Ezra-Nehemiah: How to Rebuild When It All Falls Apart: Jeremiah Lepasana | "Begin at the Altar" - Ezra 3.1-6

What are you sacrificing?In the last few years many of us have lost something significant—whether a relationship, community, church, job, or place we called home. And, in light of our losses, we currently find ourselves in a process of rebuilding. Yet, how do we rebuild well? In this series through Ezra + Nehemiah, we will see that rebuilding has four main components: 1) altar, 2) temple, 3) walls, and 4) Word. And, the four together allow for an all-encompassing communal recovery of identity! This past Sunday, we began with the altar. We saw that altars have power to bring life or destroy. The altar was the place of Israel's great failure--for on their altars, they performed child-sacrifices to foreign gods! And, we may think, well I'm not doing that...but the point is if you want to know what you are worshipping, then look at what you are sacrificing. Their sacrifices showed that they had lost connection to the LORD. In our passage, we saw that when returning to a city that needed rebuilding, they began with the altar. And, they did what they could to recover what the LORD had instructed them. Rebuilding was a communal project of reorienting their worship back to the LORD!Yet, we ultimately saw that Scripture tells us that the Christian hope is that a historically flat altar was turned upright at the Cross! And, this Altar provides a permanent hope because on it was laid a perfect sacrifice!