First Things

From Ezra 9-10

What does it mean to reestablish worship in your life? When the Israelites returned from exile the very first thing they did was reestablish the old ways. This is an encouragement for those of you who have forgotten what that looks like. 

First, Jeshua and Zerubbabel rose up and built an altar, so that they could offer burnt offerings “as it is written in the Law of Moses”. (Ezra 3:2-3) When Ezra arrives it is discovered that there has been intermarriage, of the kind forbidden by God. There is a public and national confession of the sin. Ezra, even though he had not performed those sins himself confessed as though he did. (Ezra 9:5-15). The people proceed to repent, to do something about their sin (Ezra 10:9). They were confronted with the sin of intermarriage with foreign women – women who would have been committed to other gods. They did something about that. 

Some of you have sinned and strayed from the Lord. Many of us knew God once and walked with him and enjoyed fellowship with Him. You strayed. You sinned. This is all true. You even feel shame and have wept before God about it. So how do you start to make things right with God again?

Let us follow the pattern. 

First, we must reestablish God at the center of our lives. We can heed the call of Jesus to Ephesus (Revelation 2:5). Do the things you did at first. The Israelites, returning, understood that they got into the mess they were in because they had ceased to worship the Lord the way he commanded. They strayed and worshipped other gods. They added other routines into their worship sequences and gatherings. But most of all, in their own homes God was dethroned by every manner of unlawful living. Rebuild that altar in your home. Make Christ the center again. We do not sacrifice anymore, because Jesus is our ultimate sacrifice, but that does not mean that we do not have God at the center. 

Secondly, you must confess your sin. Sometimes this is called taking responsibility for your own actions. Admit you did those things that God thinks are wrong. This is difficult because of the pride of our hearts insisting that we are right about whatever it is that we are saying. For those of you who know you have not been blatantly promiscuous, drunk, unloving to your families, or any other blatant matter, test yourselves and see if you have not approached God with a pride that is… ungodly. 

The last thing they did was that they divorced the wives of intermarriage. This seems as if it were extreme. But this is what absolute trust in the Lord looks like. We could dive into exceptions on who wasn’t divorced, but first note that they did what must be done in order to meet the requirements of God. Jesus doesn’t say anything very different than this – “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out”, “if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it away from you”. (Matthew 5:29-30). This too is extreme, but most of us are not strong enough to keep living with our phones, our devices, sometimes even our jobs. If you find you are tempted, be like Joseph: Run! Be extreme, cut it out so that you can run without any encumbrance. 

Coming back to the Lord means that everything else is put away. It means that we repent and take responsibility for our actions. It means that we reestablish the altar of God in our hearts. You are a temple in which God can reside again. Light those temple fires and let the King of Glory come in.