to shake and hard to push through. And you find that all those commitments and efforts that you exhibit just in the end come up so empty. In the end, you found that it was just a hard year, no matter how hard you tried.

And maybe you beat yourself up a little bit thinking how much you should have gotten done, how you should've gotten more accomplished, how you should have done better, but don't do that, because it's okay that you didn't. Because that's the point. That's the point of exile.

God doesn't send us into exile so that we would feel really confident in our own will power. Exile is where He brings us to the end of it. Exile is where He reveals we can't do this on our own. Exile reveals that we need each other. We need the priesthood. We need worship. We need togetherness. Ultimately, we need God. Because if He doesn't fill those commitments with His grace, then they're commitments that come and they're commitments that go and they come up shorts every time. This is how God uses exile. It's through that disconnection from people and place and purpose, that we start to realize how maybe we took those things for granted before. We start to see their importance and their value and that they are precious in new ways. And out of that, God creates a hunger within us. It's a desire to return and lay hold of what He has for us.

That's why Israel was so ready, that's why they were so ready and willing to return. That's why they gather as one man in Jerusalem, because exile had made them ready to rebuild worship in this desolate place, to rebuild their lives where God was central.

And that desire for God is shown by the fact that they rebuild the altar first. They rebuild the altar first. But think about that.

Remember that they're afraid of the people in the land, they can feel that hostility closing in around them. And if you look at the books of Ezra and Nehemiah as a whole, what's the order? Well, they rebuild the altar, and then they rebuild the temple, and then they rebuild the city walls.

But why would they build it in that order? You think that if they're afraid they do the opposite. You'd think they'd start with the city walls for protection and then they'd build the temple and then they'd build the altar, but they don't. They start with the altar because rebuilding the altar first shows and reveals their desire for God.

Because in Exodus 29, God told Israel it's at that altar that I will meet with you. It's at that altar where I will speak to you. It's at that altar where my glory will dwell among you. And so they rebuild the altar first, why? Because they remembered their protection is not in their own strength. It is not in some sense of their own protection or some illusion of security, their protection was ultimately in their service to God in His presence with them. The presence of the God who promises to be their strength, who promises to be their shield, who promises to cover them in the shadow of His wings. Because what's the point of having city walls if God doesn't dwell with them in the city? What's the point of a temple if God doesn't fill it with this presence? If there is no altar, then that temple is just brick and mortar. The high priest couldn't even go into the temple, into the Holy of Holies, without making sacrifices on that altar first.

And so instead of preparing for war, they gather as one man and begin rebuilding worship in this desolate place. They're ready to seek God's presence in a way that they never were before. But after they finished the altar, they continue to rebuild worship, how? By reordering their lives.

It says that they began offering sacrifices again every morning, every evening, and everywhere in between. It says in verse 4 that they celebrated the Feast of Booths. The Feast of Booths, the Feast of Tabernacles, is when all of Israel would live in tents for seven days. It was a big celebration because they were called to remember whenever God led Israel in the wilderness, when they lived in tents, and to remember the time when His presence was all they had. And God commanded them to do that every single year, according to the law. But Nehemiah will tell us later that Israel hadn't observed the Feast of Booths in over 800 years.

And all throughout this section, undergirding this rebuilding of worship in Israel, it keeps using this phrase "as it is written, as it is written." They rebuilt, they reorganized, they offered, they sacrificed, "as it is written," over and over again, why? Because coming home isn't about returning to some sense of normal, returning and coming home is about returning to God. It's about recommitting to His purposes, because if they come home going back to normal, they'd just be doing the things that got them into exile in the first place. They don't look back to how things were just before they left, they look back to the beginning. They go back and remember the way that things are supposed to be, the way life is supposed to look according to God's word. Rebuilding worship in this desolate place was about rebuilding a life where God's presence was central, where He was the most important thing in everything.

So this passage pushes back on us, this passage pushes back on us and ask each of us, why are you here? Why are you here? Is it because you're just ready to get back to normal? Or is it because you desire God's presence? Do you hunger for Him?

Because I don't think God wants you to go back to normal. That's why exile happens. It's because He wants you to have something new. He wants to give you more of Himself. And it's in exile that He prepares you and readies you to give Him more of yourself. It's when He draws you into His work and draws you in by that desire for more of Him - to shut off the normal and to say, "Is normal something even worth going back to in the first place?" - and invites us into a deeper desire for the presence of God.

But this passage also pushes back on ways that we view worship and the ways that we can simplify it. Because so often in our time and our place, worship is either considered one of two things. It's either an experience or an event. It's an experience or an event.

If it's an experience and what happens if you don't feel anything? If it's an experience, what happens when you feel the exact same way when you leave as you did when you arrived? Did worship not happen? Well, then, what's wrong with you?

And if it's just an event then it just becomes an item on your calendar. It just becomes a box that you check.

But in the end, both of those ideas just boil worship down to either being experiential or optional and both are completely based on the preferences of the individual. It becomes a commodity of which the Church sells religious goods and services.

But the truth is, what about the rest of life? Like you and I have a lot more going on in life than just this hour we spend here. Of course we want God's presence here, of course, this is the time in which God promises to meet with us. But what about on Tuesday when all those family problems come back that you thought were long gone? What about on Thursday? Whenever that addiction starts to creep up again and you continue to struggle. What about on Friday? Whenever you feel like your job is falling apart, you're losing a relationship with your kids, you don't have the hope and desire that you used to have, what about those moments? Where is God in those places?

This passage invites us to have a deeper understanding of worship that encompasses all of life, the valleys, the mountains, the good days and the bad. Because God desires to fill it all and be all in all.

It teaches us that worship is daily. They offer sacrifices day and night with all the other sacrifices in between, why? Because the promise is that God wants to dwell with us daily. He wants to be the beginning and the end, the first and last of each and every day. And all the moments in between, worship is daily.

It also teaches us that worship takes work. Worship takes work. This altar that they rebuilt is not just a little pile of rocks. This altar was massive, it was 30 feet wide by 30 feet wide and 15 feet tall, it was a monster. It reminds us that worship takes work and sometimes worship feels like carrying a stone. Sometimes worship feels like mixing mortar, sometimes it was worship feels like carrying a carcass up 15 feet to the top. Yes, all of that feels like work and yeah, in all of that work, that work was worship. That work was worship because it expressed their desire for God. And we know worship takes work, by virtue of talking about all of these things, I know some of you are gonna be like going home tomorrow, tomorrow and like, "I do need to read my Bible. I need to get back into a rhythm again." You're gonna do it and you're gonna feel great. In fact, why don't I do that every day? Why do I struggle with this? Tuesday your Bible is gonna feel like it's 200 pounds, guarantee it. And it's gonna feel empty, you're gonna feel at a loss. You're not gonna know what to do, why? Worship takes work.

And we know it takes work because it took a lot of work for you to be here this morning. Because why is it that everything feels twice as hard on Sunday morning? It's twice as hard to get the kids ready, you can't find your keys, you can't find a clean pair of socks, the kids are hiding underneath the bed and your back problems just flared up again last night, and your kitchen looks like a cereal bomb just exploded, why? Because worship takes work and it's Sunday and it's time to go to church. And you think to yourself, "People, it shouldn't take this long to get to church! It shouldn't be this hard, what are we doing here?" You mention Chick-fil-A, everybody is in the car before you can find the keys. You mention church, you've got to send a recon team out to find your people. You know it's true, I see some of you just hop that curb out there and fish tail into the parking spot at 90 miles an hour. Worship takes work.

And we know it takes work. And sometimes it feels like carrying a stone, it's just that that stone is your child, kicking and screaming, and you forgot to fill up the car with gas, you're already running late, and you're supposed to greet this morning. And in that moment, it feels like work, but hear me, that work, is worship. That work is worship because in your heart you are choosing the purposes of God. You are choosing His importance over your own convenience. God looks upon that work with delight.

It also teaches us that your vocation is worship. It says how these returning exiles offered all their sacrifices of thanksgiving and all of their freewill offerings to support the economy of worship. They offered more than just an animal for their own personal sins. They offered money, they offered flour and food and grain and drink and oil to support the work that God has for His people. And they had those things to offer because they came back into the land and they started their vocations, they cultivated their fields. They worked in their lands and they offered back that produce to the God that gave it to them in the first place. And they contributed to the work of God's people.

Your job is worship too. Your vocation is worship too. It's God's provision for you. And through it, you can give your sacrifices of thanksgiving, those freewill offerings to support the work that God has for His people.

And that teaches us that worship is corporate. Everyone had their place in this rebuilding effort, rebuilding worship took everybody. Some carried a stone, some mixed mortar, some had to haul that animal up 15 feet, some had to kill it, some had to stoke that fire day and night to burn down those sacrifices - but they did it together.

Our worship is corporate too, every week we have the Lord's Table, because somebody carried a stone. Every week we have music and nursery and Sunday School because somebody mixed mortar. We have ministries and community groups and events because somebody made a sacrifice for you. And all of that is mortared together by the Spirit of God. And it's where God promises to meet with His people.

And when that happens, it teaches us that worship is joyful, because when they were done, they celebrated these feasts. These were not like a little party, these were a massive events, huge events, where God told His people, "Just stop, enjoy one another, have fun, rejoice in my goodness to you." God actually commands His people to have a good time, why? Because worship leads to joy, worship leads to rejoicing. It's just that the work is what made their joy complete. But the only way all of that work could happen, the only way all of this work of worship could be rebuilt, was if worship was rebuilt in their hearts first. It was through doing this work that it revealed the desires of their hearts.

So, where do you start with all this? What does it mean for you?

Maybe you think, "You know what, yeah, I need to read my Bible and pray more. I should do that." And yes, that's great. But that will always be true. It also misses the point. Because there's a deeper invitation in this passage to you. And it's the same invitation that God gave Israel. It's the invitation to rebuild worship in a desolate place.

Maybe the last year has revealed that your marriage is a desolate place. God's presence hasn't been sought and not living by His Word has left rubble and ruin. And God wants to rebuild worship and it's time to pick up the first stone.

Maybe the last year has made your life or your job feel like a desolate place. And God wants to rebuild worship and have a sense of purpose in the midst of all of that seemingly pointless work.

Maybe it's the desolation of your calendar. You're so busy because your calendar is so full, yet you still feel so empty. And God wants to rebuild worship by bringing reorder and peace to all that rubble and to all that chaos.

And I know some of you have experienced tremendous loss over the last year, and God wants to rebuild worship in the desolation of your grief and your sorrow.

And I know some of you are thinking, maybe, "I don't have any desolation in my life, I'm good." Maybe. The alternative is perhaps that maybe you've just grown accustomed to living in the desolation of your own apathy. You haven't cared about your faith for a long time. You hit autopilot long ago and you have coasted and week after week you are just here. You haven't been a participant, you've grown accustomed to being a spectator. And God wants you to know a new sense of purpose. What is worship about? It's the fact that God wants all of you, not a little bit. And it's the fact that God wants to give you all of Himself. And He wants to rebuild that sense of purpose that left so long ago. He wants to rebuild that sense that He's doing something whenever you've grown so accustomed to just sitting in this rubble that you don't care about.

Perhaps it's the desolation of failing health, the desolation of betrayal, feeling unappreciated, addiction, feeling alone, feeling untethered and lost, whatever it is, whatever that desolation might be, know this: that no matter how much rubble or ruin, God desires to bring restoration to your life. He desires to rebuild your life around His presence in all things. And where His presence is, there is freedom, there's joy, there's gladness, there is hope. And how much of that have you felt lately?

But then again, that sounds like a lot of work, doesn't it? Why go to all that work? Why not just read your Bible tomorrow and hit up a couple of Psalms and call it good? It's because of how much God desires to meet you in that desolate place. It's because of how much God desires to dwell with you, do you know how much that cost?

Jesus tells us about that very desire of God in a conversation that He had with a Samaritan of all people. He's at a water well and it's just Him and a Samaritan woman. And that hostility is still alive and well, all those 100's of years later, because she says, "Why are you talking to me? You're not supposed to be talking to me." But Jesus talks with her anyways because she's not His enemy. He's not afraid of her, He's actually waiting for her because He wants to meet her in the desolation in her life.

And they get into this whole conversation, they kind of dance around each other for a little bit. She finally just says, "Well the Jews say that you should worship on this mountain, and Samaritans say you should worship on this mountain, what do you think?"

Jesus says, "Forget all that, forget all of that. There's coming a day when neither location will matter. There's coming a day, whenever you won't have to go and worship and worship won't be rooted in some geographical location. It will happen in spirit and in truth, regardless of location." And regardless of the desolation that exists.

And he's speaking about that moment on the cross, whenever He said, "It is finished" and He gave up His spirit, what happened? The curtain in the temple was torn in two and the spirit of God burst out and went out into this exhilic world to bring His exiles of every tribe, every tongue and every nation home. Home to a world that cannot be found in this world. The Spirit of God went out to a world to build worship in every corner of the desolation of this world, whether it's in your home or the jungles of the deep forest. And the price of that was the cost of Christ the Son, so that you might know how much God desires to dwell with you.

So why are you here? The story reminds us of why God is here. It reminds us that He invites all of us to recommit to the work of worship and it's the work that leads to joy and rejoicing.

Because in it God promises to meet His people and may we gather as one man, pick up a stone and rebuild together.