Praising and Weeping (Ezra 3:8-13)- Pastor Kenneth Collins Maple

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.