Ezra 3, 8 through 13. Today I was wondering when's
the last time we were in Ezra. I scoured our
website to look and we haven't had a website
with sermons on it for all that long, maybe 10,
15 years, but no sermons on there from Ezra.
So if this is your first time in Ezra or perhaps
you just haven't been there in a long time. You
can find Ezra in the Old Testament. If you run
into Nehemiah, you've gone too far. Going to
Esther, gone too far. You're going to find it
after Samuels and Kings and Chronicles. And I'll
give some historical background on this as we
go along. We're going to look at Ezra 3, 8 through
13. And it reads in this way. Now, in the second
year after the coming to the house of God at
Jerusalem, in the second month, Zerubbabel, the
son of Shealtiel, and Yeshua, the son of Jezodach,
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 20 years old
and upward. to supervise the work of the house
of the Lord. And Yeshua with his sons and his
brothers and Kadmiel with his sons, the sons
of Judah together, supervised the workmen in
the house of God, along with the sons of Hananadad
and the Levites, their sons and brothers. And
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. And 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.
But many of the priests and Levites and heads
of father's 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 so 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. This is God's holy
word. Let's pray. Father, on a night when we
give you thanks, we certainly give you thanks
for this word. We thank you for a holy word,
an inspired word, an infallible word. Father,
the word is what we need. I ask that you would
guide us through it tonight. We pray in Christ's
name. Some of you who have known me for a long
time know that prior to seminary and during seminary,
I had a different career. I was a newspaper reporter
for several years. I was a young reporter right
out of college, and if you know anything about
young reporters, they don't get the most scintillating
of stories all the time. They don't always get
the front pagers or the six o 'clock news. One
of the stories I had to cover often as a young
reporter was the opening of a brand new business
or the opening of a brand new nonprofit organization.
There would usually be some sort of groundbreaking
on new buildings that were made. And as a reporter,
all you really had to do when you went to such
a story was get the photograph. That's all people
wanted. There's a photograph that is taken, I
think, of every groundbreaking, and it's always
the people who are involved in the organization,
the leadership, some dignitaries from the community,
maybe the mayor, maybe a county council person,
maybe a congressman even. And you've seen these
pictures. These people have their shovels, and
they're dug in slightly into the ground. And
then they look up and smile real big for the
camera. It's the same thing every single time.
Nothing controversial about that kind of a story,
about that kind of a photograph. It's just all
shovels and smiles. Well, with the groundbreaking
for this new temple in Ezra 3, it's not all smiles.
There are tears that are shed just as there is
praising. There is also weeping. And you know
this. This is life. This is life under the sun.
Even during our best moments, there is still
something within us that tells us something's
not right here. How can anybody believe that
this life is as good as it gets? And so what's
the key? What's the key to living life? With
the smiles and the tears, the praising and the
weeping, how do we do it? We must maintain thanksgiving.
This text here, you might remember some of the
history behind what's happening. The Jewish people
were allowed to go home. You remember that? There
was a time when the people of God were split
into two countries. You had Israel and you had
Judah. Israel falls to Assyria in 722. Judah
falls to Babylon. The Babylonians, they come
in around 586. They take people captive out of
Jerusalem like Daniel, taking them to Babylon.
But then something happens around 539 that And
the king of Persia decrees that the people can
go home, the Jews can go home, but when they
go home they find that their hometowns, their
homes have been destroyed and the temple itself
was destroyed. And so they get there and after
a short time they begin work on the temple and
that's exactly what's happening here in our text.
Around that 536 time period look in verse 8 It's
the second year and they make a beginning and
you might say they made a beginning of what they
were making a beginning to the foundation of
the temple the place where they will worship
But we know from other books other texts that
as they sought to do this they experienced trouble
They experienced enemies coming upon them. They
experienced a lack of resources, but they press
on with all hands on deck. You see the text says
that everyone, everyone 20 years or older, the
Levites were supervising this work as the foundation
is laid. And as it is laid, as that foundation
is accomplished, what do they do? They take time
to stop and to worship, to give thanks. the thanks
that they give. This is not lukewarm worship
by any means. You see the priests are properly
clothed. They've got the trumpets in hand. The
Levites, the sons of Asaph, have the cymbals
and they sing this incredible song, this incredible
refrain that echoes throughout Scripture. For
he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.
You might remember this is in many of the Psalms,
including our call to worship from Psalm 107.
It's also in Psalm 136, where throughout 26 verses
of that Psalm, the refrain is this, his steadfast
love endures forever. And this song that they
sing, this is like when King David built the
original temple, Solomon's temple. Hundreds of
years before, there was worship then, and there's
worship now. There's this great loud worship
that is happening. But amidst that, as great
as it sounds, something was off here. Something
was off. And if you were just listening to it,
perhaps you wouldn't be able to tell because
all the noise, it all kind of blends together
in a mixture of shouting. But if you were there,
When this foundation was laid, if you were there
in this worship service, if you happened to be
standing next to an older priest, an older Levite,
an older head of household, you would have seen
something. That not everybody was praising God.
Some were weeping. Is this not the experience
of the Christian life? That we do have joy, but
it's oftentimes mixed with sorrow. sorrow over
sin, sorrow over the sins of others, sorrow over
the effects of sin. The apostle Paul captures
this brilliantly in Second Corinthians chapter
six, verses two through nine. Listen to this.
Paul writes, behold, now is the favorable time.
Behold, now is the day of salvation. We put no
obstacle in anyone's way. So no fault may be
found with our ministry, but listen for the contrasting
words. But as servants of God, we commend ourselves
in every way by great endurance, in afflictions,
hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments,
riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger, by purity,
knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit,
genuine love, by truthful speech and the power
of God. With the weapons of righteousness for
the right hand and for the left Through honor
and dishonor through slander and praise we are
treated as imposters and yet are true as unknown
and yet well known and listen to this as dying
and behold we live as punished and yet not killed
as sorrowful yet always rejoicing as poor yet
making many rich as having nothing yet possessing
everything. That's the Christian life, friends.
That's life under the sun. Psalm 34 says, many
are the afflictions of the righteous. And so
living the Christian life, living for Jesus doesn't
eliminate the trouble. It doesn't eliminate the
sorrow. It doesn't eliminate the pain. Being
a Christian helps us through it. It helps us
see beyond it. that because of the sovereignty
of God, Jesus saved us from our sin and Jesus
went to prepare a place for us without tears,
without tragedy, and without turmoil. Because
of Christ, we're able to look beyond our pain
and beyond our loss and beyond our circumstances
and still give thanks. You remember that we studied
First Thessalonians recently. What does that
book tell us? Among many things, give thanks
in all circumstances. Jesus makes it possible
to give thanks even when things don't seem so
thankful. And this is the problem. This is the
problem for the people of Ezra's time. Those
who knew of the splendor of the old temple. They
knew this new temple would not compare and so
what do they do they weep over it now if they're
weeping because Sin was the thing that led to
the destruction of the temple and sin was the
thing that led to the destruction of Jerusalem
and if sin was a thing that led them to Deportation
then they were right to weep But if their mourning
was simply over a lesser temple then they were
wrong Matthew Henry said, let not the remembrance
of former afflictions drown the sense of present
mercies. Friends, this week, this Thanksgiving
may not be your favorite. Time has passed. People
have passed. Smaller gatherings might happen.
You might miss people. You might miss the old
days. There's something about a holiday designed
to give thanks that because of our losses, we
feel it more acutely, don't we? Sometimes things
just don't measure up. Sometimes the new building
goes up, but it was never intended to amount
to the former one. That's the thing about the
Christian life, though. No matter the circumstances,
We give thanks to God. It's a mark of maturity
to be able to give thanks in difficult situations.
And this doesn't mean that we have to masquerade
as though everything is fine. But we simply trust
in the sovereign will of God to be working out
his purposes in our lives. This means that we
can call sin, sin. And we can call pain, pain.
And we can call suffering, suffering. We could
put a name to the things that bring us down and
yet because of Christ, we have hope. We have
Thanksgiving. Someone said this, perhaps Thanksgiving
and suffering then is less about mustering up
a certain feeling about our suffering than it
is about reminding ourselves of the truths that
define it. Truths like, God is good. God keeps
his promises. Jesus saves us from our sin. The
Holy Spirit indwells. The Holy Spirit helps our
prayers on the way up. A truth like, hey, Jesus
died for me. That's what gets us through these
things. Because everything that I'm saying is
seen most clearly on the cross of Christ. As
you prepared to come forward for the Lord's Supper,
you might have a mixture of emotions at the table.
Can you imagine being those who watched Jesus
be crucified? Surely at the time, if you'd have
asked somebody, is this praiseworthy? Is this
something to be thankful for? They would have
said no. Yet are we not most thankful for the
cross? Of course we are. We must be. We might
be singing with our voices, but heavy in our
hearts, yet it was the cross of Jesus that brings
us to God. And so we can, and we should, and
we must give thanks to God, even on our darkest
days, knowing that the day of weeping, the day
of the crucifixion was the day that brings us
thanksgiving. Let me read to you one more text
as I close. This is familiar to you, but listen
for the grief, the pain, but also listen for
the thanks. Isaiah 53, four and five. Surely
he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows,
yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God,
and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions.
He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was
the chastisement that brought us peace. And by
his wounds, we are healed. We have it both in
there. Grief and yet things, the ultimate thing
for which to praise God. Praising and weeping,
but in all things, in all things. giving thanks.
Let's pray.