"Build Me A House"
The Work of Revitalization • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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The Work of Revitalization
The Work of Revitalization
Good morning everyone and welcome to Burr Oak. If you are visiting for the first time or viewing this online, I am Pastor Ben and it is my humbled joy to be able to bring you God’s word for today. Well this week we begin our next series, and this series is going to take the meat of the rest of this year. The title of this series is The Work of Revitalization.
Now for those of you who have been here a while, this is not the first time you have heard me used this word. But what in fact is revitalization? Is it simply growth in numbers? Is it simply financial stability? Is it more presence within the community? Andy Davis, senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Durham NC, in his book Revitalize, as this.
This work of revitalization is a supernatural work of sovereign grace. It is not merely the rescue of a building and a bank account, but it is fundamentally the transformation of human hearts.
Andy Davis
The transformation of the human heart. Coinciding with this, looking towards the puritans Michael Ross states.
When a congregation comes to see Jesus Christ for who He is and what He has done, they again fall deeply in love with Him. This, the writer maintains, is always the first step in revitalization.
Michael F. Ross
When you once again fall in love with Jesus. When we come together collectively, and we refuse to let sin reign in our lives’, we refuse to stay complacent in our faith, we refuse to take advantage of Christ’s grace, and we repent and return to our first love, this is when revitalization takes place.
While we are becoming concentrated on this topic, we are not at the beginning part of it. This process started long ago before I even came on as the associate pastor. The faithful people who attended here praying for God to move. Those prayers have been ongoing and God is answering them in mighty ways. Much of the material we have been working through in the last year has been the next step in the process.
We need a grander view of God so we worked through Gentle and Lowly. We need to see how easily we turn from God and how to spot those signs, so we looked to Gospel Treason. Finally, we needed to see what it looked like for a church to decide to not become complacent but to collectively live out their faith, so we looked to Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire. We dug into God’s word to see how we are to live in regards to each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. We dug into God’s word to see what we are to be doing as the Church. And now we are at the point of looking towards God’s word to see what revitalization looks like. We are going to do this by looking to the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. We are going to see how God worked through ordinary men to revitalize Jerusalem and the temple. But we will also see what they were still lacking.
The caution we need to have is that we do not run after the mechanics of revitalization.
We have established, that this is a heart issue. We need to take what we learned from Gospel Treason about digging down deep and looking into our motives and desires. Collectively we need to be asking, “Why do we do what we do?” “What is it that we want?” We need to be praying “Lord search us and show us that which is wicked within us. Lead us in your ways everlasting.”
Since this is still heart work, our focus verse for this series will not be coming from passages, but rather will be one that causes us to cry out to God for his supernatural work of sovereign grace.
Please say this with me.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me away from Your presence, And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, And uphold me by Your generous Spirit.
Please pray with me.
Father may your name be blessed this day! You have brought us together again, may you be here amongst us. Lord as we turn to your word this day, will you open our hearts and our minds to be able to understand it, but so that our desires may change so that we may desire to honor you. Lord as we embark on this next series, let us continue to search our hearts. You are the revealer of truth, if there be anything that is blocking us from first loving you and them carrying out the work you have called us to do, Lord make it plain. Let us joyously repent of our sins so that we may be reconciled to you. Father we ask for your blessing upon this message and our service. Lord we thank you for all that you have given us. In Jesus name we pray, amen.
Our message for today is titled “Build Me a House: An introduction to Ezra and Nehemiah.” For this we are going to be looking to the last chapter of 2 Chronicles. If you brought your own Bible or want o follow along on your device please turn to 2 Chron 36 starting in verse 15. If you are going to use the blue Pew Bible it is on page 428. Or you can follow along on the screen.
Let us hear the word of the Lord.
15 The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place.
16 But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against his people, until there was no remedy.
17 Therefore he brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or aged. He gave them all into his hand.
18 And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king and of his princes, all these he brought to Babylon.
19 And they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem and burned all its palaces with fire and destroyed all its precious vessels.
20 He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia,
21 to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.
22 Now 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:
23 “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may the Lord his God be with him. Let him go up.’ ”
The intent of this message is to give some background on Ezra and Nehemiah, but also to look closely at the work of revitalization. With this we are going to consider three biblical truths. Why we need revitalization. The outcome of complacency. And finally, the revitalization timeline.
Why We Need Revitalization
Why We Need Revitalization
When we approach the books of Chronicles, what we need to understand is that they are a retelling or a summarization of the history of the Israelites from Adam through Exile. Believed to have been authored by Ezra the priest, the intent of these books was to remind the Jews, most who had been born in a foreign land, of what their history was. On all that God had done for them since the dawn of time and how God was continuing to work for them. Why do they need this reminder? Because they are in the midst of a great under taking, the revitalization of their religion and their sacred city.
Yet, why did they need to go through a revitalization process? For this we need to understand the primary covenant that God made with the Israelite people. The primary covenant that the Israelite people operated under was the Mosaic Covenant which was spelt out in the first five books of our Bible, also known as the law, or the Torah. It was these words that again and again the Israelites were reminded that they needed to live by.
46 he said to them, “Take to heart all the words by which I am warning you today, that you may command them to your children, that they may be careful to do all the words of this law.
7 Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go.
3 and keep the charge of the Lord your God, walking in his ways and keeping his statutes, his commandments, his rules, and his testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn,
13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
45 that they might keep his statutes and observe his laws. Praise the Lord!
4 “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.
All throughout the OT there is call to look to the law of Moses, to live by.
But why, what was so significant about these laws. When Moses recorded these laws from God he was codifying what righteousness looked like. The Mosaic Covenant was God putting his character into writing so that man could see how to live in regards to God and his fellow man. But despite all of their trying. Despite all of the prophets that God sent to try and call them back to God, they consistently turned their backs and walked their own way.
Now what we understand is that this was not uncommon, and throughout their history, God sent many a nations against Israel to judge them based on not keeping the covenant. Yet, they were never removed from their beloved promised land. Until they had grow to a point where a specific part of the law they did not keep. Verse 21 of our passage for today spells this out for us.
21 to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.
Now the term Sabbath is not something new to us, but here it is to be enjoyed by the land. What does this mean?
10 “For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield, 11 but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the beasts of the field may eat. You shall do likewise with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard.
In the seventh year, the land was not worked up but allowed a time to rest. Whatever grew on its own was seen as a blessing from God as a provision for the poor and the wildlife. The owners of the land were not suppose to harvest the seventh year crop. It was to be left for the needy to glean on their own. But this was not where it ended. At the end of the seventh year, they had what is known as the great release.
1 “At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release. 2 And this is the manner of the release: every creditor shall release what he has lent to his neighbor. He shall not exact it of his neighbor, his brother, because the Lord’s release has been proclaimed.
At the end of each seven years all debts were released. No one was to hold a debt over another because of their regard for God. Beyond this there was another form of a Sabbath that came after seven sets of seven know as the year of Jubilee. Within this year of jubilee, not only were all financial debts released, but property was returned, those who had become slaves of indentured servants were released to go back to their tribal homeland. This was a year of celebrating, rest, and reset for the whole nation.
Jonathan Cahn states that this system, showed that the nation understood that all that it had, all the land and its blessings, was dependent on that covenant and the relationship it had with God. But there was warning if you turned and walked away.
14 “But if you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments,
27 “But if in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me, 28 then I will walk contrary to you in fury, and I myself will discipline you sevenfold for your sins.
33 And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.
34 “Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies’ land; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its Sabbaths. 35 As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were dwelling in it.
See even built within their sacred law. Even built within their covenant, laid the warning if obedience was not kept. Their exile was not a surprise. They had been told what would happen.
So why did Israel need to be revitalized?
Because they had grown complacent.
The Outcome of Complacency
The Outcome of Complacency
Their complacency to keeping God’s commands brought about God’s judgement. Their refusal to live in a righteous manner brought them to their ruin. Very specifically we read that the reason that they went into exile was due to the fact that they did not keep God’s command regarding the seventh year rest. Why would that be something you would not want to keep? A year off from work? A cancelling of all debts?
See right before our passage for today we read why in the person of king Zedekiah. Ezra tells us,
13 He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God. He stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the Lord, the God of Israel.
They had stiffened their necks and hardened their hearts. They became stubborn in their rebellion. But this does not still answer why they would not want to keep this seventh year rest. Well what are the signs of a hardened heart?
14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. 15 This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.
Jealousy, selfish ambition. I want you to imagine for a moment that there is a law that every seven years you are not allowed to plant or harvest your field. That for the sake of the land you are to let it rest for that year. But not only that, anything that naturally grows you as the land owner are not allowed to harvest for yourself, but rather are to leave it for the poor of our area to harvest for themselves. And since you own land and have the ability to pay people to work for you, you mostly likely have some people that are in debt to you financially and at the end of the year, you are to release them of that debt.
There are some that will naturally respond,
“No law is going to tell me what I can do with my land.”
“I spend all this time and money sowing, tending and caring for this land, why shouldn’t I be the one who gets to harvest what comes up naturally. It is from the work I had done anyway.”
“Why should those that haven’t worked for it benefit from my labor anyway.”
See the issue with this train of thought is that God has become completely irrelevant to us. He has become the furthest thing from our minds.
Complacency causes us to forget our God.
But what does it mean to be complacent? Is it a thought, or an action, or both? What does that mean to become complacent? Merriam Webster defines complacency as being self-satisfied or unconcerned. When it comes to the ways of God, complacency means that we have found satisfaction in what we provide for ourselves, and we have become unconcerned with the ways of God.
What we need to understand is that while we might consider complacency just being inactive, God considers it to be actively walking in rebellion. Israel had fallen unconcerned with the ways of God. They chose to harden their hearts and not keep his commands. God did not say, “Oh that’s alright they are just sitting back needing a rest from living for me currently.” No, he said, “If you do not heed my word I will bring discipline. And if you do not turn at that discipline, I will bring it sevenfold again. And this will continue until you turn back to me.”
Our God is a holy and just God, he is a jealous God, that will wake us up from our slumber. When we run in active rebellion due to our complacency, God will come after us.
But most of us probably do not believe that God will do something to us like he did to Israel. Really, we are American’s, us going into exile, not likely. Yet, what we need to understand is that what is spelled out in Scripture is to God’s chosen people, that is Israel and the Church. While America was founded on biblical principles and there are blessings and discipline for any nation that makes Yahweh their God, the stipulations of the covenants apply to Israel and the Church.
The church however is not under the Mosaic Covenant, but rather the Covenant of Grace. So since we have grace, should we expect the same discipline as Israel? No, I would say that we should expect worse. And why do I say that. It has to do with relational proximity to God.
How did Israel as the nation relate to God?
22 Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son,
Israel relate to God as a son does to a father. When Israel turned their back on God and hardened their hearts towards him, it was like the actions of a prodigal son no longer wanting his fathers authority over him.
How does the Church relate to God? Individually we are all his children, but collectively how does the Scriptures define our relation.
2 For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.
The Church is considered the bride of Christ. Since we understand Jesus to be fully God, that means that our relational proximity to God is that of his bride. See when we become complacent, when we walk in active rebellion, we are not the prodigal son.
We are an adulterous bride.
We have not only said that we no longer want your authority, but we careless about our covenantal vows, and we desire to seek fulfilment somewhere else.
Now you might say I am not committing adultery on Jesus, I show up every week. I put my money in the plate. I help out here and there. See when we understand Jesus’ teaching on adultery in the Gospels, you may physically be doing everything right. You may be showing up and pitching in. But where are your thoughts? What is your reason for it? You are guilty of adultery simply by your thoughts alone. How complacent are you?
But how do we move beyond this? Remembering the grace that has been shown to us. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones said,
The ultimate test of our spirituality is the measure of our amazement at the grace of God.
David Martyn Lloyd-Jones
See the unfortunate thing is that we so quickly loose our amazement of the grace of God. We so quickly forget that work that was done to save us. We celebrate his coming for four or five weeks at the end of the year. We give a few service over a couple weeks in the spring to remember his death. And the rest of the time we focus on behaviorism. We want to show how much better we are. We want to show how much we have grown. But we fail to look upon the cross with amazement at the grace God has shown us. We fail to
12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
We fail to remember the time when we were without hope. We need to remember that grace. We need to see that grace in our every day lives. So what does that look like?
If you have ever been down the path of adultery in your relationship and it has survived you can begin to understand that grace. I have shared some of mine and Corey’s marriage testimony, but not all of it. Frankly because we have been hurt in the past in the church because of it. This weekend marks 20 years that Corey and I have been together. June will mark 17 years of marriage. Seeing how we just celebrated Josh’s 17th birthday a few weeks back, you can do the math on one hand to realize that we had a child out of wedlock. Corey got pregnant at 17 the summer after she graduated. The nature of our relationship at that time was not very healthy and we did not know if we were going to try to make it work or not. We got engaged on her 18th birthday and then a few months later broke it off. The day Josh was born I asked her to marry me again and we were married two months later. I will not speak for Corey, but I was not in love with her when we got married. I marred her out of duty, out of obligation. I was determined to be there for my son. I was so little invested into our marriage that I went into it figuring that we would be divorced within five years, but at least I could say I tried.
Some of you may know that much of our testimony. What most you you do not know is that 6 months after being married I had an affair. I knew it was wrong. The night that it happened I drove home and told God that I would tell Corey after we had been married fifty years. But that was still figuring we wouldn’t last five. I held that secret for 8 years before I confessed to my wife.
Here we are, now having been together 20 years and married nearly 17, and everyday she is a reminder of the grace that God has shown me. Through all the hurt and pain that I caused her. Through having every biblical reason to divorce me. She has stayed with me. No not everyday has been easy. There are still days where we are each other’s greatest irritant. But I love my wife, because she is a physical representation of the grace God has shown me and what he saved me from every single day.
We need to be reminded of that grace. We need to be waken up out of our complacency to actively pursue God and sit in amazement of his grace. It is when we hit that point that revitalization can begin. When we sit longing to sense more of God rather than anything else. When we have come to the point of realizing that these are not just religious rituals that we take part in week in and week out. That if we miss a week it is okay because we will just catch up next week.
It is by understanding that Jesus is life. He is our life. He is what gives us life, a reason to live, a reason to continue on. By his death on the cross we have given life. And when we grow complacent in our faith, when our ways turn adulterous, he as our husband is our advocate. He continues after us. Revelation tells us that if we persist in complacency he will remove our lampstand. But if we are faithful to repent and remember our first love then he will restore us.
The Revitalization Timeline
The Revitalization Timeline
But what does this restoring look like? When will we know that we have arrived? Within our culture, when we think about revival, or revitalization, or restoration, we think of a process with a defined ending point. In our assessments, this is the point in which we have arrived. That is what we hope for, that is what we long for, arriving at a point where we can say we did. This mentality is built within human nature. We all want to make great a name for ourselves, and what better then to do it through a comeback story.
Yet, when it comes to a spiritual revitalization, the point of arrival that are looking for has already been defined for us. Full revitalization does not come until Jesus’ return. See revitalization is something that we have to be in it for for the the long haul. This is something we will see through our study in Ezra and Nehemiah. The events that unfold through these two books, from the proclamation of king Cyrus, to the completion of the wall, spans nearly a hundred years. And by the end we will see that full revitalization still had not taken place for Israel.
I took over as senior pastor 11 months ago. The title of my first message was “The End of a Journey and the Beginning of an Adventure.” Everything we have work through the last 11 months has been to prepare us for this adventure that God has us on. But since we are not to be looking for a destination in this world, what are we to look for on this adventure? What are the markers that we are progressing down the proper path?
When God’s spirit begins to get poured out on a people who have set after him there are a few markers in Scripture that we can see that revitalization is taking place.
First marker is Luke 1:17
17 and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”
Luke here is referring to John the Baptist, we can now see how this is a work of the Holy Spirit softening the hearts of the Church that has grown complacent. He is quoting Malachi here who ends his book stating,
6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”
The hearts of parents and children alike will look to honor God first of all with their relationships with each other. Those who have grown complacent will have a renewed sense of growing in wisdom. How does Scripture present that one grows in wisdom, by turning to God’s word and growing in their knowledge and understanding of God’s ways.
When the Spirit is poured out, after our hearts are soften, and we have turned towards God’s word the next step is that we will rend our hearts.
13 and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.
In rendering our hearts we will repent and of our sins. We will not hold anything back. No corner of our heart will be left unswept. There will be no place left it it that we will harbor hate or bitterness. We will not harbor malice or envy. As we experience God’s mercy and forgiveness for our sins we will extend that mercy and forgiveness to others.
The next marker is the growing in knowledge and understanding.
9 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
With our hearts set back on God we need to grow in our knowledge and understanding of his ways so that our lives reflect what our mouths profess to believe.
The next indicator is an increase of demonic attack. By this I mean attacks from the enemy that seek to disrupt our relationship with and obedience to God. This may come in very small forms like fatigue or lack of desire. Or it may come in forms such as issues at home or at work. We need to remember that the enemy’s whole purpose is to lie, kill and destroy. That he is,
8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
When these things come upon us we need to see them for what they are. We need to ,
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
When we realize that these attacks are coming from us growing closer to God, this should give us reason to praise God for the work that he is doing in our lives.
The final indicator or marker that a Church is on the correct path, is an increase in professions of faith and baptisms.
46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
I have mentioned to some of you that I have been praying very specifically that God has our congregation to 75 people by the end of this year. Each week in my pastoral prayer you here me ask God to send the people we need. In this number I include those who are transfers people. These people serve a great purpose in that they do to need to be taught the fundamentals of the faith. They do not need to be taught the concepts of tithing and volunteering. They can usually get plugged right in and serve. They are of great use to a church. But transfer growth is not what this verse indicates. Evangelism in not being Christian headhunters.
As we just finished Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire in our small groups, it ended with a challenge. The challenge was to see 2 people a week or 100 people a year come to know Jesus as their personal savior and be baptized. For an area like Brooklyn that might be an attainable goal. Here in Noble county, just starting out an obtainable goal may be 1 person a month from outside these walls. That is 12 people in this next year to come to know Christ and invest in the Church. To do this though you have to go were the lost are. You have to be willing to invest the time for the long haul.
If you were to look back at these markers you would see that they align with the purposes of the church;
Exalt God, edify the saints, and evangelize the lost.
I would encourage you to pray specifically through the month of May on where you see us as a church family in regards to these markers, and what we can be doing to move towards the increase of professions of faith and baptisms.
Would the praise team please come forward as we get ready to receive our offering for today.