The Overcomer

Offering Meditation

Generosity begins with obedience. As citizens of God’s kingdom, we have a responsibility to be obedient and give. God then takes our obedience and transforms it into generosity of spirit.

Give obediently now, so you can be a person marked by generosity then.

Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him. John 14.21

Announcements

Vision Sunday — Next Sunday on November 13 we will have one service at 9:30AM in Estherville to celebrate our annual worship time together, to see God select new spiritual leaders, and to vote on our upcoming budget. It’s a great time to be together and we hope you’ll make very plan to be with us. Unfortunately we won’t have an online service available for that Sunday, so please plan to be in-person with us!

Greeting Time (90 Seconds)

Greeting Time Here

Scripture Reading

Ezra 6 ESV

Then Darius the king made a decree, and search was made in Babylonia, in the house of the archives where the documents were stored. And in Ecbatana, the citadel that is in the province of Media, a scroll was found on which this was written: “A record. In the first year of Cyrus the king, Cyrus the king issued a decree: Concerning the house of God at Jerusalem, let the house be rebuilt, the place where sacrifices were offered, and let its foundations be retained. Its height shall be sixty cubits and its breadth sixty cubits, with three layers of great stones and one layer of timber. Let the cost be paid from the royal treasury. And also let the gold and silver vessels of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took out of the temple that is in Jerusalem and brought to Babylon, be restored and brought back to the temple that is in Jerusalem, each to its place. You shall put them in the house of God.” “Now therefore, Tattenai, governor of the province Beyond the River, Shethar-bozenai, and your associates the governors who are in the province Beyond the River, keep away. Let the work on this house of God alone. Let the governor of the Jews and the elders of the Jews rebuild this house of God on its site. Moreover, I make a decree regarding what you shall do for these elders of the Jews for the rebuilding of this house of God. The cost is to be paid to these men in full and without delay from the royal revenue, the tribute of the province from Beyond the River. And whatever is needed—bulls, rams, or sheep for burnt offerings to the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, or oil, as the priests at Jerusalem require—let that be given to them day by day without fail, that they may offer pleasing sacrifices to the God of heaven and pray for the life of the king and his sons. Also I make a decree that if anyone alters this edict, a beam shall be pulled out of his house, and he shall be impaled on it, and his house shall be made a dunghill. May the God who has caused his name to dwell there overthrow any king or people who shall put out a hand to alter this, or to destroy this house of God that is in Jerusalem. I Darius make a decree; let it be done with all diligence.” Then, according to the word sent by Darius the king, Tattenai, the governor of the province Beyond the River, Shethar-bozenai, and their associates did with all diligence what Darius the king had ordered. And the elders of the Jews built and prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo. They finished their building by decree of the God of Israel and by decree of Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes king of Persia; and this house was finished on the third day of the month of Adar, in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king. And the people of Israel, the priests and the Levites, and the rest of the returned exiles, celebrated the dedication of this house of God with joy. They offered at the dedication of this house of God 100 bulls, 200 rams, 400 lambs, and as a sin offering for all Israel 12 male goats, according to the number of the tribes of Israel. And they set the priests in their divisions and the Levites in their divisions, for the service of God at Jerusalem, as it is written in the Book of Moses. On the fourteenth day of the first month, the returned exiles kept the Passover. For the priests and the Levites had purified themselves together; all of them were clean. So they slaughtered the Passover lamb for all the returned exiles, for their fellow priests, and for themselves. It was eaten by the people of Israel who had returned from exile, and also by every one who had joined them and separated himself from the uncleanness of the peoples of the land to worship the Lord, the God of Israel. And they kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread seven days with joy, for the Lord had made them joyful and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria to them, so that he aided them in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel.

Introduction

Good morning, if I haven’t made it clear, my name is Brandon Morrow and I serve as one of the Pastors on the Teaching Team. We’re glad that you’re with us.

Please join us in opening up the scriptures, if you haven’t already, to Ezra 6. We are continuining in our series called, “Revival in the Rubble,” a study in Ezra-Nehemiah and we’re on the hunt for the faithfulness of God. It’s in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah that we see God’s inexhaustible desire for us. He maintains His faithfulness to the end.

Now to those of us who may have missed other sermons, you are right in the middle of some great action — great place for God to show up in.

God’s people have been captured by Babylon, the King of Persia has now taken over Babylon, and God has used this King in a very crafty way. While the King thinks it as a slick political move to gain the favor of the people, God has plans to use it to fulfill His promises. His promise is that He will give the land back to His people and He will rebuild the Temple, and they’ll experience His presence. But there is opposition that delays the rebuilding of the Temple. Two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah show up, and preach the Word of God to them and it encourages them to keep building. Where we left off last week was government officials asking the leaders, “who told you to get back to work?” And the leaders respond, “We don’t work for you, we work for God. Why don’t you go home and check the records?”

Today we’re in the next part of the story… They have checked the record, and sure enough, God has shown up… Not only has He shown up, He has shown out — and it’s better than they ever imagined.

Here’s where I want to take us this morning: at every turn, at every opposition, God has the means to overcome every obstacle. What we’ll find from Ezra 6 is that God does, in fact, show up when we need Him to, and that’s worth celebrating.

Body of Sermon

We often live somewhere between anxiety and assurance, and for the people of God, that’s where they’ve been living.

Recently in Ezra 5 they’ve been given the assurance that God is watching out for them as they live obediently. For about a decade, they weren’t obedient, and anxiety was the primary feeling they endured: would they get to experience seeing God’s promise come true to them? Would they just get conquered and hauled off somewhere else?

They have historical precedent to really ask the question… is this going to work? — We have our own precedent in waiting for answers to our prayer and sometimes they sound like, “what’s the purpose? I’m waiting for nothing!”

Last chapter they were waiting on a legal official to approve whether or not their work would continue… God said it would, but it wouldn’t have been the first time for someone to thwart what God wanted done.

I want to paint for you the fullest expectation of our human emotions surrounding promises, and our own feelings about whether or not they come true… AND hold in good tension the fact that God has never falted on any of His promises, and that we’re still waiting for the true end results of some of His promises.

Ezra 6 is a little dose of hope of though… and man, we need this one, we need reminders of God showing up in the middle of the honesty of our uncertainty… there’s not a lot of apparent uncertainty in Ezra 6, but we’ve got a lot of uncertainty in our lives, and Ezra 6 is the reminder that in a stack of circumstances, that God can bring them all together for good… He shows His ability to Overcome any and every circumstance.

There’s a theme we’re going to develop, the theme of The Overcomer. Let’s look at verses 1-6, again — and I’ll give you a 30,000 foot rundown of this.

Ezra 6:1–6 (ESV)

Then Darius the king made a decree, and search was made in Babylonia, in the house of the archives where the documents were stored. And in Ecbatana, the citadel that is in the province of Media, a scroll was found on which this was written: “A record. In the first year of Cyrus the king, Cyrus the king issued a decree: Concerning the house of God at Jerusalem, let the house be rebuilt, the place where sacrifices were offered, and let its foundations be retained. Its height shall be sixty cubits and its breadth sixty cubits, with three layers of great stones and one layer of timber. Let the cost be paid from the royal treasury. And also let the gold and silver vessels of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took out of the temple that is in Jerusalem and brought to Babylon, be restored and brought back to the temple that is in Jerusalem, each to its place. You shall put them in the house of God.”

“Now therefore, Tattenai, governor of the province Beyond the River, Shethar-bozenai, and your associates the governors who are in the province Beyond the River, keep away.

The first opposition to overcome was the bone that this guy, Tattenai, has to to pick with the rebuilding of the Temple. We don’t know what His issue is, but the Lord is going to handle that… They find a copy of an official court record that these folks in Jerusalem are doing exactly what they’re supposed to do, and in verse 6, it says that the King himself has given the instruction for Him to stay away. In verse 7, the King doubles down on the severity of His request: you leave them alone.

If you remember from some previous chapters, there was opposition to the rebuilding of the Temple, and of the lines of opposition it was said that once the Temple was rebuilt that these people would rebel, that they wouldn’t pay back the government a dime, and that they’d lose all the control of the territory.

But take a look at verse 8. READ VERSE 8

Ezra 6:8 ESV

Moreover, I make a decree regarding what you shall do for these elders of the Jews for the rebuilding of this house of God. The cost is to be paid to these men in full and without delay from the royal revenue, the tribute of the province from Beyond the River.

God takes what the enemy means to use for evil, and He ends up leveraging it for good. The amount of good that God is able to use as leverage is very substantial, in verse 8 he says, “The cost is to be paid to these men in full and without delay from the royal revenue, the tribute of the province from Beyond the River.” And let’s see what more God does in verse 9-10.

Ezra 6:9–10 ESV

And whatever is needed—bulls, rams, or sheep for burnt offerings to the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, or oil, as the priests at Jerusalem require—let that be given to them day by day without fail, that they may offer pleasing sacrifices to the God of heaven and pray for the life of the king and his sons.

And then in verse 11, we see one of the most mobster lines in all of scripture… “If you change what I said, I will take a piece of wood out of your house and kill you with it, and I’ll turn your house into a manure pit for my farms — do I make myself clear?”

Let’s stop right here… everything is at God’s disposal for Him to fulfill His Will.

He is not anxious over warring nations, sitting Kings, financial limitations, threats of violence, or any measure of human ingenuity.

There is no fret, no fear in the methods of God’s fulfillment of His promise — He isn’t going to lose control of these Kings of Persia, He is not phased by the circumstances that we think could surmount an insurmountable God.

God is faithful.

He does what He says He is going to do.

The more we learn about God’s story and His theme of overcoming every moment and mound of opposition, shows to us that we ought to live in the realm of assurance rather than to dwell in the space of anxiety.

He’s got this. He’s got this. He’s got this.

Verses 13-18 shows how we respond when we know that God’s got this, that He, in fact, can, and does, overcome.

Verse 14 says that they finished the Temple, and verse 16 ends with the words that they “celebrated the dedication of this house of God with joy.”

Joy is the response of the very word of God, when we experience the Word of His promises, not just the fulfillment of those promises, but nonetheless, it’s joy — that’s the thing that’s at the center of the faithfulness of God — resounding joy. Joy is the emotion of those who have experienced, first hand, the work of The Overcomer.

Pastor Rick Warren defines joy as “the settled assurance that God is in control of all the details of my life, the quiet confidence that ultimately everything is going to be alright, and the determined choice to praise God in every situation.”

The obvious application from this is quit being a grumpy, joyless, child of God… you have the track record of God’s faithfulness to go off of, — go wild, let loose, live as if your life depends on God fulfilling His Word to us.

The joy of God’s people runs deep… they’re experiencing the present aspect of their joy, but they’ve got a pretty decent track record on why they would be joy, how they know that God would overcome… Let’s look at the end of Chapter 6, verses 19-22, and see some of the historical examples of God showing up.

They’ve been celebrating, and before too long, another opportunity to remember their story comes up, and now it’s the time of Passover. The commemoration of their story when God brought the 10 plagues to Egypt, who was holding the people of God captive. The last plague was an announcement of death on the firstborn child, but God had devised this plan so that His people could be preserved. They had to wipe the blood of a lamb over their doorpost so that the Angel of Death would passover their household. — Following this moment of commemoration is the Feast of Unleavened Bread, a week of joy and rest — the middle of verse 22 describes the atmosphere of their celebrations: the LORD had made them joyful — it also says that it had turned the heart of the King of Assyria, but that’s for another time — but the point remains the same, their response is one of joy — joy because God, the Overcomer, has overcome death itself.

I always appreciate how the Bible commemorates God’s ability to overcome darkness: we eat! Verse 21 — it says they were eating. — The Bible always has a time for a meal. Remember Psalm 23? “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies!”

There is another meal in the Bible that is done in the celebration of the Overcomer… It comes from Revelation 19:6-9

Revelation 19:6–9 ESV

Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”

There is rejoicing and exultation at the news that Jesus has overcome death and the devil. It’s so weird, in Revelation 19, the meal doesn’t start, there’s a break in the action, and there’s a battle scene and The Overcomer himself is seated on a white horse, already covered in the blood of His victory, where death would pass over every person who has been covered by Christ’s blood, and behind Him is the same group of people who, at the Table, are rejoicing and crying out in exultation, and they’re adorned in purity and victory for what Jesus has done!

He announces with His voice that all of darkness has been Overcome.

Joy. Joy. Joy. Joy. Joy.

All we got is joy.

Joy that Tattenai didn’t succeed.

Joy that our story has been written with victory in mind.

Joy that Jesus defeats satan!

The Overcomer just keeps on overcoming. The faithfulness of God keeps pushing on. Not deterred by trials, not manipulated by person of power, not swayed by the changing winds of culture. He’s seen it all and He’s not done yet.

Benediction

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord: In the name of Christ. Amen.