foundation 19

We are going to start with chapter 8 of Ezra this week. Now it is one of those chapters of lists of names and I really don’t know what to do with those sometimes. So I will let you read them at your leisure if you want to. The rest of the chapter is about protecting the wealth of the temple until it can be placed safely in the temple. Remember that the Babylonians had given the Israelites all of the utensils and the wealth that had been there to take back with them. It seems to me that Ezra had been staying back in Babylon with the wealth of the temple waiting for the time when the temple was ready to receive it.

I find that interesting. In some ways that is a picture of us as believers. We have been given the wealth of salvation – we have the righteousness of Christ, we have all authority in heaven and earth and yet the spirit waits to let us utilize all that God has given us until we are ready to hold it. Does that make sense? I have in the course of my life time seen people (and have been of the people) who have seen the good gifts that God has given us in his word and then tried to go out and use them without being ready. Sometimes you have to grow into your armor before you can use it. Sometimes you’re too weak to pick up the sword of the spirit in battle and use it effectively. That is why growing up is so important. God has called us to grow up and be adults in the kingdom. He is waiting for us to grow up before he gives us the wealth Christ won for us.
Anyway back in the passage, I want to focus in on a couple of verses. When Ezra and the boys were ready to bring the wealth and put it in the temple, instead of just getting in the car and heading out, Ezra called for a fast. Why? Look at verse 21 about midway through: that we might humble ourselves before our God to seek from Him a safe journey for us, our little ones, and all our possessions. 22For I was ashamed to request from the king troops and horsemen to protect us from the enemy on the way, because we had said to the king, "The hand of our God is favorably disposed to all those who seek Him, but His power and His anger are against all those who forsake Him." 23So we fasted and sought our God concerning this matter, and He listened to our entreaty.

Remember last week I talked about receiving wealth from the wicked. In this passage we see that Ezra doesn’t want to ask the unbelievers for protection because he has already told them that God will protect them with His strong hand. And so Ezra calls those in the group to fast and humble themselves before God. That would include not just the physical act of fasting but confessing sin, asking for forgiveness. You see these things are essential to walking on the path of righteousness. They are essential to walking in covenant blessing. Being humble before God in every area of life is the key to having a positive covenant relationship with the father. I’m sorry that we as a people haven’t been taught that. We don’t see the correlation between our salvation and walking in righteousness but it is there and it is required by God and by Jesus- If you love me keep my commandments. Do these things and live.

Back in the passage, they humble themselves before God, divide up the load between the men and then proceed on their journey. Now listen to what Ezra says to all that are with him: "You are holy to the LORD, and the utensils are holy; and the silver and the gold are a freewill offering to the LORD God of your fathers. 29"Watch and keep them until you weigh them before the leading priests, the Levites and the heads of the fathers' households of Israel at Jerusalem, in the chambers of the house of the LORD." 30So the priests and the Levites accepted the weighed out silver and gold and the utensils, to bring them to Jerusalem to the house of our God.
How does that apply to us? If you are in Christ Jesus you ARE holy to the Lord. You have been given a valuable treasure to carry with you. You have the Holy Spirit inside you. You have the word of God implanted in your heart. Those things are not to be trivialized. You are called before the foundation of the world to do good works that have been prepared especially for you. That is a glorious thing. And that is just the tip of the iceberg of all of the wealth that God has given us.

I want you to be aware of just how valuable the word of God applied to the real world is: it will change the destinies of people and of nations. I’m not talking about the word of God in your head; or the word of God in your quiet times. Those things may be well and good but if the word of God only stays in your head and doesn’t make it out to the rest of your body and the rest of your life then it is worthless. It’s the same as burying a talent in the back yard. Unless you apply the word of God in the real world of your life you will never see the fruits of it. The word of God is not a magic potion or a set of magic words that you can say and make every thing ok regardless of what you do. The word of God is given to us to apply to every area of life. The word of God is about your work. It is about your marriage. It is about your family. It is about your relationships. It is about your recreation time. It is about your automobiles and your houses and all the mountains of stuff that each and everyone of us have. It is about your sports teams, your business deals, your investment opportunities, your card games and everything else you can think of.

You don’t just accept Jesus then baptize all of your life with religious words and make it ok. This wealth that you carry around with you has to be applied to everything you do. You have to learn to live on the path of life with everything you do. You have to learn to think biblically about everything you do. That doesn’t mean that you have to use religious words everywhere you go. What that means is that you work unto the Lord and you work for his glory. And when you are at work you work. I’m speaking to myself as much as anyone here. And when you are working you are being HOLY and the work that you are doing is HOLY and all that means is that it is set apart to the Lord. You are working for him and for his glory. You are creating wealth for God and the expansion of his kingdom. Your work is his work and the work that you do is one of the good things that he has planned for you to do with your life.

Oh I wish I would have known that when I was14 or 15 but nobody I knew knew that. I didn’t hear any of this at church. We were too busy wanting to leave the planet. Back then holiness was quiting your day job to be in ministry. Holiness was anything but working in the mundane things of life. Well, unfortunately that is not what scripture says at all. Holiness according to scripture is doing everything, even the mundane things of life with the goal of walking on the path of life. Holiness is setting aside your will and humbling yourself in order that you may stay on the path of life.

Trust me, you can pursue the ministry and the things that we consider spiritual in our day and age and not be on the path of life. Part of our problem is that we have so narrowed down what ministry and being spiritual is that we don’t have a clue what the bible says is spiritual. The bible calls us to simply apply the word of God to our hearts and lives in the midst of the real world in the everyday activities of life. That is what biblical spirituality is: nothing more, nothing less.

It is when we walk the journey of life on the path of life, in accordance to the word of God and with humble hearts that we can trust that as it says in 31: that the hand of our God was over us, and He delivered us from the hand of the enemy and the ambushes by the way.
So by the end of chapter 8 the temple has been rebuilt and it is full of all the gifts that are supposed to be there. The church is up and running, at least a minimal level. The body of Christ is beginning to grow toward maturity. That’s a good thing. If you remember from last week I talked about the sign of maturity or of humbleness before the Lord is that in the midst of the heat of life God causes the dross of our hearts to be brought to the surface to be dealt with.
Well, chapters 9 and 10 deal with that very thing. Now it is in a context that might make us uncomfortable but these things were written for our examples and sometimes to apply the examples you have to look deeper than the surface. I’m going to try to do that in what is coming up. Let’s start by reading chapter 9. 1Now when these things had been completed, the princes approached me, saying, "The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, according to their abominations, those of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians and the Amorites. 2"For they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has intermingled with the peoples of the lands; indeed, the hands of the princes and the rulers have been foremost in this unfaithfulness."
Now the first instinct for me when reading this passage is to say that it is about marrying different nationalities but we must remember that all of scripture is written as a guide for us and it all must be examined before declaring this is what is meant by this passage. And so with this issue of marriage I want you to remember if you can the lineage of Jesus and who was in it. There was a Canaanite and a Moabite who were both godly people: Rahab and Ruth. We must also remember that even the people coming out of Egypt during the exodus weren’t racially pure there were many Egyptians that chose to follow as well. This is not a passage about physical marriage. It is about being spiritually united with non-biblical ideas and ways of living or if you want to get religious: ways of worship.

What we have in this mix is Christians being so co mingled with unbelievers that they can’t see the path of life. I think this is a perfect example of the culture we live in. We have so comingled ideas from everywhere that we really don’t have a clue what the scripture says about anything. We run our churches like a business. We try to get people to focus their lives around a building like it was a country club or something. We mix the word of God with various other philosophies and ideologies and we still call it Christianity.

I would say that the main point of this passage is that when the church gets on its feet and is moving toward maturity one of the first things that begins to happen is that we begin to learn to think christianly. We begin to give up the mixed marriages where we try to serve the God of scripture in ways that are at the heart opposed to his very existence and his very nature. It’s like trying to follow after God by following the devil.

Now it is never that overt. It is much more subtle than that but the results are much the same. It’s interesting that in the heat of battle this stuff never came up. They have been working together side by side for over 10 years and now some of the leaders bring it up. That goes back to the dross thing. You see you come to Christ just as you are. While you were yet a sinner Christ died for you but you’re hard pressed to find a passage that says that once you came to Christ God encouraged you to stay in your sin. It’s not there.

Here is a church. They are just getting on their feet and as they begin to walk: sin begins to become evident.

Look at Ezra’s response: When I heard about this matter, I tore my garment and my robe, and pulled some of the hair from my head and my beard, and sat down appalled. 4Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel on account of the unfaithfulness of the exiles gathered to me, and I sat appalled until the evening offering.

Let’s stop there. Notice that he doesn’t scream and yell at anyone. He doesn’t point fingers. He basically humbles himself before God even more. I realize that these things are alien to our culture: tearing your clothes, pulling out your hair, and then sitting down. I don’t understand the whys of it. But I understand the heart behind it. I am beginning to understand just how disastrous it is for the body of Christ to leave the path of life. I am starting to figure out that sin, even just a little bit of it, is devastating to our mission.
Now we have lived so long with sin being our closest friend that we have a difficult time in our generation seeing clearly the devastation that has been wrought upon us because of sin both in our own lives and in our culture but it is horribly great. It is worth ripping your clothes and plucking out your beard; because it is that sad.

So Ezra humbles himself in the presence of God and the rest of the church for the rest of the day after he hears. Then in verse 5 we read: But at the evening offering I arose from my humiliation, even with my garment and my robe torn, and I fell on my knees and stretched out my hands to the LORD my God; 6and I said, "O my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift up my face to You, my God, for our iniquities have risen above our heads and our guilt has grown even to the heavens. 7"Since the days of our fathers to this day we have been in great guilt, and on account of our iniquities we, our kings and our priests have been given into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity and to plunder and to open shame, as it is this day. 8"But now for a brief moment grace has been shown from the LORD our God, to leave us an escaped remnant and to give us a peg in His holy place, that our God may enlighten our eyes and grant us a little reviving in our bondage. 9"For we are slaves; yet in our bondage our God has not forsaken us, but has extended loving kindness to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to give us reviving to raise up the house of our God, to restore its ruins and to give us a wall in Judah and Jerusalem. 10"Now, our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken Your commandments, 11which You have commanded by Your servants the prophets, saying, 'The land which you are entering to possess is an unclean land with the uncleanness of the peoples of the lands, with their abominations which have filled it from end to end and with their impurity. 12'So now do not give your daughters to their sons nor take their daughters to your sons, and never seek their peace or their prosperity, that you may be strong and eat the good things of the land and leave it as an inheritance to your sons forever.' 13"After all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and our great guilt, since You our God have requited us less than our iniquities deserve, and have given us an escaped remnant as this, 14shall we again break Your commandments and intermarry with the peoples who commit these abominations? Would You not be angry with us to the point of destruction, until there is no remnant nor any who escape? 15"O LORD God of Israel, You are righteous, for we have been left an escaped remnant, as it is this day; behold, we are before You in our guilt, for no one can stand before You because of this."
Oh that God would give each and every one of us hearts like this that yearn to be righteous and are broken hearted over our sin when it is revealed to us. I’m afraid we have written this kind of stuff off as Old Testament mumbo jumbo. We don’t need to act like that because now we have Jesus. That is a sad but true fact. We have so dumbed down the faith that has been handed down to us, so minimized everything that nothing is important anymore. Being grieved by sin, having the desire to be pure in our thinking by not mixing non biblical ways of thinking and living; these things are alien to us. They have been for a long time: Since the early church fathers mixed the scriptures with Greek philosophy. And even all the way back through the Old Testament.

I want to interject something here: Do not think for a moment that in order to find the best religion you have to go back in time, maybe to the time of the Apostles? I want you to understand that the apostles didn’t have it down any better than we do. We may actually have more insight on a lot of things than they did. They were for the most part struggling to discern the difference between the good news and the religion they had grown up with. It was a horrible struggle fraught with difficulties and wrong turns.

There were no good old days that we should look back on. The Good days lie ahead of us. In the time of Noah there was one righteous person who found favor with God. We are growing toward the kingdom of God filling the whole earth. Just because the New Testament isn’t has open and honest about the lives of the apostles and believers at that time doesn’t mean that they were any better than the people who came before them. The Old Testament pictures of how people act are truthful pictures of the way the earth is and will be until the kingdom of God fills every square inch. Just because we are used to seeing spotless facades of people who pose for the cameras and make everything look nice doesn’t mean that is how the world is.

When I was home for the birth of my grandson awhile back I was looking at old pictures and I happened upon a set of pictures of one of the worst days of, if not the worst day of my life. Now unless you were me or my ex-wife you would never know that to be true. There were smiles and hugs and parents and kids all having a great time. But underneath the façade I had had a stake driven through my heart that day.

Don’t let wish for the façade. Don’t long for everything to be picture perfect so much that you try your best to escape reality. God has called us to open and honest and real about the condition of the world we live in. We need to pull our heads out of the sand and live in the real world with a faith that is reality based. Until we do that we will remain a laughing stock and the wealth of the temple will never be allowed to be released to us.

Our calling as believers is not to pretend that everything is ok but to humbly submit our real selves before God and be willing to be who God made us to be even if we don’t like how that looks to the rest of the world. The rest of the world is not your judge. God the father is your judge. You will be held accountable for how you handle the truth of your life in light of scripture. If you bury your life in the illusion of perfection then you will miss the glorious opportunity to be transformed into all that you are meant to be. You see when the scripture says that liars will not enter the kingdom of God this is just a bit of what it is talking about.
The call is for us to humble ourselves before God in every area of our lives. It is to be open and honest with God about our condition, not for his sake, he already knows what your like on the inside. We confess for our own sakes that the wealth of the righteousness of Christ can begin to transform us not just on the outside but at the very core of who we are so that we may be saved to the uttermost.

May God pour out his grace upon each one of us that we may be changed to be like him – holy as he is holy.

Let’s pray.
Oh Father have mercy upon us. Change our hearts. Change our minds. Change our bodies so that we may be like Christ in every area of life. In Jesus name we ask these things. Amen.

Here the word of the Lord from Philippians chapter 1:
2Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, 4always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, 5in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now. 6For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. 7For it is only right for me to feel this way about you all, because I have you in my heart, since both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers of grace with me. 8For God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. 9And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, 10so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; 11having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.