foundation 18

We are in the book of Ezra chapter 7. If you remember last week we read that the enemies of God were trying to stir up trouble for the people of God to keep them from rebuilding the temple or from our perspective, the body of Christ. And so to stir that trouble they sent a complaint letter to King Darius the ruler of Babylon. Well, the king received their letter did a little research of his own and he found a letter that his predecessor King Cyrus had written giving permission for the Jews to go back home and rebuild the temple. And so he sent a letter back to the trouble makers which we can read starting in verse 6: Now therefore, Tattenai, governor of the province beyond the River, Shethar-bozenai and your colleagues, the officials of the provinces beyond the River, keep away from there. 7"Leave this work on the house of God alone; let the governor of the Jews and the elders of the Jews rebuild this house of God on its site. 8"Moreover, I issue a decree concerning what you are to do for these elders of Judah in the rebuilding of this house of God: the full cost is to be paid to these people from the royal treasury out of the taxes of the provinces beyond the River, and that without delay. 9"Whatever is needed, both young bulls, rams, and lambs for a burnt offering to the God of heaven, and wheat, salt, wine and anointing oil, as the priests in Jerusalem request, it is to be given to them daily without fail, 10that they may offer acceptable sacrifices to the God of heaven and pray for the life of the king and his sons. 11"And I issued a decree that any man who violates this edict, a timber shall be drawn from his house and he shall be impaled on it and his house shall be made a refuse heap on account of this. 12"May the God who has caused His name to dwell there overthrow any king or people who attempts to change it, so as to destroy this house of God in Jerusalem. I, Darius, have issued this decree, let it be carried out with all diligence!"

This whole passage kind of turns on its ear the concept that we shouldn’t use non-believers money to do the work of God. You really don’t find that anywhere. What you do find is that the people of God don’t use money of anyone who will try to take credit for doing the work that God is supposed to do. God is the giver of wealth.
It’s also good to realize that the Jews did not ask for this money from the king. They didn’t sit around and try to figure out how they could get the money to do what they thought God was calling them to do. They simply felt that God had called them to go back home and begin to rebuild and so they asked for permission to do that very thing and in the midst of trying to walk on the path of life God gave them favor with the pagans around them and they volunteered to finance the whole process.

Once they are in the land and rebuilding the foundations of the body of Christ God doesn’t immediately make everything smooth sailing. I think that is where we get off track sometimes. We think if we do what’s right and God is really going to pour out covenant blessings on us then everything should be easy but we must continually look to our examples in the old testament to see how God works in the real world. The favor that they are now receiving from King Darius didn’t come without a lot of hassle. They have been at this rebuilding for close to ten years. They started out with the favor of King Cyrus who let them come back to the land and start the rebuilding. But then trouble makers arose when a new king came into power and the rebuilding was forced to stop. After some time God encouraged the people through the prophets to return to rebuilding anyway even though the government told them that they should stop. And that brings us to this place where the third king gives them favor once again. It has been at least a 10 year journey.

It’s important to understand that God was working on his people that entire time. God is working on us when things aren’t going our way.

Unfortuantely, the all about me religion that permeates our culture today thinks that it’s only when things are good that God is truly blessing us. I don’t know if you saw it this last week or not but there was a NFL player who dropped a pass last Sunday. Obviously this player is a member of the all about me church of Christ because later that day he Tweeted his anger at God by saying: I PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!! AND THIS HOW YOU DO ME!!!!! YOU EXPECT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS??? HOW???!!! ILL NEVER FORGET THIS!! EVER!!! THX THO....
Ah the power of praise. I was raised on that crazy philosophy. All you have to do is praise God for everything all the time and your life will be hassle free. That sounds good in theory and you can even find scriptures that will seem to support that view but you must take them out of the context of the whole word of God to do so. I praise you 24/7 how could you do this to me. We do that in the context of our own lives all the time or at least I do it.

I did it just this week. When the rain came on Monday I found I still had a roof leak. Instead of being thankful that I hadn’t put the dry wall on the ceiling in that room yet I got mad. Oh god why did you let this happen? I’ve worked so hard to get this stuff fixed. God probably should have said something back like Obviously you haven’t worked hard enough because the roof is still leaking. But he didn’t. My leaky roof isn’t God’s fault. We rebelled against him and his ways remember? The fall was our fault. Covenant curses abide in the land because we are still trying to get our way.

When push comes to shove I’m no different than that football player but of course I never think what happens to me is a trivial as dropping a football. That’s just a game. Now I must admit that I am getting better with the passage of time. I didn’t stay mad at God long. I found joy in realizing that he let me find the leak before I finished the ceiling and I also found myself worriedly praying that the other leaks really had been fixed. It’s hard for me to be accepting of the fact that all things work to the good even the bad and stupid stuff that I bring upon myself.

Anyway, back in the passage God gives them favor with the new king even in the midst of tribulation and he forced those that wanted to stop the building altogether to finance the rest of the building process promising to kill anybody that refused to carry out his orders.

It makes me rather sad to think that we may have never seen that kind of favor from God in our lives. Part of that is because we have got everything backwards we think up ideas of stuff we can do and then we try to figure out how we can raise the money. Usually we do that because the truth is that money is our God and we believe that all we need is enough money and we can do anything. But what we have forgotten is that money can’t change people’s hearts. Money can’t grow the body of Christ. Money is nothing in the work of God. It is the work of God that is important. If God has laid it on your heart to do something for the kingdom then the most important thing that you can do is walk on the path of life to the best of your ability and humbly confess your sin when you stray from that path. And then press forward with the resources that you have. If you have no resources press on anyway. Don’t be afraid to go to those with authority over you and say this is what God has placed on my heart because God may use them to provide what you need.

Now as you press forward you have to remember to walk on the path of life. You have to remember to keep working 6 days a week, you have to remember to provide for your family, you have to remember the basics that we are all required to do. Resources are not just financial. Time is a resource. Attitude is a resource. Family is a resource. We must learn to use our resources wisely. Press on to your calling but don’t neglect your family in the process. Don’t forget to rest one day a week. Don’t start worshiping false gods along the way. Don’t worship work by working more than 6 days in a row and not resting. That is idolatry. Don’t worship rest and long for a time when you don’t have to work anymore. Work is a godly calling and when it is done in the right balance it is a holy thing. So is rest. Both of those things are meant to be a part of the path of life but only in the right proportion: 6 parts work to one part rest.
See if you are walking on the path of life then you are free to pursue any dream that God lays on your heart. And as you walk on the path of life you can expect God to provide the means necessary to bring those things to pass because He has put them on your heart. Now if he doesn’t bring that dream to pass it doesn’t mean that you don’t have enough faith. On the contrary, what it means is that God had something he wanted to teach you through failure. Look at the old testament saints and see how many times they learned from their mistakes and from adverse circumstances that they found themselves in.

Walking on the path of life is not meant to be a piece of cake. It is meant to bring you to full maturity. It’s mean to turn you into a grown up. This whole thought process that fills our culture that our glory days are when we are kids – when we are supposedly free from responsibility is just a load of bull. We have adults that are irresponsible because we taught our children that irresponsibility was the best place to be. That is so non Christian. We should be teaching our children how to be responsible, how to work, how to be diligent. I am a living example of the horrible ramifications of not being taught to be responsible as a child. I have had to make everything up as I went along. I had to go to the school of hard knocks late in life to get where I am today. I didn’t even start the process of growing up until I was close to 30. I was a fool and I pay for it everyday.

I am finally realizing that you have to be disciplined to teach discipline to anyone. When the scriptures say teach a child in the way he should go and he will not depart from it, they assume that the one teaching understands the way that they should go. You can’t teach what you don’t know. Oh you can teach it; thousands of teachers do it everyday but you will never disciple if you are not a disciple. Does that make sense? You’ve got to BE what you are trying to instill in others because the saying ‘do what I say and not what I do’ is just a hypocrites way of trying to get off the hook. Our children become what we are because they learn by example not by words.

Again this is not a money issue. Educating children is not a financial enterprise or it shouldn’t be. It is a path of life issue. If you are walking on the path of life and your children see that they will learn to walk on the path of life – they walk where you walk. That being said there is still hope for those of us who didn’t have a clue about walking on the path of life when we were raising our kids. Our children still watch us even if they won’t admit to it. They know when we are starting to change. They know when we get off the path of destruction and onto the path of life. Discipleship is a lifelong process. Starting out bad doesn’t mean that you will end badly. It is the end of the race that determines the outcome.

I said all of that to stress that the most important thing that you can do is walk on the path of life. If you do that, if you walk in obedience to all the commands of God to the best of your humble ability then God will provide for you and he may very well do so by giving you the wealth of the wicked.

Now when the ones who were complaining about the Israelites rebuilding the temple received this letter they changed their tune immediately. They did what they were commanded to do and never complained one time. God used the authority structure of a wicked nation to advance his cause. He turned the heart of the man at the top and everybody underneath did what they were told out of fear for their own lives.

Look at verse 13: 13Then Tattenai, the governor of the province beyond the River, Shethar-bozenai and their colleagues carried out the decree with all diligence, just as King Darius had sent. The result was that the elders of the Jews were successful in building through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo and they finished building according to the command of the God of Israel and the decree of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia. 15This temple was completed on the third day of the month Adar; it was the sixth year of the reign of King Darius.

What a glorious day that must have been. It wasn’t the end of their journey there was a lot left to do as we will see. But it is important to understand that building the temple, laying the foundation and building up the body of Christ is the first step to advancing the kingdom. If the body of Christ is in shambles then discipling the nations is impossible because God works in this world through humans. Psalm 115: 16 tells us that the heavens, even the heavens are the Lord’s; but he has given the earth to the son’s of Adam. The earth is our calling, our responsibility. We will be held accountable for how we do our task of taking dominion over it.
Here in this passage the church is rebuilt – don’t think that it is perfect or without sin. There is a huge difference between being mature and being without sin. Maturity in the age we live in is about being humble before God when we are confronted with our sin. Life is meant to bring the dross to the top. We should expect to continually be finding sin rise to the top in the course of our lives it is what we do with that sin when it raises it’s ugly head that determines whether we are mature or not. If we try to cover over that sin or push it back down out of sight then we are not mature. If we recognize it as sin and say god have mercy on me save me from myself then we are headed toward maturity. That is grace in action. Real grace doesn’t let you keep pushing your sin down it enables you to confront it and deal with it and stop doing it.

As the sons of Israel moved into maturity they celebrated what God had done in his church. They celebrated with Joy. And with joyful hearts they celebrated by taking communion. That’s what the Passover meal is communion before the Lamb of God was slain on the cross. They dedicated the temple to god with sacrifices. Lot’s and lots of sacrifices.
In one sense, it is the sacrifice of Christ that has dedicated us to God. Apart from the blood of Christ we would be facing the wrath of God but now that we are in Christ he opens his arms to take us to him. We are the people that he pours his love upon. He loves so much that he will do whatever it takes to grow us up.

Notice in verse 18 that after the temple was rebuilt they put leadership in place so that they could better walk in the things of God. They appointed the priests to their divisions and the Levites in their orders for the service of God in Jerusalem, as it is written in the book of Moses. They appointed priests and these leaders supported the rest of the people by enabling them to partake of Christ. That is the task of those who are called into the ministry: to equip the saints to grow up into all things in Christ Jesus. Part of my calling is to break the bread into pieces that you can chew and swallow. My job isn’t to make you chew or swallow my job is to make the food accessible. Your job is to put it into your mouth, chew it and swallow it. You need to be partaking of Christ.

Look at verse 21 The sons of Israel who returned from exile and all those who had separated themselves from the impurity of the nations of the land to join them, to seek the LORD God of Israel, ate the Passover. What this tells me is that not only the Jews from Babylon were a part of the church but also the Samaritans- those who were forced to stay in the land and who intermarried with all the different peoples. Those people that in Jesus’ day were hated by the religious Jews were accepted by God and partook of the Passover in the new temple. The gospel is not exclusive to anyone. Anyone who is willing to repent may come. Coming to Christ demands that you leave the path of destruction and walk on the path of life. Anybody that wants to do that may partake of the body and blood of Christ.

Notice the result of this mix multitude coming together to partake of Christ: they observed the Feast of Unleavened Bread seven days with joy, for the LORD had caused them to rejoice, and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria toward them to encourage them in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel.

It is the joy of the Lord that is our strength. But that joy is not something that we can conjure up. It is a gift. As we learned to partake of Christ and to walk on the path of life, as we begin to build up one another in love and become more and more like Christ then God will CAUSE us to rejoice and as weird as it may sound he will give us favor with the wicked in order to encourage us to work on the body of Christ, the Son of the living God.

I long for that day. I want that day yesterday. And so I come to you today with the bread broken in pieces that you can consume and I beg you to humble yourselves before the living God. If you are angry at God for all those balls you think he made you drop please, please humble yourself before him today. Yield yourself to him so that we can walk on the path of life together. I’ll be honest I see that day coming. I see God stirring hearts. I see the day of rejoicing coming and I am excited about it. Hang on to Jesus. Let go of your own plans. Do his will and not yours and wait with anticipation for the promises of God to unfold.

Let’s pray. OH father please don’t let us stand in the way of you pouring out your glory on the earth. Humble us against our will if you have to. Make us like Jesus in every way. In Jesus’ name I ask these things amen.


Here the words of the Lord from Psalm 115:

O body of Christ, trust thou in the LORD: he is their help and their shield.
10O church of God, trust in the LORD: he is their help and their shield.
11You that fear the LORD, trust in the LORD: he is their help and their shield.
12The LORD hath been mindful of us: he will bless us; he will bless the house of Israel; he will bless the house of Aaron. 13He will bless them that fear the LORD, both small and great. 14The LORD shall increase you more and more, you and your children. 15Ye are blessed of the LORD which made heaven and earth. 16The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD's: but the earth hath he given to the children of men. 17The dead praise not the LORD, neither any that go down into silence. 18But we will bless the LORD from this time forth and for evermore. Praise the LORD.

Go in peace.