INTRODUCTION
• SLIDE #1
• The return home! What an awesome event! Seventy years in captivity and now it is time for the Israelites to go home!
• God turns the heart of Cyrus, the Persian king, toward the Jews and Cyrus releases the Jews to return to Jerusalem and build their temple.
• God once again keeps His promises.
• When God opened the door for the captives to return to their homeland, God asked them to do something. This was something that was important to God.
• God wanted the nation to rebuild the temple. Cyrus was going to foot the bill to see the reconstruction and he returned all the gold and silver that King Nebuchadnezzar had taken when he ransacked Jerusalem.
• We need to understand that not ALL of the captives went home. There was three stages to the return, this first one in 538 BC, then a second one in 458 when Ezra was Priest, then a final one in 444 under Nehemiah when the city walls were rebuilt.
• The Jews did nothing to cause their return to their homeland, it was all God. God inspired Cyrus and future Persian leaders to allow the return.
• God had been so good to the nation even in the midst of their constant disobedience. God loves them and He is always pursuing them with His love.
• Have you ever gotten to the point where you maybe forget or overlook the blessing you have from God?
• Have you ever been in a situation where His priorities are no longer yours? Life gets busy, and over time what is important to God becomes trivial for you? It can happen so easily.
• This is what will happen to those who were blessed to return back home.
• The question becomes this, what does God do when we make what is important to God, trivial.
• Now let’s begin our journey by looking at Ezra 1:1-3. Chapters 1-6 Ezra’s book is historical while the final chapters 7-10 are biographical.
• SLIDE #2
• Ezra 1:1–3 (NIV) In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah, the LORD moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing: “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: “ ‘The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Any of his people among you may go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the LORD, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem, and may their God be with them.
• SLIDE #3
SERMON
I. Why was the temple so important to God?
• Notice that it is God who moved the heart of Cyrus to allow the people to go back to Jerusalem. God also had a driving purpose for wanting them to go home. God wanted the temple to be rebuilt.
• HE allowed Nebuchadnezzar to come in and destroy the temple in 586. Now He wants it rebuilt!
• God had a passion to see the temple restored. Why?
• It seems there are three overarching issues as to why God was so passionate about the restoration of the temple.
• First. God has a passion to dwell among His people. The temple was a picture of that passion.
• The temple represented God dwelling among His people.
• This passion has been there from the beginning.
• SLIDE #4
• Genesis 3:8 (NIV) Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
• The second reason the temple was important was God’s Problem. The problem God faces is that He is 100% holy and sin free, but mankind is far from that.
• God loves mankind but the dilemma is our sin separates His people and the world from Him.
• Free-will allows us to accept or reject God. Sin is the issue that causes us to be out of tune with God. So because of sin, this leads to the third reason the temple was so important to God.
• This leads to God’s solution.
• God requires a blood sacrifice so we can regain access to His presence. Ultimately that came from Jesus, but until Jesus’ ministry the blood of goats and bulls put a cover of the sins until Jesus would come and become the ultimate sacrifice.
• SLIDE #5
• Hebrews 9:13–14 (NIV) The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!
• Since the destruction of the temple the sacrificial system had pretty much ceased to exist so God wanted the temple restored so that the sacrifices would start again to give the people a picture of the importance of holiness was.
• God wanted the people to go back and rebuild the destroyed temple. It was something that was important to Him.
• Next we see…
• SLIDE #6
II. What was important to God became trivial to the people.
• The people stated off strong, they were excited, motivated, and they had a large number of people to help them out.
• The work was going well even though there was some opposition from the people in the surrounding areas.
• According to Ezra 3:1 by the 7th month the altar was restored and burnt offering were starting to take place as described by the Law of Moses.
• In the 2nd month of the second year (about 536) the foundation of the temple was restored.
• The people rejoiced! Well most of them.
• Those who saw the original temple wept because the foundation of Zerubbabel’s temple was not near as great as the one Solomon built.
• In verses 3-6 in Ezra 3 we see the whole sacrificial system and some of the festivals were happening again!
• Things are going well, but things started to get more difficult so the people started to lose focus.
• What was important to God, is now starting to become trivial to the people. For about 10 years the work slows then stops completely in 526 and doesn’t resume until 520 BC.
• During that 16 year period, the people took their focus off of what was important to God and began spending all their time focusing on what was important to them. They began building themselves fine homes while God’s house sat uncompleted.
• Is it not easy to do that in real life? We get busy, lose focus, next thing you know we are not praying, reading God’s word, then we stop coming to worship.
• We are not worshipping the devil, we just get distracted with life. It is one of Satan’s more stealth ways of getting us to make what is important to God, trivial.
• What will God do if anything?
• SLIDE #7
III. God has a plan to refocus His people to His purpose?
• God sends a prophet.
• How does God get us back on track? Sometimes He sends a “Prophet.” He has sent a few my way at times, many they did not even know it.
• SLIDE #8
• Haggai 1:1–4 (NIV) 1 In the second year of King Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel (SHE AL- T- O), governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jozadak (JEH HOSH O DACK), the high priest: 2 This is what the LORD Almighty says: “These people say, ‘The time has not yet come to rebuild the LORD’s house.’ ” 3 Then the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai: 4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?”
• God nails it! Why are you living in nice homes while mine is in ruin?
• As God speaks through the prophet Haggai, He goes on to explain a few things.
• Sometimes God sends seasons of trial and suffering to call His people to their purpose.
• God sends severe times of testing at times, but not all testing is a result of sin.
• SLIDE #9
• Haggai 1:5–7 (NIV) 5 Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. 6 You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.” This is what the LORD Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways.
• God is telling the people that if you want to do your own thing, you can, but then do not expect blessing to fall.
• IF what is important to God becomes trivial for us, then God has no reason to bless us until we get back on track and get our priorities back in line.
• Haggai continues…
• SLIDE #10
• Haggai 1:8–11 (NIV) 8 Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the LORD. 9 “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?” declares the LORD Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house. 10 Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. 11 I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the olive oil and everything else the ground produces, on people and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands.”
• God sends trials to wake us up and to encourage us to examine our ways!
• Look at verse 9.
• 9 “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?” declares the LORD Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house.
• The people had forgotten their initial passion. Don’t we do the same thing at times?
• WE all have things in our houses that show this. How about that new piece of exercise equipment that you had a passion for than now sits covered in clothing?
• We have many things we lose passion for, but the worst thing we can do is to lose our passion for God.
• We must strive to avoid making what it important to God, trivial.
• Parents, your children will learn what you really think about God by the way your passions do or do not line up with God’s.
• If we do not have a passion for prayer, reading God’s word or coming to worship and being actively involved in His church, what does that say to those around us?
• Just something to think about.
CONCLUSION
• Gad can never be put in the closet of lost passions. God is either the BIG thing or He is nothing.
• God will call us from our distractions that pull us from His purpose.
• As a result of seasons of testing, the people of Israel got back on track and fulfilled God’s purpose. Once they got back on track in 520 BC, they completed the temple on March 12, 516 BC!
• Jesus calls us to seek FIRST HIS KINGDOM AND HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS and God will take care of the rest!
• C.S. Lewis wrote, ““If we put first things first, we get the second things thrown in; but if we put second things first, we lose both the first and second things.”
• Do you need to realign your priorities to return to your love for Jesus?
• IS God speaking to you through a season of testing? Are you listening?
• Are you ready to get back on track or on track today?
