The Fuel For Joy-Filled Worship

1:03So we head out there. I put the keys in the ignition and turn the key and you can hear the starter clicking and it sounds like the engine's trying to turn over but nothing's happening. And so I'm looking at the gauges, I get out, we pop the hood, I check the connections and I'm asking him questions. Have you experienced any other problems? What does it sound like normally? You know, all that kind of stuff. Get back in. We can't figure anything out. I put the key back in, turn it again, click, click, click. It sounds like the engine's trying to turn over, but nothing happens. Finally, I look at the gas gauge, and it has no gas in it.

1:38So there it is. When there's no fuel, there's no power. And that's true for trucks and cars. It's true for lawnmowers. It's also true for our spiritual lives. When there's no fuel for them, there's no power in them. And today in Ezra 6, the people are going to finish building the temple. And they're going to have this big celebration, this wonderful time of joy-filled worship. And what stands out to me, and what I think probably stood out to you in the chapter, is the fuel for that joy-filled worship, which we have seen all throughout the book of Ezra in our study so far. And what we're going to learn today is that God's faithfulness is our fuel for joy-filled worship.

2:26Before we get into the verses today, I want to back up to the beginning of chapter 6. In case you weren't here last week, if you missed last week's sermon, Pastor Bo did a great job with the beginning of this text. I loved his Lego illustration. It was one of my favorite things in the sermon, so go back and listen to that. It's online if you missed it. But at the beginning of chapter 6, what King Darius does is he goes and has his staff check the royal archives to see whether or not the Jews have permission and authority to rebuild this temple.

2:53And so sure enough, in Ekbatana, they find this scroll that King Cyrus had made, and there's the words of King Darius. Cyrus, right there. It is to be rebuilt. It's to be funded by the government. And so he writes to all of his officials and he says, Listen, you guys need to keep away from the Jews. You need to let them finish this. And more than that, we are going to finance it out of the taxes that people pay to us.

3:16And so it's just amazing because it looks like that opposition has arisen again. It looks like the people are probably going to go back into the patterns that we all fall into of being discouraged and just worried about the future and scared for our lives, even maybe at times. And the work's not going to go forward. But because of this one document, archived in a pagan library, God's work goes forward unhindered. And not just that, but it's financed by the government as well. Friends, it's a reminder that God is faithful to work out His purposes for His people. We can trust in Him. The providence of God is all over this book.

3:54And so that brings us to verse 13, where we pick up today. And you see here right at the beginning that Tatanai and Shethar Bozeni, along with their associates, they diligently obey the king's orders. They stay away from the building. They make sure that all of the people who are rebuilding the temple have the resources and the funds that they need. And meanwhile, the Jews are diligently obeying God's orders. Because remember, they didn't get back to work because the king said that they could. They went back to work and then they just trusted that God was going to work everything else out for them. And that's exactly what God did. So they get back. To work, and the prophets of Haggai and Zachariah are encouraging them all along, speaking God's word to them. So, because of all those things, the temple does get finished. Around 515 BC, 70 years after Solomon's temple had been destroyed, the temple is now finally finished.

4:52And how did the people finish it? How were they able to do that? Look at verse 14. And the elders of the Jews built and prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zachariah the son of Ido. They finished their building by decree of the God of Israel and by decree of Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes, king of Persia. And what you see there right away is two things: they finished the temple because God decreed it.

5:26And they finished the temple because King Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes decreed it. I think a lot of us, we read that, and we're like, isn't it one or the other? I mean, either this was God's choice or it was these people's choice, but it wasn't both of those things. So some Christians believe that if God causes something to happen, then he does so completely independently of human beings and their choices. Maybe you've thought that before. If God decides something's going to happen, it just happens, and it doesn't matter what people do. But I think for a lot of people, Lot of other people, they believe, at least functionally, that God set the universe in motion, but after that time, he just defers to people and their choices.

6:11A lot of people believe, look, God may know what's going to happen in the future, but he doesn't have anything to do with that future or what is happening. But, friends, neither one of those views, that God either just chooses something to happen and then acts completely independently of people, or that people make choices and then that happens, and God has nothing to do with it. Neither one of those are true to what we find in the scripture.

6:35What we find in scripture is exactly what we see here in verse 14. God works out his perfect will through the actions of imperfect people. God works out his perfect will through the actions of imperfect people. And I want to show you this as we've already seen it in the book of Ezra. Look on the screen at chapter 1, verse 1. In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing. Look at verse 5 of that same chapter.

7:20Then rose up the heads of the fathers' houses of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and the Levites, everyone whose spirit God had stirred to go up to Rebuild the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem. And now look at chapter 5, verse 5. But the eye of their God was on the elders of the Jews, and they did not stop them until the report should reach Darius, and then an answer be returned by letter concerning it.

7:50So, just here in the book of Ezra, we've already seen multiple examples of God being intimately involved and making decisions about things that are going to happen and working through imperfect people to bring about those purposes. We could multiply examples from pretty much every book in the Bible that shows us the same thing. And we see it so clearly here in the book of Ezra, and that should give us great comfort and great encouragement. Friends, human beings make real choices with real consequences.

8:21We're held responsible for our choices and actions. The Bible never presents human beings as robots, and we are nowhere encouraged to adopt a fatalistic or deterministic mindset. The things are just going to happen, and we can do nothing about that. And at the same time, God is ultimately in control of all things that happen. He is working out his will through our choices and actions. But no human choices or actions can obstruct God's purposes. What comfort can we derive from that? We can rejoice in that truth.

8:57Because I'm sure you've had times in your life where. You felt like my choices or even my sins have ruined God's plans. They've ruined God's plans for me or for this person in my life that I care about. But no human choices, no human actions can ultimately obstruct God's plans. He works through imperfect people to achieve his purposes and his plans for his people. And as we've already seen in the book of Ezra, he does that even when his people are faithless.

9:29I mean, remember, for 16 years after they finished the foundation of the temple, they quit working on it. It just sat there. They were faithless. And yet, God was still faithful that entire time. He is faithful, and his faithfulness becomes the fuel that they need for the joy-filled worship that we see in the rest of the chapter. Look now at verse 16. It says that all the people celebrated the dedication of this house of God with joy.

10:02They celebrate the dedication of this house of God with joy. Now, if you remember, back when they finished the foundation, this was not the unanimous reaction of the people at all. When they finished the foundation, there were two different reactions. You remember the younger people? They shouted for joy. They worshipped God. It to them represented like real progress. This is a day of celebration. It's a day of new beginnings. We have so much to look forward to. But for the older people, they didn't perceive. It that way at all. They look at that small foundation and they compared it in their minds to the glory of Solomon's temple before. And they cried, they wept aloud. And Ezra told us that you couldn't even distinguish the sound of the shouting for joy from the sound of the crying. That's how loud both of them were. So there was this real mixed reaction when the foundation was laid. But now that the temple is finally finished, you see everybody celebrating. And why is everybody able to celebrate? Why are they able to be joyful? Well, first, God has been faithful to keep every promise that he's made.

11:11So they're able to celebrate God's faithfulness to his word. Right at the outset of this book, we went back and we looked at the prophecies that God made through Isaiah and Jeremiah, saying that after 70 years, God was going to bring the people back to rebuild the temple and repopulate the promised land. And that he was going to do that through King Cyrus. And they're celebrating God's faithfulness to do exactly what he promised. And then after they got started and then they stopped working on the temple, Haggai and Zachariah, as we've been reminded several times in the last couple of weeks, they began declaring the word of the Lord. God is making these promises to them. You need to get back to work. I'm going to bless you. I'm going to bless that work. It's going to be finished. They speak that word, and then the people believe it. And sure enough, God was faithful to his word. I mean, Humanly speaking, these people should have never come back from exile. There's no reason for them to be released by King Cyrus to go home and to rebuild the temple, but that's exactly what happened. Humanly speaking, there's no reason that this work should go forward. Why should a pagan king who does not worship this God, why is he going to allow them to rebuild their house of worship, especially at the expense of the country? But that's God for you. That's God's providence and power for you. God made promises to his people, and he kept his word to them. And so, for that reason, they're filled with joy. They're celebrating and they're worshiping.

12:38But the other reason that they're celebrating and they're worshiping with such joy is because this is the first time they've been able to do this in about 70 years. At least 70 years have passed since they have been able to gather together as the people of God and worship in this way in the temple with the full sacrificial system. It had been seven decades or more since they last got to do this. Now, I want you to imagine for a moment what it would be like if all of a sudden we were no longer able to gather together on Sundays, to sing together and remind each other of the great promises of God, to hear the word read and preached as the people of God, to partake in the world. The Lord's Supper and to observe baptism, to encourage one another and pray together and build one another up. What if all of a sudden we could no longer do that and we didn't get to do it for decades and decades? I mean, I think we would all come to realize very quickly the Christian life is not meant to be lived alone. It is not meant to be lived alone. It is a faith that is corporate by nature. Yes, it has individual dimensions. Yes, you must personally respond to the gospel message of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. Yes, you have a personal relationship with God. All of that's true. But Christianity, when you read from cover to cover in the Bible, our faith is primarily a corporate faith. We are called the body of Christ for a reason. And if all of a sudden that was taken away from us, you can imagine how discouraging that might be.

14:22And so they're rejoicing, they're celebrating because they get to do this again for the first time in 70 or more years. So look here at the text. They have this big celebration, verse 17. They offer God 100 bulls, 200 rams, 400 lambs. I mean, that seems like a lot. I get tired after I cook one steak. So how much more difficult would this be to slaughter these hundreds and hundreds of animals? It seems like a big deal, crazy huge celebration, until you realize what the first celebration was like. Look on the screen at 1 Kings. This is what happened when they dedicated Solomon's temple hundreds of years before. Then the king and all Israel with him offered sacrifice before the Lord. Solomon offered as peace offerings to the Lord 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep.

15:19So the king and all the people of Israel dedicated the house of the Lord. This is like the difference between your birthday party and Drake's birthday party. It's just an entirely different thing. They didn't offer as many animals, right? These are just several hundred animals when Solomon and all of the priests back then, they're offering almost 150,000 animals. There's a huge difference. But the people here are giving generously and cheerfully. And that's the principles that we find in Scripture that should govern all of our giving. All of our giving should be governed by those principles. Look on the screen at 2 Corinthians 9. Paul says, the point is this. Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. And whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

16:22So two principles arise out of the scripture, generosity and cheerfulness. And what is generosity? Generosity isn't a certain number. It's not a percentage. Generosity is a readiness to give more than what is required or expected. When you think about generous people in your life, they're always ready to give more than what is required or expected. More of their time, more of their effort and energy, more of their resources. That's what a generous person is like. And so sacrifices don't have to be large to be generous. And I tell that to college students. I tell that to young professionals and young families all the time. Sacrifices don't have to be large to be generous. If you don't have much to give, then giving anything is generous.

17:12But the flip side of that whole thing is also true. The converse is true. If you have a lot, just because you're giving a lot numerically doesn't necessarily mean you're being generous with what God has entrusted to you. So as a church, we want to grow in generosity. Not just with our finances, but with our time, with our spiritual gifts, with our resources. We want to become a generous church. And the only way for us to become generous in a lasting sense is for us to meditate on the gospel of grace and allow that to transform how we think about generosity. So look at 2 Corinthians 8 on the screen. This is where Paul grounds all of this teaching in generosity and cheerfulness. For you know the grace. Of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you, by his poverty, might become rich.

18:14See, generosity is the appropriate response to a God who has not withheld any good thing from us, not even his only begotten son. And so God loves generosity, but he also loves cheerfulness. That's what Paul said. God loves a cheerful giver. So we shouldn't give reluctantly or under compulsion because Jesus didn't give reluctantly or under compulsion. We talked about a few weeks ago, why did Jesus lay down his life for us? He laid down his life for us for the joy that was set before him.

18:54He said in the Gospel of John, nobody takes my life from me. I willingly lay it down, and I have authority to take it back up again. Jesus did not give himself reluctantly or under compulsion. And so if you're sitting here and you're like, well, Alan, I do feel reluctant when I'm called upon to give money or my time. A lot of us, our time is even more limited than our money, our resources. I do feel reluctant, and I'm right there with you. I feel reluctant about those things as well. And so what we need is we need to think about giving. Like we think about everything else in the Christian life, it's a spiritual discipline that requires practice. And I think Paul says this in 1 Corinthians. Look on the screen at 1 Corinthians 16.

19:43He says, on the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come. Paul says, Look, make this a strategy. Make this a part of your regular disciplines on the first day of the week. Set something aside as you may prosper. Treat it like a spiritual discipline. When it comes to other spiritual disciplines, whether we're talking about reading God's word or prayer or fasting, we don't say, you know, I'll do that when I feel like doing it.

20:16I mean, when do you ever feel like fasting? I have never woken up in the morning and said, you know, whatever I do today, I don't want to eat bacon all day. I've never had that thought. I wake up and I'm like, I can't wait to eat all the food. It's a spiritual discipline. And so we need to look at it just like that. Fasting takes discipline. Scripture reading takes discipline. Prayer takes discipline. And so giving also takes discipline. Giving generously and cheerfully doesn't come naturally to us. So by the grace of God and with the gospel in focus, let's seek that together. Let's discipline ourselves to become these kinds of givers that we see here. In the text, and after describing these offerings, look at verse 17 now. I want you to see the second half of it. He says, And as a sin offering for all Israel, 12 male goats according to the number of the tribes of Israel. Well, now, wait a minute, only three tribes came back.

21:25You remember back at the beginning, it was only people from Judah, Benjamin, and Levi. They're the only three tribes that came back. Why is that? Well, that's because the other nine tribes from the northern kingdom had been conquered and exiled and they never returned. 722 BC, that was it. They were basically wiped out. And you know what? They deserved to be. They had rebelled against God over and over and over again. God had sent prophets to warn them, to call them to repentance, to call them to renewed faith, but they wouldn't do it, even though God had repeatedly called out to them. They deserved that. They didn't deserve to come back.

22:04But of course, neither did these three tribes who actually came back, they also sinned against God again and again in spite of his repeated calls through his prophets for them to repent and to walk by faith. They were no different. They also deserved God's judgment. But God was merciful to them, and he was faithful to keep his promises and his words. Them. And if he wasn't, they would still be in exile too. And so, what the people do is that they offer one animal for each of the 12 tribes of Israel, nine of whom no longer exist in any meaningful sense. And in this picture, you have this powerful reminder that God is both just and the justifier of the ungodly.

22:55God is just and the justifier of the ungodly. God will not excuse or overlook sin. He's just. He cannot excuse or overlook sin. He must punish it. But God is also gracious. And he justifies every person who looks to Jesus, the perfect, spotless Lamb of God, who gave himself for our sins. And the person and work of Jesus is the very thing that the Passover points forward to. And that's what the exiles celebrate together in the final section of today's passage. So I want you to look now at verses 19 and 20. Read those first two verses.

23:43It says, On the 14th day of the first month, the returned exiles kept the Passover. For the priests and the Levites had purified themselves together, all of them were clean. So they slaughtered the Passover lamb for all the returned exiles, for their fellow priests. And for themselves. So, about six weeks passes between the time that they dedicate the temple. They did that in the month of Adar. That was their last month of the year. This is roughly in February or March of our calendar. And so, about six weeks have passed. It's now either late March or early April. They're in the first month of their year. And on the 14th day of the month, they celebrated the Passover. That was followed by the 15th day of the month, and the next seven days was the Feast of Unleavened Bread. So, these two feasts happen back to back: the Passover, and then the next seven days, the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And the reason for this was that when the people were in exile the first time in Egypt, God had spoken to Pharaoh, and he said, I want you to let my people go so that they can worship me. And if you're familiar with that story, you know that again and again, Pharaoh refused. So, God sent plague after plague, nine in total, and still he refused. So, God said, If you don't let my people go, I'm going to put to death the firstborn in every home.

25:07But to anyone who will sacrifice a spotless lamb, a lamb without blemish, and spread the blood on the doorpost, I will pass over that home. I will have mercy and grace. I will not put the firstborn to death. And so, what happened? The angel passes over Egypt, and the firstborn in every house that did not have the blood of a spotless lamb. Spread on the doorposts, was put to death. So, Pharaoh is beside himself. His firstborn son, the heir to the throne, is now dead, and he tells the people, You have to leave right now. And so, they don't even have time for their bread to rise, they have to grab their unleavened bread, and they've got to hit the road immediately. And that's why, for the next seven days, they have this feast of unleavened bread. That's why, if you have Jewish friends, they celebrate this each year. They now do it at Hanukkah, which is actually the rededication of the next temple that's going to be built, or the rededication of this same temple once it's not been defiled by the Maccabees. It's a complicated situation that happens at the end of the second century. But that's why they're doing that. They're doing that because it all is tied back to what happened in the Exodus.

26:17And so, what this reminds us, and what it reminded them, was that God had been faithful to keep his promises. He had been faithful to his people. And not just back then during the Exodus, God was faithful to his people in the present to allow them to return, to allow them to rebuild this temple and dedicate it. And that's why we see what we see in verse 22. Look now in verse 22 with me. It says, And they kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with joy, for the Lord had made them joyful and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria to them, so that he aided them in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel. Israel.

27:03So the author notes, God had made them joyful. What made them joyful? God's faithfulness to them. And these feasts, which were an annual reminder of God's faithfulness to his people in the Exodus and beyond, they helped remind the people that God had been faithful. And one of the beautiful things about God's faithfulness is that it doesn't just extend to the physical descendants of Abraham. No, it includes a much larger group than that. And I want to remind you about what God said to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12. Look on the screen.

27:41God says, and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So, who is going to be blessed through Abraham? Not just his physical descendants, but all the families of the earth. So, I want you to back up to the verse that we skipped, verse 21, and I want you to look there at what is written: Who ate the Passover meal?

28:26It was eaten by the people of Israel who had returned from exile. And also, by everyone who had joined them and separated himself from the uncleanness of the peoples of the land to worship the Lord, the God of Israel. And so you see right here that from the beginning, God's purpose has been to bless all the families of the earth, all the peoples of the earth, through Abraham and his spiritual descendants. And if you're familiar with these other instances in Scripture, we see this all throughout the Bible. The first fruits of this promise in some ways were Rahab and Ruth.

29:09Here are two women who were not a part of the nation of Israel. They did not descend from Abraham, but they joined the people of God through faith and through repentance. They turned away from their idol worship, they turned away from their sin, and they put their faith in God and his word. And then here in Ezra, we see that the Passover and what it represents is open to anyone, not just to the Jews, but to anyone who would join them, to anyone who would turn from their sin, place their faith in God, and commit to walk in holiness after the Lord.

29:43And then we get to the New Testament. And some 40 days after Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, you have people from every nation gathered together in Jerusalem at the time of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit falls on the believers. And Peter preaches this amazing sermon where he calls all of them to repentance and faith in Jesus as the one true Savior and Messiah. And we see people from all of these nations, all of these tribes, come to faith in Christ.

30:19So, all through Scripture, God has been faithful to keep his promise to Abraham to bless not just him and his physical descendants, but to bless all the families of the earth. And God's faithfulness becomes their fuel for joy-filled worship as they reflect on all that God has done. So, here they celebrate the fact that God moved in the heart of the king and allowed all of this to happen. But even more, they celebrate the Passover and what it represented: the coming of the Messiah, the spotless Lamb who would be sacrificed in our place and for our sins once and for all.

31:08Friends, we began today by noting that if we don't have fuel, we don't have power. It's true in every aspect of life. And I think for many of us, maybe you grew up in a reformed tradition where the Westminster Shorter Catechism, that question and answer document that was put together. Years and years ago, to teach children and adults as well, basic theology. Maybe as an adult, you've read that document or documents like it. A lot of people are familiar with that. And the very first question there is: what is the chief end of man?

31:46The answer is: the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. So, whether you've heard that hundreds of times or whether you've heard that for the first time today, I think you hear that and you say, Yes, that sounds right. From everything that I know about Scripture, from everything I know about God and His purposes, I was created to worship and glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. But I think for a lot of us, we say, Okay, what does that mean?

32:14What does that mean in practice? So, I've been reading this book called Expository Exaltation. That's a mouthful, right? It's a John Piper book, so that explains that. It's on preaching. I don't know how much of it is taking, you'll have to tell me. But I'm reading this book, and I came across this section where he's talking about this. I want you to look at this quote on the screen. I thought it was so good. He says, When the Westminster Catechism says that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, the word and may be clarified with the word by.

32:52The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever. It does not Say man's chief ends. It says man's chief end. Glorifying and enjoying are one because the glorifying happens through the enjoyment. Why do we exist? We exist to glorify God by enjoying Him forever. We exist for the glory of God, and the way that we glorify God is by enjoying Him in every area of our lives. One of the things that we're trying to do at New Life and in many healthy churches all around the world, we're trying to recover the word worship because worship has come to mean only singing songs. Well, worship, of course, is much more than that. It includes singing songs, but it also includes reading the scripture and praying. It includes hearing the word preached. It includes encouraging and building up the body of Christ. All of those things are included in worship. But worship even expands far beyond that. Worship is glorifying God by enjoying Him in every aspect of our lives. But friends, that kind of joy-filled worship requires fuel. Without fuel, there's no power.

34:21And as we're seeing here, the fuel for that kind of joy-filled worship is God's faithfulness. Isn't it? True that when we forget God's faithfulness, it is difficult or impossible for us to worship with joy. I don't just mean in here on Sunday mornings, I mean with our lives. That's true for me. When I forget God's faithfulness, both in the scripture as well as personally to me, when I forget God's faithfulness, it is difficult for me to worship with joy. I feel overcome by anxiety and worry and the problems of my life. But when we remember God's faithfulness, as the Israelites and these new converts do here in chapter 6, we have the fuel that we need for joy-filled worship.

35:13So I think it's true that for some of you, you've been walking with Jesus maybe for a few months now, maybe a few years, maybe for many decades. But you've run out of fuel for joy-filled worship in your life. And so you need to pray along with David, restore to me the joy of your salvation. Friends, ask and you will receive. Ask and you will receive. That's what God says to us. If we pray, restore to me the joy of your salvation, do we think that he won't answer that prayer? He would love to answer that prayer. So, we need to meditate on God's faithfulness, both as we find it in the scripture as well as in how God has been faithful to us personally in our lives. How He has provided for us, how He has protected us, how He has cared for us. We need to meditate on God's faithfulness. I think that's the means that He's going to use to restore the joy of our salvation.

36:26But then, I think for others, you haven't lived a life that's been marked by joy-filled worship, and that's because you've never personally experienced the saving grace that is offered through the person and work of Jesus, the perfect Passover Lamb. See, Jesus is the Lamb to whom the Passover pointed, He is the perfect and spotless Lamb. The Bible says that the blood of bulls and goats and lambs can never take away sin. Of course not. But the blood of Jesus, the perfect Son of God, can and does take away sin.

37:12And so, for you, you need to do exactly what these people do in Ezra chapter 6. You need to repent, you need to turn away from all of your uncleanness before the Lord. And you need to join the people of God through faith in Christ. And his perfect work in his life and death and resurrection as the Passover Lamb who died in your place and for your sins so you could be forgiven and justified before God.

37:44That's what you need. So, wherever you find yourself today, whether you're a longtime follower of Christ that needs their joy restored, or whether you're someone who has yet to experience forgiveness and the joy of salvation, I want you to know that God is faithful. God is faithful, and His faithfulness is the fuel for our joy-filled worship. Let's pray. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.