.JPG)
The Bible Breakdown
Bible reading plan and SOAP guide: www.experiencerlc.com/the-bible
Subscribe to my weekly newsletter: www.brandoncannon.com
The Bible Breakdown
Ezekiel 45: Measuring What Maters
Ask a Question
Send Encouragement
|||| Take a Next Step ||||
SOAP Bible Study Method.
Bible Reading Plan.
Free Weekly Newsletter.
|||| Social ||||
Facebook.
Instagram.
X.
YouTube.
The More We Dig. The More We Find.
Well, everybody, welcome back to the Bible Breakdown podcast with your host, pastor Brandon, today, ezekiel, chapter 45, and today's title is Measuring what Matters Measuring what Matters. We're going to have some fun today. I hope you're ready to get into God's Word and so, if you want to go ahead and get your Bibles open to Ezekiel, chapter 45, while you're doing that, as always, if you're new around here, make sure you like, share and subscribe to the YouTube channel and the podcast. Make sure you leave us a five-star review on the podcast and, as always, make sure you go into the Bible Breakdown discussion on Facebook. There's an amazing group of people working hard, doing wonderful work over there, and the more we dig, the more we find, and we want to learn from you. So make sure that you are engaging with the content, asking questions, giving us your insight, and don't wait. If you see someone who asks a question, don't feel like you have to wait for the person who did the post to respond. If you have an answer, engage. Let's do this thing called life and community together. Okay, all right. Well, once again, if you got your Bibles and you're ready to jump in with me to Ezekiel 45, remember, as we're getting ready to finish, ezekiel.
Speaker 1:The overall goal of the ministry of Ezekiel was he preached his entire ministry on God's promise of renewal. And, man, what a journey we have been on this journey of God. You know, warning the people, god leaving. You know the people as far as in, like, okay, judgment's coming, judgment came. They were exiled all over the place and now he is bringing that renewal back again. And, as we've been in the past several chapters, we had two chapters where God was metaphorically showing them this temple, representing that he was coming back to his people, and then we talked about the idea of what it is to live in the presence of God. Then the next chapter yesterday we talked about the idea of guarding the presence of God in our life. And then I love this idea of measuring what matters. We're going to see how God is going to create these different measurements again, but it's the thought process of how do you measure success in your life, spiritual success in your life, what are the measurements that matter in your life? Let's look at this and then we're going to finish off with asking that question you ready?
Speaker 1:Ezekiel 45, verse 1, says this when you divide the land among the tribes of Israel, you must set aside a certain land for the Lord as a holy portion. This piece of land must be eight and a third miles long, six and two thirds miles wide. The entire area will be holy. A section of this land will be measuring 875 feet by 875 feet and will be set aside for the temple. The additional strip of land is 87 and a half feet wide and to be left empty all around it within a larger sacred area. Measure out the portion of land eight and a third miles long and three and a third miles wide. Within the sanctuary of the most holy place it will be located. This is the area that will be holy, set apart for the priests who minister to the Lord and the sanctuary. They will use it for their homes and my temple will be located within it. The strip of sacred land next to it, also 8, 1, 3 miles long and 3, 1, 3 miles wide, will be a living area for the Levites who work at the temple. It will be their possession and a place for their towns.
Speaker 1:Adjacent to the larger sacred area will be a section of land eight and a third miles long and one and two thirds miles wide. It will be set aside for a city where anyone in Israel can live. Two special sections of land will be set apart for the prince. One section will share a border within the east side of the sacred lands and city and the second section will share a border on the west side. Then the far eastern and western borders of the prince's lands will line up within the eastern and western boundaries of the tribal areas. These sections of land will be the prince's allotment. Then my princes will no longer oppress and rob my people and they will assign the rest of the land to the people, giving them allotment to each tribe. For this is what the sovereign Lord says Enough you, princes of Israel, stop your violence and oppression and do what is just and right. Quit robbing and cheating my people out of their land. Stop expelling them from their homes, says the sovereign Lord.
Speaker 1:Use only honest weights and scales and honest measures, both dry and liquid. A homer, that's a unit of measurement, will be your standard unit of measuring volume. An ephah, which is also a standard of measurement, and the bath, which is a standard of measurement, will each measure one-tenth of a homer. The standard unit for weight will be a silver shekel. One shekel will consist of 20 geras and 60 shekels will be equal to one minna. These are all units of measurement in the Middle East, verse 13,.
Speaker 1:You will give this tax to the prince. One bushel of wheat or barley and 60 for every 60. You harvest One percent of your olive oil. One sheep or goat for every 200 of your flock of Israel. These will be the grain offerings, burnt offerings and peace offerings that will make atonement for the people who bring them, says the sovereign Lord. All the people of Israel must join in bringing these offerings to the prince. The prince will be required to provide offerings that are given at religious festivals, the new moon celebration and the Sabbath days and all other similar occasions. He will provide a sin offering, burn offerings, grain offerings, liquid offerings and peace offerings to purify the people of Israel, making them right with the Lord. This is what the sovereign Lord says.
Speaker 1:In early spring, on the first day of each year, sacrifice a young bull with no defects to purify the temple. The priest will take blood from the sin offering and put it on the doorpost of the temple, the four corners of the upper ledge of the altars and the gateposts and all the entrance to the inner courtyard. Do this also on the seventh day of the new year for anyone who has sinned through error or ignorance. In this way, you will purify the temple. On the 14th day of the first month, you must celebrate Passover. This festival will last for seven days. The bread you eat during that time must be made without yeast. On the day of Passover, the prince will provide a young bull as a sin offering for himself and the people of Israel. On each of the seven days, the priest will prepare a burnt offering to the Lord, consisting of seven young bulls and seven rams without defect. A male goat will also be given. Each day for a sin offering, the prince will provide a basket of flour as a grain offering and the offering of a gallon of olive oil with each young bull and ram. During the seven days of the festival of shelters, which occur every year in early autumn, the prince will provide these same sacrifices for a sin offering, these burnt offerings, grain offerings, along with other required olive oil.
Speaker 1:Now, once again, we did this yesterday. What in the world is this talking about? And what in the world does this got to do with us? Well, remember, the overall idea here is measuring what matters Well, what are? The overall idea here is measuring what matters. Well, what are we talking about here? We are talking about how they would go about doing life with God as part of a community. When the nation of Israel got out of Egyptian bondage, god went at Mount Sinai and then, through the book of Exodus and the book of Leviticus and I know we read those, especially the book of Leviticus and we'd just be dying. You know it's like oh my goodness, all these sacrifices. Well, if you've read this with us, you remember this was God saying I want to dwell among you, I want us to do life together. So we're going to have these feast days and when we do, man, we're going to celebrate the adventures we've had together. That's what Passover was. Passover was celebrating freedom, celebrating the adventure of God taking them out of the land of Egypt and setting them out toward freedom. And then these other festivals were all about getting them to remember and engage with the freedom that God had done in their life.
Speaker 1:And so it was the idea of I want you to measure things right so that we can do life together. Measure what matters, which is what matters is who you become, not what you achieve. He's saying I'm not doing this so that the priest can get wealthy. I'm not doing this so that you can do this, you can do that. I'm doing this because I'm trying to develop a community. I'm trying to develop wholeness and maturity out of you so that you guys can do life together, most importantly, doing life together. You can do life with me, and so this is teaching them to measure correctly measure what matters and make sure you're making proper space for the Lord in your life.
Speaker 1:So, going back to the original question, how do we measure what matters in our life? How do we measure what we are experiencing spiritually? I would say, measuring what matters never has anything to do with looking to our left or to our right. We should never measure our effectiveness by what somebody else is doing. Rather, we should measure our effectiveness by who we were. What God is telling them is he's saying the unsaid thing is you guys weren't doing this. You were not honoring me, remember? In the past couple of chapters he's been talking about how, in my temple, right beside me, you were worshiping these idols. We ain't doing that, no more. We're worshiping me. So we are reestablishing what it looks like to worship the one true God. You guys weren't doing this, but you are now.
Speaker 1:And the idea is is we're not measuring with anybody else, we're measuring according to who we used to be. Are you closer to God today? Are you following him closer today than you were yesterday? That's how you measure, measure, quote, unquote. Your were yesterday. That's how you measure, measure, quote, unquote. Your spiritual success. It's not about achieving, it's about becoming.
Speaker 1:And then, when it comes to success around you, the question shouldn't be are you getting ahead of everybody? It's who are you investing in? How are you impacting everybody? How is the community coming together because of your efforts? You know this was saying I want you to take care of people by treating them right. I want you to take care of the prince who is leading you by treating him right. And it's the idea of creating this cooperation, creating this community.
Speaker 1:And so God is teaching them again how to measure what matters and how to put what matters into context, which is their relationship with him, their relationship with leaders, their relationship with one another. And he's even saying the other way around it's also the leader's proper relationship back to the people. And so we measure according to healthy relationships with God, with others, with ourself, and we do that. We're taking a step in the right direction. So here's my question for you which one of those three do you sometimes have an unhealthy measure Like? Do you measure the wrong way your relationship with God? Do you only measure it based on if you are better than other people? Do you look forward to hearing other people's relationship with God so you know how you're doing? Okay, I pray more than they do. I read my Bible more than they do. I don't miss church as much as they do. That's the wrong way of doing that. Do you measure unhealthy relationships with your community? The other one is your relationship with leaders. Have you been through things in the past to where now you don't trust leaders? Maybe it's time to ask the Holy Spirit to heal you and then also place you in environments where you can trust.
Speaker 1:What about relationship with yourself? Do you think too highly, do you think too lowly of yourself? Honestly, the goal is to get where you don't think about yourself anymore. Self-aware, just not self-obsessed. I know who I am. I Self-aware, just not self-obsessed. I know who I am. I know who I'm not. I'm working to get better every day. My focus is on Jesus.
Speaker 1:Which one of those three you need to pray and ask the Lord to help you with today. Let's pray together right now. God, thank you so much for today. Thank you, god, that you are with us in every way and I'm thankful, god, that you want to help eyes to see you so clearly that they fall more in love with you every day and they seek after you.
Speaker 1:I pray for those who need to make course corrections when it comes to the community, maybe that they find themselves isolating because of trauma and difficulty. I pray, holy Spirit, you open their eyes to see that so they can take corrective steps. Maybe for those, god, who are struggling with the view of themselves maybe they've become self-obsessed rather than self-aware it's so easy to get to that place, god, we don't say anything of condemnation toward them, but rather giving them hope to realize that you, god, are moving in their life more than ever and that we focus our attention on you and that's where healing comes from. I pray God in all things. Lord, you help us to take those next steps, because freedom is what you have for us. In Jesus name, we pray Amen. And what God's word says in Ezekiel 37, verse 14,. It says I will put my spirit in you and you will live again. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow for Ezekiel chapter 46.
