Making a fresh start with God.
. Ezra 3:1-13New International Version (NIV)
Rebuilding the Altar
3 When the seventh month came and the Israelites had settled in their towns, the people assembled together as one in Jerusalem. 2 Then Joshua son of Jozadak and his fellow priests and Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and his associates began to build the altar of the God of Israel to sacrifice burnt offerings on it, in accordance with what is written in the Law of Moses the man of God. 3 Despite their fear of the peoples around them, they built the altar on its foundation and sacrificed burnt offerings on it to the LORD, both the morning and evening sacrifices. 4 Then in accordance with what is written, they celebrated the Festival of Tabernacles with the required number of burnt offerings prescribed for each day. 5 After that, they presented the regular burnt offerings, the New Moon sacrifices and the sacrifices for all the appointed sacred festivals of the LORD, as well as those brought as freewill offerings to the LORD. 6 On the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the LORD, though the foundation of the LORD’s temple had not yet been laid.
Rebuilding the Temple
7 Then they gave money to the masons and carpenters, and gave food and drink and olive oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre, so that they would bring cedar logs by sea from Lebanon to Joppa, as authorized by Cyrus king of Persia.
8 In the second month of the second year after their arrival at the house of God in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Joshua son of Jozadak and the rest of the people (the priests and the Levites and all who had returned from the captivity to Jerusalem) began the work. They appointed Levites twenty years old and older to supervise the building of the house of the LORD. 9 Joshua and his sons and brothers and Kadmiel and his sons (descendants of Hodaviah[a]) and the sons of Henadad and their sons and brothers—all Levites—joined together in supervising those working on the house of God.
10 When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, the priests in their vestments and with trumpets, and the Levites (the sons of Asaph) with cymbals, took their places to praise the LORD, as prescribed by David king of Israel. 11 With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the LORD:
“He is good;
his love toward Israel endures forever.”
And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. 12 But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. 13 No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away.
A fresh start
You don’t get any fresher than that.
Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. (Philippians 2:3, 5).
Harold Ross started The New Yorker magazine years ago in small offices, with little equipment. One day in a restaurant downstairs he met Dorothy Parker, one of the magazine’s first writers. “What are you doing here?” he asked. “Why aren’t you upstairs working?”
“Somebody was using the pencil,” she explained, “so I came down for some coffee.” (“Bits & Pieces,” [6/84], pp. 23, 24.) From such humble beginnings, The New Yorker has become a famous and widely circulated magazine. Almost everything great had a small beginning. You’ve got to start somewhere!
Wenzhou is a major Chinese city today but in the 1860’s it was far from a desirable place. Back then, the city was full of temples and gods, along with a strong anti-foreigner sentiment - a hangover from the opium wars.
Insert into this picture a one legged Scotsman and his wife George and Grace Stott
With no Chinese language training and little preparation, the couple started their work in Wenzhou in the late 1860s. Back then, the city was full of temples and gods, along with a strong anti-foreigner sentiment - a hangover from the opium wars.
Travelling between villages to preach to farmers, the Stotts were occasionally threatened and beaten. By 1887, when George Stott returned home because of his declining health, 300 people had become church members.
Scott died of tuberculosis two years later in Britain. His wife continued the mission in Wenzhou until 1908.
You might think that all of this was not worthwhile and why did the Stott’s keep going?
But today from these small beginnings.
By 1949 it was home to 115,000 Christians, more than one-tenth of the total Christians in China at that time.[17] Today it remains an important center of Christianity in China. In 2012, according to official data the city's Christians were at least one million (about 11% of the 2010 population).[18] Because of its large concentration of Christians, the city has been dubbed the "Jerusalem of the East" or "China's Jerusalem" in some media reports.
A new beginning that helped produce long term multi generational growth for the Kingdom of God.
Let your creative juices run what could be the new beginnings that god is calling you to produce?
Ezra chapter 3 is all about a new beginning with God. There had been a pioneering stage of re-establishing Jerusalem and Nehemiah had led the charge against stiff opposition.
But now Ezra realised that it was time to restore worship and honouring God in Jerusalem. It was a time for new beginnings in Israel. As I have read through this passage I have witnessed key points that we can note if we want to succeed in making new beginnings with God in 2015.
1st point is Put God back at the centre . – Worship Him. Rebuilding the Altar
3 When the seventh month came and the Israelites had settled in their towns, the people assembled together as one in Jerusalem. 2 Then Joshua son of Jozadak and his fellow priests and Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and his associates began to build the altar of the God of Israel to sacrifice burnt offerings on it, in accordance with what is written in the Law of Moses the man of God.
When we decide on a new beginning with God others are affected and inspired
What inspired 50000 Jewwish people to leave Babylon and move back to start a new life in their former home?
The nation of Israel was about as spiritually low as you can go. New beginnings were needed and God had been calling them for a long long time. The northern kingdom had fallen to the Assyrians in 722 B.C., after a history of idolatry. The southern kingdom of Judah fell in 587 B.C., when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple and dragged the Jews into captivity in Babylon. Fifty years passed when out of the gloom, according to God’s promise through Jeremiah (29:10-14), He stirred up the pagan king Cyrus to issue a decree permitting the Jews to return to the land.
Almost 50,000 Jews responded. They gave up their lives in Babylon, risked the dangerous and difficult journey across the desert, and now were back in the land. But it wasn’t the land the old timers had once known. It was a land devastated by war, suffering from 50 years of neglect. When in the seventh month (September/October) these Jews went up to Jerusalem (3:1), they came to a city where the walls were torn down and the buildings, including the temple, had been destroyed 50 years before. The hostile people that had moved in viewed these returning Jews with suspicion. There was nothing happening spiritually. And yet God had promised a new beginning in this desolate ghost town.
God is a God of new beginnings!!!!
It begins with restoring worship – putting God back in the centre of our lives where he belongs.
Just after eleven o'clock on a Wednesday evening over a hundred years ago, a solo voice rang out with the beautiful Welsh hymn "Here Is Love Vast As The Ocean". Maybe a thousand people were in the Chapel at the time, leaning over the galleries, packing every pew and squeezing into every spare corner. They'd been here for more than four hours, in a service of intense emotion.
Meetings like it were taking place across Wales night after night, with fervent prayer and passionate singing - and similar disregard for the clock. They both excited and appalled, left many puzzled and some frightened, but it was reckoned that in less than a year, over a hundred and fifty thousand people had made a new commitment to Jesus Christ.
From a new beginning.
Whole communities changed, as men and women found themselves drawn into a powerful experience of God; and sparks from their awakening were soon to ignite fires in more than a dozen other countries.
And the hymn that soloist struck up spontaneously, about "love vast as the ocean", was heard so often that it became known as "the love song of the revival". Here is love, vast as the ocean, loving kindness as the flood,
When the Prince of Life my ransom shed for me His precious blood,
Who His love will not remember, who can cease to sing His praise?
He shall never be forgotten through Heaven's everlasting days.
On the mount of crucifixion fountains opened deep and wide
Through the floodgates of God's mercy flowed the vast and gracious tide,
Grace and love like mighty rivers poured incessant from above
Heaven's peace and perfect justice kissed a guilty world in love.
When you understand love like that you will willingly return to God.
Thirdly.expect opposition Ezra did. Nehemiah had experienced opposition when he built the wall and in the end they had to build with a brick in one hand and a sword in the other.
3 Despite their fear of the peoples around them, they built the altar on its foundation and sacrificed burnt offerings on it to the LORD, both the morning and evening sacrifices.
When you begin anew with God expect change and fpeople don’t like change opposition often follows.
But our scripture says – Despite their fear of the peoples around them
Euring the welsh revival opposition happened. Wherever Evan Roberts went the Holy Spirit brought deep conviction of sin and a new spiritual dimension into the lives of formerly cold churchgoers. Evan was not an expository preacher and his method was prayer and exhortation, leading to a moving of the Holy Spirit bringing deep conviction.
In one of the valley communities, young men and women walked in procession through the streets, singing hymns and visiting public houses to invite those inside to come to the revival. Many of the places were completely deserted and others had their trade depleted.
In one such drinking place there was one solitary customer sitting gloomily alone. Suddenly the evening air was rent with the jubilant voices of happy songsters, just outside the door. So infuriated were the man and woman in charge at the audacity of these zealous youths that they picked up some of the empty ale-pots and flung them recklessly at the happy youngsters. Disgusted with the conduct of his host and hostess, the solitary patron rose from his seat, joined the enthusiastic processionists, then went with them to the church, where he surrendered to Christ!
But when we face change we face opposition from within ourselves and outside as well.
Inside our selves we might well say with the Apostle Paul
Romans chapter 7 verse 15 I don't really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don't do it. ... for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.
But also there will be opposition from outside of yourself as well, as we have just seen.
Jesus says
Matthew 10:36
a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'
Opposition is inevitable and the temptation is to give up – not to follow your new resolve
1 Corinthians 10:13.
... There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful,
who will not allow you to be tempted above that you are able; but will ...
The word here is press on!!!!!
Thirdly beginning again with God produces great outcomes..
Everyone will want to join in
George and Grace Stott saw small beginnings in their work in china but there became long term an avalanche of believers that they never saw in their own life times.
In Ezra’s case 10 When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, the priests in their vestments and with trumpets, and the Levites (the sons of Asaph) with cymbals, took their places to praise the LORD, as prescribed by David king of Israel. 11 With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the LORD:
“He is good;
his love toward Israel endures forever.”
But God will give us great result we see expectant faith in both the lives of Nehemiah and Ezra.
George and Grace Stott -
In the beginning of the year 1886, my husband felt much led to ask God to give him at least one soul each Sunday; week by week he kept this request before the Lord, pleading there might be no barren week during the year; and at its close we were much interested to find that just fifty-two persons had been added to our church. I remember my husband looking into my face with a sad expression as he said, " Why did I not ask more? Oh, how we limit God, when He might do great things for us if only we would open our mouths wide unto Him! "
The Lord Jesus Christ Himself was a new beginning and the fruit of this ministry has bought billions into the Kingdom of God and heaven.
Isaiah chapter 43 18 "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. 19 See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland. 20 The wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the desert and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen, 21 the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise.
Sometimes the results don’t happen immediately The Stotts reported some early converts who just let them down didn’t grow and William Carey in India struggled for 7 years in his new beginning
India was just the beginning of many more struggles for Carey. For a while they lived on the outskirts of Calcutta in a shack of a house made available to them out of pity by a native moneylender Carey had met. Unsanitary living conditions, and near-starvation had taken their toll them. Dorothy and the older boys, Felix and William, were suffering from dysentery. Felix was so sick Carey did not think he would make it. Carey had to spend most of his time scraping together what he could for the family. Carey was deprived of the blessings of public worship, and he was removed from the fellowship of his dear Christian friends. As Carey continued to move his family and continued to get settled, things proceeded to become worse before they became better. In the process Carey fell victim to a malarious fever, and just as he was beginning to recover, his 5-year-old son Peter contracted an even more dangerous fever and died. Dorothy never recovered from Peter’s death, she lost her mind, displaying only bitterness and hurt the rest of her life.
Carey then began regular Sunday preaching for the natives, drawing between 200 and 600 people a week. His skills in Bengali were improving and he began to be able to preach in their own language. This led to baptisms and finally to a church forming. At first Carey had to go forward a little at a time, through the years of struggle and doubt, of hurt and hope, and through the sorrow of a lost child. But partly fearing and partly hoping Carey kept his hand to the plow knowing God would one day give the increase.
