Purity and Worship - ANB W1, D3 - 3.6.13

Wednesday, Mar 6                                                             Purity and Worship

Ezra 3.1-7

The second chapter of Ezra gives us the details of the people who returned from Babylon to Jerusalem. We will come back to those details at a later date. It seems appropriate that as we look for God’s vision and devote ourselves to full conformity to His plan for Hopewell that we skip ahead to the acts of the Jews once they were home. The people Israel have returned home, to the land from which they had been plucked. They owed their return only to their God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This God who had repeatedly sworn unto them His unending love had now brought them back to the land which He promised Abraham 1,000 years earlier. So, in order to properly thank this God, their first action was to purify themselves and worship Him as they had previously in Jerusalem. Verse 2 gives us the details of how this came to be. Jeshua, whose name in Hebrew literally means “salvation”, gathered his fellow priests and they built an altar of sacrifice to God. This is no doubt a very similar picture to Noah and his sons as they exited the ark in Genesis 8, an offering of thanks for the deliverance given them.

Having established the legitimacy of the returned exiles to reinstitute temple worship (ch. 2), the book of Ezra takes us to holy ground, describing the community’s adherence to the Law. All that they did in offering a burnt sacrifice to God was in fulfillment of the Law given to Moses. Verse three tells us that they offered burnt offerings to God morning and evening. But look again at verse four. Two phrases emerge from this verse that paint the clearest picture of what Israel is doing. First is the phrase “as it is written” and the second is “by number according to the rule, as each day required.” This is first and foremost a picture of Israel worshiping their God. But, second it is a picture of purity in Israel. It was their worship to fulfill the Law. This is something so hard for us to try and wrap our minds around because we are free from the Law by the blood of Christ. They would not be purified of their sins if they did not fully complete the ritual sacrifices as given to Moses. Their worship depended on following the very letter of the Law, to make atonement for the sins of the people of Israel which led them into exile to begin with. Second, their sacrifices would depict their gratitude to God for His deliverance. While time does not permit a full explanation of the Jewish sacrificial system, it will be sufficient to say that Israel had purity and worship in the forefront of their mind. But, why?

Verse six says, “From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the LORD. But the foundation of the temple of the LORD had not been laid” (NASB). Israel understood that if they were to be the instruments of God’s labor in building His temple, then they must be pure. I played bass in the praise team at my home church when I was in high school. Before the service our music minister would lead us in a time of prayer and he would always say, “God will not use a dirty vessel.” While Scripture points to instances where God did use “dirty vessels”, his point was that we must purify ourselves before God if we are going to lead in His worship and accomplish His tasks. This is evident in what Israel is doing here in Ezra 3. They knew they needed to purify themselves before God to build His temple, the very place where the most holy God would dwell with them.

As the people of Hopewell Baptist, we must purify ourselves before a righteous God. This starts with confessing our sin, even those sins we don’t tell anyone about or normally excuse. We MUST be in right standing with God. But, we must remain pure. While the Jews had to sacrifice daily for their sins, we have the blood of Christ as our once for all atonement. Therefore, we must remain faithful to Him, His Word, and His purpose. Purity will entail staying focused, promoting God’s work at Hopewell, and brotherly love to all. Our worship will never be sweeter than when we abide with God in this way.

Prayer:

Lord, thank you for the blood of Christ, which gives me the ability to worship you rightly. Please cleanse me thoroughly so that I might be used by You at Hopewell.