Ezra-Nehemiah: How to Rebuild When It All Falls Apart: Jeremiah Lepasana | "Rebuild with a Song" - Ezra 3.7-13

How do we find strength to rebuild when things fall apart? We find strength to rebuild by singing and being sung over.This past Sunday we saw that the reality of building or re-building can be incredibly discouraging. In Ezra 3 and 4, God’s people faced constraints in resources, constraints in power, and people actively trying to frustrate their efforts. So, we asked the question, how do we face the realities and challenges of piecing up pieces? We saw in the text that the sound of rebuilding is marked by both weeping and joy. And this teaches us that as Christians, we pick up the pieces by living “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” If we are exclusively rejoicing, then this most likely means we are living DELUSIONAL, unable to move with wisdom in a fallen world. Yet, if we are exclusively sorrowful, we will live DEFEATED, passive and anxious.Yet, if we live “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing,” then we will live DETERMINED, anchored and unyielding in the face of uncertainty and difficulty. We can live this way by singing and being sung over. In v.10, God’s people sing a song about God’s love for them. We have confidence to sing this song today, because we see in Scripture that God sings his love over us (Zephaniah 3.17, Matthew 27.46). And because God sings over us, we can step forward resolute, sorrowful yet always rejoicing, because he can work out a deliverance no matter our situation.