This passage is all about the time, talent and treasure that Israel invested into laying the foundation of the temple in Jerusalem and it’s also about the response of the people once the foundation was finished. Have you ever set out to build something?
Whenever you set out to build something, it is vitally important that you do not skimp or cut corners on the front end of building. Whether you are in the beginning stages of building a family, a marriage, a business, a non-profit or even an old automobile in your garage… we all know that if you cut corners or skimp on the foundational parts that will not be seen later, then you will have major issues down the road.
I was thinking about this over this past week in light of the nine years of memories of planting this church. I remember starting out with four other adults in our living room… I remember the six or seven places we met in over the years as we grew… I remember some of the greatest joys of seeing the look on the faces of newly baptized believers… I remember the day we received the deed to this building and the property.
I also remember some of the most painful and lonely seasons of leadership over the last nine years… friends who melted down their lives and needed to be disciplined… people who began attending for a while who never contributed anything of their time, talent or treasure but weirdly found some kind of reason to leave while typically putting me on blast for something… I remember the pain of walking with different folks who were fighting their way through various addictions, broken relationships, painful losses, and sinful patterns.
Building a church amidst the ash heaps of human brokenness has had its ups and downs for sure. And the last nine years have definitely been costly, there’s never a shortage of the need for faithful leaders, and I cannot tell you how often I have had to repent and course correct after getting sidetracked from God’s main calling on us – which is to be a family of broken people from all walks of life who exist to glorify God as we run a rescue mission within a yard of hell by sharing the gospel, planting disciples, training leaders and multiplying missionaries.
Building something is costly, it requires leadership, and it also requires a rock-solid focus on what is important. This is exactly what we see in the text in front of us. Israel spends a bunch of resources to build the foundation of the temple, they organize leaders to oversee the process of building and then some of them respond to the progress of the building project by praising God. Look at the text with me…
EZRA 3:6 – 13…
6From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the LORD. But the foundation of the temple of the LORD was not yet laid. 7So they gave money to the masons and the carpenters, and food, drink, and oil to the Sidonians and the Tyrians to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea, to Joppa, according to the grant that they had from Cyrus king of Persia. 8Now in the second year after their coming to the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month, Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak made a beginning, together with the rest of their kinsmen, the priests and the Levites and all who had come to Jerusalem from the captivity. They appointed the Levites from twenty years old and upward, to supervise the work of the house of the LORD. 9And Jeshua with his sons and his brothers, and Kadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah, together supervised the workmen in the house of God, along with the sons of Henadad and the Levites, their sons and brothers. 10And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, the priests in their vestments came forward with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the LORD, according to the directions of David king of Israel. 11And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the LORD, “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever toward Israel.” And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. 12But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy, 13so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away.
Once again… Building something is costly, it requires leadership, and it also requires a rock-solid focus on what is important. But do not forget where we are at in the story. After seventy years in captivity because of Israel’s disobedience, God moves on the heart of a pagan king to set Israel free and to send her back to her homeland with necessary resources for the journey and permission to rebuild the temple. If God can speak and work through a pagan king, he can certainly speak and work through you and me.
Remember too, that the list of names of the people that were sent back in chapter two, was an extremely long list of names. That list is a great reminder that your name and my name is on a list in heaven if we have trusted in the crucified, risen and returning Christ. We are like the Israelites – we have been set free by the cross and the empty tomb of Jesus, therefore our names are on a list right alongside other slaves who have been ransomed and redeemed and have been transformed from sinners into saints. What is the expected response of someone who has been ransomed and redeemed from the ash heaps of sinful rebellion?
The answer is what we saw in the first six verses of chapter three: Israel built the alter – which is a bloody image foreshadowing the cross of Christ – and then they sacrificed and worshipped in the midst of the rubble of the old temple that had been destroyed throughout their years of captivity. The main question for us as we think about that is: “What kind of rubble has God redeemed you from and what kind of rubble are you asking him to redeem you from and what is stopping you from giving your life to him in worship in the midst of that rubble?”
This is everything that has preceded the text in front of us today. Israel has not built their own homes yet and they have not established their own livelihood yet. They are completely focused on rebuilding the temple and worshipping God amidst the rubble as they rebuild. There is a sense of worshipful excitement in the air as they begin to tangibly invest in the work of building the foundation of the temple.
What is it that you believe God is calling you to build right now? Maybe he is calling you to invest in your daily walk with him. Maybe he is calling you to invest in building a new ministry. Maybe he is calling you to invest in rebuilding your family or some broken relationship. What is he calling you to build right now? Because here is the thing… building something is costly… building something requires leadership and building something requires intense focus.
#1: BUILDING SOMETHING IS COSTLY (VV. 6 – 7)
Do you ever struggle with the cost involved in building something? In verse 6 we see the people of Israel worshipping God as they participate in the burnt offerings and bloody sacrificial system of the altar. But then in verse 7 we see that all of Israel gives the money, food and drinks to the laborers who are going to do the work of building the temple foundation.
I do not know how much money, food and drink was given but I can imagine that it was quite a bit. I worked in the trades for a number of years as a sheetrocker and built my own drywall business and I know that the cost of building a new home is not cheap. Whenever you set out to build something – a home, a business, a family, a friendship – it is going to cost you something.
And the hard part for me is calculating the cost on the front edge and preparing myself for the commitment of investing into whatever I am about to build. Sometimes I get into building something, and I wonder if I can handle the cost of what I am trying to build. And sometimes – if I am completely honest – I get tired of investing because the process of building is usually slower than I want it to be. I also have a problem with wondering sometimes if anyone else is going to invest in the building process like I am. Can you hear the inconsistency and the pride in what I am confessing?
#2: BUILDING SOMETHING REQUIRES LEADERSHIP (VV. 8 – 9)
What has your experience with leadership been like? Nothing gets done until leaders step up to the plate and say, “here I am, send me, I’ll do the work”. And in verses 8 – 9 we see a whole bunch of leadership structure. Two dudes whose names are hard to pronounce begin the work of gathering other leaders and appointing them to various aspects of the building project.
If you have ever turned wrenches or swung a hammer or stood behind a cash register or unloaded trucks or driven delivery trucks or tried to keep a classroom of kids under control, then you know what a hard day’s work feels like and you also know that hard days of work require you and others around you to be faithful hard-working leaders. You have to be who you say you are, and you have to do what you say you are going to do.
But the craziness is this… no matter how faithful and no matter how hard of a worker you are, you still have those days when you get lazy, or you mismanage your time, or you fail to plan ahead. The same stuff happens when we are trying to build things like families, ministries, friendships, marriages, or our relationship with God. We get lazy because we are sinful, and we have a tendency to become self-centered and instead of investing we begin consuming and then we quit leading faithfully. Have you experienced how hard it is to remain faithful as a leader; to keep your head in the game when the going gets tough?
#3: BUILDING SOMETHING REQUIRES INTENSE FOCUS (VV. 10 – 13)
How focused are you on what God wants to build? Building something can definitely be costly and it definitely requires leadership. But building something also requires intense focus on what is most important. And in verses 10 – 13 we see how the builders finish the temple foundation and the people respond to the progress they see. The temple itself is not rebuilt yet but the foundation is finished so the people respond by holding a good old fashioned outdoor praise and worship service.
The priests are all dressed up in their Sunday-best, the band is playing some lively music, and everyone is singing songs about the goodness of God’s steadfast and eternal love towards his people. Some scholars say there might have been upwards of 100,000 people in attendance, singing and shouting as they praised God in the midst of this building project.2
Can you imagine 100,000 people shouting and praising God? Can you imagine the excitement and the energy and the forward momentum that would have been felt in these moments? Everyone for miles around could hear what was happening. Nothing could stop this building project now, right? They had the money. They had the right team of leaders. The foundation was finished, and they were throwing a big old-fashioned party to celebrate and give thanks to God. What could possibly go wrong here?
It is gut wrenching for me to tell you that this whole thing comes to a screeching halt for the next seventeen years. Why? Why does everything come to a screeching halt? The answer is somewhat veiled in the text but verse 12 says that amidst the joyful praise “many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid.”
What does this tell us? Well, when you do a little digging and some extra study, you will find that the prophecy of Haggai (mentioned in 5:1) reveals that the priests, Levites and heads of houses were weeping because the new temple would never be as glorious as the old one; they missed the good old days so much that they influenced the entire nation of Israel to give up on the building project because it would never be the same; they lost focus on what was most important; they lost focus on the fact that they had been set free by the God who loves to rebuild broken people because they listened to voices from the past.3
CONCLUSION…
I probably lose my focus on what is important more often than I even realize. I would think that the things that God wants to rebuild in my life, typically stall out not because he is unable to do the work, but more likely because I stop investing or I become unfaithful as a leader, or I just flat out get distracted from what is most important and I wander off into sinful patterns again; the voices of the past are powerful little enemies.
But this is the beauty of the gospel. If we were just a “three points to pump you up” or a “four points to improve your life” kind of a church (as if the Bible actually supports that kind of thing) then I would just leave off right here and challenge everyone to invest more, lead more faithfully and stay focused. But the problem is that you and I both know that we will all walk out of here and fail in one of these areas if not all three of these areas soon. This is why the gospel is so very important. You see, the Bible speaks of a man named Jesus and everything in the Bible is actually about Jesus.
When it comes to investing the cost to build something, I know a man named Jesus who gave his life on a cross so that you and I could be set free and be rebuilt; it cost him his life.
When it comes to faithful leadership, I know a man named Jesus who never made a mistake in leadership… he never padded his timecard, he never cut corners, he never called in sick because he was up late partying and he never used other leaders as steppingstones on the way to the top.
When it comes to intense focus, Jesus never got caught up with lamenting the past, he was always about what his Father was doing right now in the work of redemption… this is why he set his face like a stone as he headed towards Jerusalem with his heart full of joy, ready to die on a cross for broken sinners like you and me.
Here’s the thing… if Israel could have held onto the truth that God had just set them free, that he had redeemed them from slavery and captivity, then instead of listening to voices from the past, they would have praised God wholeheartedly.
When people ask me why I am planting a church or why I love to be part of building new ministries, I sometimes biff it and give stupid, selfish answers. The reality is that I wish my answer was always consistently… “Because Jesus redeemed me; he ransomed me; he took me in as a sinner, and he is rebuilding me into a saint despite my consistent failures; despite my sin.”
When Israel sang to the Lord in verse 11, they were praising God because “he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.” When I remain focused on the fact that the bloody cross, the empty tomb and the hope of heaven is proof of God’s never-ending love towards me… then and only then am I positioned to be rebuilt by the Master Builder who loves to restore and rebuild people out of the ash heaps of the brokenness of sin.
So, while I asked at the beginning of this message – what are you trying to build – I really want to ask this in closing: What is God wanting to rebuild in you? Are you willing to surrender to him and let him do the work? Can you see the bloody cross, the empty tomb and the promise of heaven? Or are you listening to that other voice that wants you to live in the past?
1 Unless otherwise specified, all Bible references in this paper are to the English Standard Version Bible, The New Classic Reference Edition (ESV) (Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, 2001).
2 Derek W. H. Thomas, Ezra and Nehemiah: Reformed Expository Commentary, (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P&R Publishing, 2016), 43.
3 Ibid., 42 – 45.