Good morning.
Happy Mother's Day.
We're going to continue in our series in the book of Ezra.
If you want to pull out your pew Bibles, it's page 363.
And we're going to be looking this morning at chapter 3.
And we're going to start by reading the text this morning.
So if you want to turn with me, we're going to look at the next chapter in this story of God restoring and rebuilding his people.
Ezra chapter 3, starting in verse 1.
When the seventh month came and the children of Israel were in the towns, the people gathered as one man to Jerusalem.
Then arose Joshua, son of Josedach, and his fellow priests, and Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, with his kinsmen.
And they built the altar of the God of Israel to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the law of Moses, the man of God.
They set the altar in its place, for fear was on them because of the peoples of the lands.
And they offered burnt offerings on it to the Lord, burnt offerings morning and evening.
And they kept the feast of booths, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number according to the rule, as each day required.
And after that, the regular burnt offerings, the offerings at the new moon and all the appointed feasts of the Lord,
and the offerings of everyone who made a freewill offering to the Lord.
From 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.
So they gave money to the masons and the carpenters, and food and 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.
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 Jeshua, the son of Josedach,
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 upwards to supervise the work of the house of the Lord.
And Jeshua, with his sons and his brothers, and Cadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah,
together supervised the workmen in the house of the Lord, along with the sons of Hennadad 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 sung 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, and his steadfast love endures forever towards 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 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,
so that the people could not distinguish the sound of 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.
Will you pray with me?
Amen.
Lord, as we look at this text,
this account from long ago,
of your work in this world,
of the story of your people,
Lord, I pray that you would help us
to see and understand,
Lord, the truths in this story.
Lord, help it to come alive to us
so that we might be encouraged,
so that we might be challenged.
Lord, so that we might see you more clearly,
so that we might hear your call
distinctly,
that we might respond to you as we ought.
Lord, I pray for your help this morning,
Lord, that you would give me words to speak,
clarity
in my speaking,
and Lord, that by your Holy Spirit,
we might together
sit under your word,
and Lord, watch you,
reveal yourself to us in it.
Lord, help us to be
not only hearers of your word,
but doers also.
For Jesus' sake, we pray.
Amen.
So I was thinking about this time of year,
32 years ago now,
which is kind of frightening.
I was graduating from high school
and moving on,
and I was going off to college
and looking forward to that,
but I realized that it was a momentous occasion.
Even then, I think I had an inkling of it,
and as I look back,
much more so now,
I realized that going off to college
is often the first time in our lives
when we are actually able to choose
who we are,
what we value,
and what's important to us.
Until that point,
we live in our family's houses usually,
and we live under the protection
and the provision
and within the value system of our parents,
and when we go off to college,
it's the first time
that we get to begin to choose
what does that look like?
It makes us answer the questions.
What will I invest in?
And what will be most important to me?
And of course,
this is the first step
for those of us
who have gotten beyond that stage.
We recognize this is the first step
of doing this for the rest of our lives
because then we move on to the next thing,
the new city that we move to,
the new relationship that we move into
if we get married
or the new community of friends
we move into
as we begin our workplace.
And it continues throughout life
as your children grow up
and leave the empty nest
or as you find yourself
in your 50s and 60s single.
You find yourself in new seasons
and you're always choosing.
You're always deciding
what's most important to me.
What will my life be about?
Even retirement
creates another opportunity
to decide what we want to do
with our lives.
And I think that this connects
with the story
that we read
from Ezra this morning.
You see,
remember the history
of where we're at
in the big picture.
Going all the way back,
God through Abraham
in Genesis 12 said,
I'm going to make you great people.
And then through Moses
he delivered a great people
out of slavery to Egypt
and brought them
into the promised land
and then through David
raised up a kingdom
and this great land.
But the people
consistently
found themselves unable.
They chose not to believe God
and to trust God
and to follow God
and to submit to God.
And so in this kingdom
it became increasingly
ungodly
as the people rejected God
over and over again.
And so God
in 586 BC
brought the Babylonians
to conquer Jerusalem,
to raise the city,
to sow salt in the fields
and to export the people
away from the city.
And for 50, 70 years,
what is it?
70 years total,
the people were in exile.
They were scattered
around the land.
And the book of Ezra
tells the story
of how God
has then taken people
who have been shattered
and scattered
and is now beginning
to bring them back
to restore them
and to rebuild them
as God's people.
And what we saw
in chapters 1 and 2
is how God moved
the king of Persia
who had now become
the ruler of the land
taking over
the Babylonian captivity,
how God had moved
his heart
to change the regulations
and to actually
give an edict
to declare that
the restoration
of the worship
of the God
of the Jews
in Jerusalem
was a good
and right thing
that they had
the support
of the Persian emperor
and the Persian empire.
And so what we see then
in Ezra 3,
beginning in verse 1,
is that the people,
a first contingent,
had returned
to Jerusalem
and they had gone
to their towns
and they had begun
to settle in
and they gathered.
But in this situation,
recognize a few things.
One is their needs
were great.
Their moving back
to this land
was like moving
into the Wild West
in the 1800s.
They were restarting
from scratch
and they had only
what they brought
with them.
And though they had
the political backing
of the emperor of Persia,
they didn't have
the welcome
of the people
in the surrounding lands.
We'll see that next week.
There's actually
some resistance
and opposition
to them being there
and doing
what they were doing.
They had been uprooted
from their homeland
and had lived far away
for a long time.
Had they become
more Babylonian
than Jewish?
Had they become
more Persian
than Jewish?
Jewish.
They'd also lived
for 70 years
without
the structures
of their relationship
with God.
There was no city,
no holy city
to gather to
for the feasts,
the three festivals
every year.
There was no temple
to go to.
There was no altar
to sacrifice on.
There was none
of the means
by which God
had given
his people
to relate to him
were available
to them
for 70 years.
And even as they
came back
and as Greg
preached last week
on one and two,
how much of this
there were echoes
of returning
of the second exodus,
that this is a second
deliverance of God
and bringing his people
back to himself
and back to the
promised land.
recognize also though
that the people
were much smaller
and much less wealthy.
When Joshua
led the people in,
they were a large army
and they were outnumbered
at times,
but they were
a significant people.
They are now small
and they are not able
to defend themselves.
Smaller in number
and smaller in worth.
And therefore,
as it says in verse 3,
they feared the people.
Is it verse 3?
Did I get that right?
Yes, verse 3.
They feared the people
around them
as they were entering in.
I want you to put yourself
in that position
for a second.
What would you do
if you were entering
into a land
that you felt in danger
and you felt hostile?
Right?
You've got a couple
of things you need to build.
You've got to build
your home.
You've got to build
some walls
to protect yourself.
You've got to build
a temple.
You've got to build
an altar.
Right?
Those are some things
for you to do.
Now, if it were me,
I would start with the walls
because that's what
I would want.
I would want protection first.
Once you get the walls up,
then you can start
building the buildings.
And once you get
the buildings up,
you build the temple
and then you put
the altar in place
because then it's got
protection
and then we can start doing.
So in my human mind,
that would be the order
that we would go in
if I were part
of this returning group.
And yet,
in the face
of their fear,
the people chose
to do something else.
Stephen Covey,
the guru
of time management
in the 1980s,
he's probably passé now
and people don't think
much of him,
but back in the 1980s,
he was the big deal.
Seven Habits
of Highly Effective People.
One of his principles
is put the big rocks
in your schedule.
Our time is important
and what we value
is shown
by how we spend our time
and what we invest in.
And it's at times
when we're most afraid
often that we see
the things
that are most important
to us
and where we invest
our time.
And the people
of Israel
under the leadership
of Zerubbabel
and Yeshua
started
in an unlikely place.
And in that,
I think we see
some things
for ourselves
to learn
about what is
most important
for God's people.
So that's where
we want to go today
is look at
what's most important
for God's people.
We're going to look
at two different things,
two different sections
of the passage,
one through seven.
We're going to see
that they set themselves
apart for worship.
and then we're going
to look at
eight through 13
and look at
how they set their hearts
on God's glory.
And then we're going
to think about
what this means
for us today.
So that's where
we're going.
Look with me again
at verses
one through seven
and think about
what is it
as they
in this fear
began to do things,
what did they do first?
And you see it
in verse
two,
right?
As they gathered
and the seventh month
by the way,
they gathered
at the timing
because the seventh month
was kind of like
it would have been
like Easter
or a Christmas,
a high point
in the church calendar
so to speak
for the Jewish people
in the Old Testament.
It was the month
in which the Day of Atonement
fell.
It was the month
during which
the Feast of Booths
fell.
And it was one
of the three times
of the year
where the people
were meant to gather
in Jerusalem
to offer sacrifices
and worship God.
And as they returned
the land,
it seems they were there
for a little while
and then this month
came and they gathered
in Jerusalem
and as they gathered,
they built an altar.
They didn't build walls.
They didn't build
the temple.
But they started
by building the altar
so that they could
offer up sacrifices
to God
as he had instructed them
in Leviticus
and Numbers
so long ago.
And as they had done
for many years
in the tabernacle
and then in the temple
that Solomon built
in Jerusalem,
they started with this
because in their fear
they knew that
the most important thing
was being right
with God.
the most important thing
was to honor God
because he would be
their refuge
and he would be
their protector.
There's lots of resonance
in the timing of this.
When you think about
the Day of Atonement,
if you remember
the Day of Atonement
was a time
when the high priest
would come
and bring two goats,
right,
and he would sacrifice one
and his blood
would be shed
and the other one
he would lay his hand on
and representing
the sins of the people
and then the goat
would be sent out
into the wilderness
far away.
And in both of these
pictures,
you see God saying,
you may not approach me,
a holy God,
on your own,
but
I am going to graciously
make a way for you
to approach me.
And through this
sacrificial system,
these were pointers
and signs
of how it would be
that we might approach
a holy God.
The Feast of Booths
and in-gathering
that says that they
celebrated
was a time of both
celebrating the harvest
and God's provision
and think about
how sweet that would be.
After 70 years in exile,
they've come back
and they're actually
celebrating the harvest.
Now,
it's not clear
how much harvest
they had that year
because they hadn't been there
for a full year
of agriculture yet.
And yet,
God asked them,
celebrate my provision.
And my faithfulness
to you.
And remember, too,
that the Feast of Booths
was enacted
so that they would remember
how God carried them
through the wilderness
after the exodus,
how they lived in tents
and these booths,
these makeshift houses,
so that they would remember
that their security
is not in those things,
but in the Lord.
And then,
interestingly enough,
as the author
writes about this,
he doesn't camp out
a lot on the Day of Atonement,
which is what I really
wanted to preach
to you guys about
this morning,
but it's not in the text,
so we didn't talk about it.
You can go back
and read it
in the Old Testament.
It's a great thing.
But he says
over and over again,
what they offered
was the burnt offerings.
The burnt offerings
were given
over and over
and over again.
Why?
Because the burnt offerings
were offerings
of consecration.
That is,
they were offerings
to say to the Lord,
Lord,
I am wholly yours.
They were,
the people brought that,
those offerings,
those burnt offerings
on a daily basis
to remind themselves
and to say to God,
God,
you are our God
and we are your people
and we will not worship
anyone else.
And as they did this,
you see the repetition of
and they did this
as it was written.
They were doing this
under God's instruction.
They did not come
and say,
God,
hey,
it's a new day.
You know,
we've been away
for 70 years.
Why don't we kind of
spice things up
and do some things differently?
I've liked,
I'd like to think about
some worship
doing it this way.
He says,
no.
Instead,
what you see
is them saying,
God,
we're going to return
to your word
and to submitting
to your instructions
that we cannot worship you
as we want to,
but we are called
to worship you
as you have called us to.
And this is what you see
as they're returning.
Their priority
was not safety,
but being right
with God
and establishing
the worship of God
as he had instructed.
So that's really
what you see
in verses
one through seven
is the establishment
as the people
come together
in this month,
what they say
is the most important
thing is that
we're going to worship
God the way
he told us to.
But then you see
that there's more
that the writer
brings out today
because he says,
okay,
so they built the altar,
but then the foundations
were not laid.
And it says,
so they sent out
some work orders,
they did a little
comparison shopping
with contractors,
they found some guys
up in Tyre and Sidon
who had really good
building materials
in Cyprus,
and so they planned
and then returned again
the beginning
of the next year,
the second month,
and they came back
and they laid
the foundation
of the temple.
And in this
amazing story,
there's a lot
about the organization
of setting up
the Levites
and priests,
but I think
that the high point
of it is in verses
11 and 12
because as they
build this temple,
and they haven't even
built the building yet,
Nick's going to preach
on that in like
three, two weeks,
no, Greg's going to
preach on it in two weeks,
they haven't even
built the whole temple,
they just laid the foundation,
but as they laid
the foundation,
they gathered
in song and praise,
and part of what
would strike a Jewish
writer as they were
listening to this
is that this is
the same story,
in fact,
these are the exact
same words,
for he is good
and his steadfast love
endures forever,
that were said
two other times
in the story
of the Old Testament.
The first one
was when King David
had recaptured
the Ark of the Covenant,
remember the Ark
of the Covenant
which was this box
that they carried around
that had all these signs
of God's faithfulness,
the Ten Commandments,
the rod and staff,
manna,
they carried around
things that were
reminding them
of how God
has been faithful
to them
and how he was,
had set a covenant
relationship
whereby they might
be his people
and he would be
their God.
And as this Ark
of the Covenant
is regained
from the Philistines
and brought
into Jerusalem,
in 1 Chronicles 16,
34,
they gather
the singers
and in almost
the same vocabulary,
the cymbals
and the trumpets,
the Levites
and the priests,
they celebrate
the goodness
of God
and they offer
burnt offerings
to the Lord.
and then the second
place that you see
this is in 2 Chronicles
chapter 5,
verse 13
and this is when
Solomon has actually
built a temple
in which they're
going to worship God
and all the instructions
that God
had given them
in all of its fullness.
2 Chronicles 5,
13 says this,
when the song
was raised
and the trumpets
and cymbals
and other musical instruments
and praise to the Lord
for he is good
for his steadfast love
endures forever.
The house,
the house of the Lord
was filled with a cloud
so that the priests
could not stand
to minister
because of the cloud
for the glory
of the Lord
filled the house
of God.
You see, friends,
in the Old Testament
for the people of God,
the temple was the place
where the glory of God,
the presence of God,
the very radiance
and manifestation
of all of his qualities
and his characters
that God created the temple
to be the meeting place
between God and man,
between God and humanity
that as we get,
that this would be the place
where he would choose
to manifest himself
and dwell among his people.
and this glory
was the sweetest thing
for the people of Israel
that God himself
dwelt in their midst.
And yet,
now what we have
is these people
returning from exile
and they'd not had
that presence
and there was no place
of that glory.
And so,
even the laying
of the foundation
caused them
to praise God
in hopes that
God was with them
and that God
would renew
his relationship
with them
and be among them.
And yet,
you see in verse 12
how this is mixed
even from the very start
because the older men,
those who had been around,
those who had seen
this temple
that Solomon had built
with its great glory,
they knew that
the former house
would have greater glory
than the one
that they were building.
It's kind of like
going from a Lincoln
to a Yugo.
Yugos aren't around anymore.
A Lincoln to a Cooper,
Mini Cooper.
You guys like Mini Coopers.
What's a good example?
It's like,
it's like going
from a Lincoln Navigator
to a Ford Fiesta.
Are we getting there?
Right?
It still works.
It still does
what it's supposed to do.
But it's smaller
and far less glorious.
And the people grieved
because they knew
that the loss
of that glory
was because
of their own sin.
It had been
their national disobedience
that had caused it.
and yet they longed
for that past glory.
And the words
that Julie read earlier
from the book of Haggai.
Haggai is one
of the prophets
who is ministering
to the people of God
during this very time.
And in fact,
it seems that these words
came right after
chapter three,
probably,
where they need
encouragement
to keep going
and to not give in
to the despair.
Just to reread again
what was read earlier
from Haggai,
the prophet
as he speaks
to the people.
Work,
that is work
in building this temple
for I am with you
declares the Lord
according to the covenant
that I made with you
when you came out of Egypt.
My spirit remains
in your midst.
Fear not
for thus says
the Lord of hosts,
yea,
once more
in a little while
I will shake
the heavens
and the earth
and the sea
and the dry land
and I will shake
all the nations
so that the treasures
of all nations
shall come in
and I will fill
this house
with glory
says the Lord of hosts.
The silver is mine
and the gold is mine
declares the Lord of hosts.
The latter glory
of this house
shall be greater
than the former
says the Lord of hosts.
And so,
these old men
thinking back
to Solomon's temple
are weeping
because they see
the lack of it.
They see this sense
of incomplete restoration
of what had been before
and God comes
and he says,
I'm not done
and though this is what,
this is the temple
you will have now,
there is a greater glory
that I have for you
and my presence
is still with you
and my spirit
is still with you
and you do not need
to be afraid.
in some ways,
what we see
in all of this chapter
is a bit like
a marriage renewal ceremony.
A couple who've been married
for 25 years
maybe walked through
really hard things,
maybe thought,
is this worth it?
God is bringing them
back together
and the people of God
are coming
to the God of Israel
and saying,
we renew our vows
and God is saying,
I am going to be faithful
to you.
I will,
the people are saying,
we will not run
after other gods.
We will forsake all others
till death do us part.
and God is saying,
I am inviting you
into this relationship
with me
where you will find
the glory
that you long for
and that your soul
hungers and thirsts for.
It is a marriage renewal covenant
where to say,
to be in relationship
with you
is to taste
of your glory.
So this is what's going on
in 536 BC.
God is renewing
and restoring
and we'll see.
God's not done yet.
He's going to build the temple.
He's going to bring the law.
He's going to renew the sacrament.
He's going to rebuild the city.
God's rebuilding
is just beginning.
But in it,
we see that God's people
have made the worship of God
their priority
and the glory of God
their longing
and their heart.
So,
what do we do with that?
That's great.
It's a long time ago
in a very physical picture
of how to do these things.
What do we do with this?
I want to just locate this
in the biblical story
a little bit
and help you see
some of the threads
because I hope you hear
that what God is doing
with this particular people
is an example
and a foretaste
of the greater things
that would come.
You see,
because God is in the business
of gathering in wandering exiles.
God is in the business
of bringing back to himself
men and women
from every tribe
and tongue
and nation
across the land
who,
because of their sin,
are estranged
and exiled from him
and are not dwelling
in relationship with him
and are not experiencing
his glory.
We see that what God
is doing in the world
is he is building
a new temple,
a temple that is not a place,
not this building,
it's not this edifice,
it's not the thing
we're going to build next door.
That's not where God's temple dwells.
But God's temple
is his people,
his people built
on a cornerstone,
the cornerstone being
Jesus Christ,
the Son of God.
We see these pictures
in the scriptures.
Jesus himself,
while he was on earth,
told the Pharisees,
destroy this temple
and in three days
I will raise it up.
He was talking about himself
and his own body
that would be destroyed
by death
and yet raised
to new life
for us
and for the beginning
of this new people
that wouldn't simply be
about the descendants
of Abraham
but would be
for all people
everywhere.
And then the apostle Peter
reminds us in 1 Peter 2
that that Jesus
then becomes the cornerstone
and that we are being built
as his people
into a living temple.
That we are meant
to be the building blocks
of the temple of God.
That is,
we are the place
as we gather
in relationship
with one another
in this world
where God displays
his glory
and where the meeting place
between God and man is
in this world.
The very center
of God's work
in this era
is that the church
that is the people of God
gathered and scattered
are,
is the place
where God
is meeting
with humanity.
it is the very center
of it.
And so we don't have
to go to a place
with an altar
and sacrifice
burnt offerings.
We don't have to find
goats and bulls
to do these things
anymore.
But what God
calls us to do
is to make
his people,
his church,
the priority
in our lives.
This is the most
important thing
about me.
And we don't have
sacrifices
to be repeated
because we know
that the sacrifice,
all those sacrifices
pointed ahead
to the once for all
sacrifice of Jesus.
That he has taken
the sin
and the guilt
and the judgment.
He is sent
into the exile
of death
so that he can be
brought back
in new life
and restore forever
our relationship
with him.
He is both
the sacrifice
and the scapegoat
who both dies
and is cut off
and sent out
into the wilderness
so that we might
be brought in
by faith
in him.
So briefly,
how do we apply
this to our lives?
Well,
the first is
we make
the worship
of God
our priority.
that is,
there are sacrifices
for us
to make.
Romans 12.1
tells us this,
I appeal to you
therefore,
brothers and sisters,
by the mercy of God
to present your bodies
as living sacrifices,
holy and acceptable
to God,
which is your
spiritual worship.
when we join
with Christ
by faith,
he calls us
to say,
lay it all down
before me.
All that you have,
all of your life,
put it on the altar,
make it mine,
give it to me
and let me do
what I want
with it.
There are kinds
of specific sacrifices
that flow from this
that we see
in the New Testament.
Ephesians 2 says,
and walk in love
as Christ loved us
and gave himself up
for us,
a fragrant offering
and a sacrifice
to God.
Our loving others
is a sacrifice
to God
just as Jesus'
sacrifice
was a loving act
for us.
And so,
are we willing
to make that
a priority
in our lives?
Or do we allow
ourselves
to become distracted
and selfish
and fearful
and think
that we have
to spend
our energies
building our own
walls instead?
Hebrews 13,
15 and 16
points to another
kind of sacrifice.
Through him,
that is through Christ,
then let us
continually offer up
a sacrifice
of praise to God,
that is the fruit
of lips
that acknowledge
his name.
Do we make
praise to God
the thing
that we most
long for
in our lives?
Or do we really
wish deep down
that God would
let us get
some of that
praise too?
That people would
think really well
of us
and praise us
and think us
important?
Are we willing
to make
the praising
of God
the greatest
joy of our
hearts?
And then also,
there is a sacrifice
of submission
to God's word.
That is,
there is a sacrifice
of our independence.
Just as the people
followed the instructions
of Moses
and said,
as it is written,
we too are called
to sacrifice
our independence
and even
our own
sense of
what is right
and wrong
at times
to submit
to the God
of the universe
who has revealed
himself in the Bible.
And so,
we live lives
of ethical purity,
of morality,
but more than that,
we live lives
that seek
to honor God
and do things
his way
in humility
and in graciousness
and in patience
and in kindness
and in perseverance.
So,
there are many
sacrifices
that God
does call us
to make,
but they all
flow from
the fundamental
sacrifice
of saying,
God,
my life
is not my own.
You have bought
it with the price
of Jesus Christ.
Glorify me.
Glorify you,
Lord,
in my life,
whatever that means.
Help me to love.
Help me to praise
you.
It also means
that we set our hearts
on the glory of God.
And friends,
it's so easy for us
to want glory
for ourselves
because,
of course,
you know,
we were made for glory
and we experience this
on a regular basis,
that we were made
to be caught up
in something
greater than ourselves,
something more transcendent
and more wonderful
and bigger than ourselves.
And it's the thing
that we taste
in all sorts
of little ways.
It's the thing
that we taste
when your sports team
wins game seven
of the series
and you think,
woo,
you get caught up
in that glory of,
we won,
even though you're
just a spectator,
but we won
and you get caught up
in something bigger
than yourself.
It's the glory
of the honor
of your country
acting for good
and battling evil
in the world.
It's the honor
in your work.
It's the glory
in your work
of a job well done
and successfully done.
It's the glory
that we taste
when we go
to the Rockies
and we sit
on the shore
of Bierstadt Lake
and look at the crags
as they rise above us
on a beautiful summer day.
It's the glory
that we feel
in the swell
of Mozart's Requiem.
All of these
are tastes of glory
that help us know
that as human beings
we are made for glory,
but these aren't
the substance of them.
These are the signposts.
These are the,
this is the taste
at the mall
where you get,
hey,
do you want a taste
so you can have
the whole meal?
That's what we're getting
in these,
right?
Four tastes
and shadows
that point
to a greater reality,
a greater reality
of a glory
that we will never
be able to manufacture
and never be able to,
but a glory
that seeks us out
in Jesus Christ
and comes and finds us
and invites us in
to his glory.
And in the glory of God
we find his worthiness,
that he is good
and his steadfast love
endures forever.
that the God
of the Bible
will come to us
with all of this goodness
and invite us
to say,
come and live,
sit and soak
and absorb
and revel
and rejoice
and sing
in my glory.
And not only
do we find
his worthiness,
but we also find
his weightiness.
we find
that God
is so great
that
as we
set our hearts
on him
and as we drink
from his goodness
and as we taste
of his faithfulness
and as we sing
his praises,
our hearts are tuned
for more of it
and we find
that he is able
to carry
that weight
that our greater
desires
that continue
to increase
find that God
is able to carry
all of those things.
John Hanks and I
were talking about
this yesterday
and he reminded me
of,
there was a
Veritas Forum
a couple years ago
where Shelley Kagan
who is a professor
of philosophy,
the head of the department
and very highly respected,
was in a discussion
with N.T. Wright
and at one point
the topic of eternity
came up
and Shelley Kagan
says,
I don't want,
this is a paraphrase,
I don't want to live forever
because everything
that I desire
and everything
that I enjoy
eventually disappoint me
and I would hate
to live forever,
that would be horrible.
Friends,
the weight
of God's glory
is that we will
continue to plumb
the depths
of his goodness
and his mercy
of his grace
and his love
of his power
and his majesty
and his beauty
for the rest
of our lives
and we will never
be disappointed.
In fact,
it will lead us
into eternity
and we will feel
like the prodigal son
who has come home
from eating
the swine's food
into the household
of the father
where we have a ring
and a robe
and sandals
and a party
where we sing praises
and are caught up
in this glory
of being with God.
and Jesus
will not disappoint.
And we,
like the old men
in the Old Testament
today,
look with,
through a dark,
through a glass
darkly.
We don't see
the fullness
of that glory
even now.
We've tasted it.
We know it's real
but we know
that there's a glory
yet to come.
we know that one day
with unveiled faces
we will see him
and we will be like him
and the glory of God
will fill the earth
as he renews
ultimately
the people of God
to the place of God
where they enjoy
the presence of God
forever
and his glory
will fill the heavens
and the earth.
Amen.
When we've been there
10,000 years
bright shining
as the sun
we've no less days
to sing his praise
than when we first
begun.
Friends,
this is what
Ezra 3 tells us
is most important
about being
the people of God.
Will you make it
the thing that's
most important
for you today?
Let's pray.
Lord,
we have
touched on things
that are
greater than words.
We have spoken
of things
that
Lord,
are
too high
for us
to fully comprehend.
and yet
Lord,
we know
that
in this text
Lord,
you point us
to
yourself
that you
are worthy
of our worship
and Lord,
that
in you
we find
the glory
that our hearts
long for.
The glory
that
magnifies you
in all of your
greatness.
Lord,
help us
to taste
and see
that you
are good
and Lord,
help us
to order
our lives
that we
might pursue
these things
above all
else.
Lord,
free us
from our
fears
and the
things that
keep us
from pursuing
these things.
We pray
these things
in Jesus'
name.
Amen.