Restored Patience

Ezra 5-7

Page 461

June 18, 2023

INTRODUCTION:

SCRIPTURE

Ezra

You'll be able to find where we are in the book of Ezra. Our study passage this morning is dauntingly long. Don't worry, we won't read all of it. We are going to look at the trees from 30,000 feet instead of the leave at ground level. I'll skip through chapters 4 to 7, just reading a few verses, but a few which will give you the flow of the story.

The book of Ezra comes in two movements, as it were.

Chapters one to six are the first bit, which covers about 20 years.

That's what we've been looking at so far, where the decree of Cyrus says go back to Jerusalem you exiles and build the temple again.

And then chapter 6 has the joyful conclusion of the temple being built.

Then there's a gap though you don't see it in your Bibles.

There's a gap of almost 60 years and we have a second half of Ezra, Chapters 7-10

from whom the book takes its name,

actually comes to Jerusalem from Babylon as a reformer to teach the law of God.

He builds the people as Zerubaable was building a building.

The Temple is not very useful, if there are not a people that honors and worships the Lord of the Temple.

Well, this is the passage before us this morning, and it's from this that I think the Lord has some things He wants to say to us as His people.

love life, then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of. You may recognize that. That's what Benjamin Franklin wrote in Poor Richard's Almanac almost 250 years ago.

Well, whatever obvious faults American society may have, squandering time does not seem to be among them.

If we are going to be good stewards of our time, then we must understand patience.

We must see that our timing is not God’s timing.

We must see things form God’s perspective and timetable.

Sermon Theme God’s delay does not mean he is distant

And we have trouble even waiting for patience. I'm sure many of you have heard the prayer, Dear God, I want patience and I want it now.

We don't like to wait. We don't like to wait. God uses delay to grow His people

· Patience is the key to everything. As someone has said, you get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it.

That's true. Sometimes we need to wait this morning, you may find some encouragement in this story from Ezra. It may help you increase your waitability. I want to look at this story and bring out from this story four diagnostic questions we can call them. We'll say that I'm your spiritual physician this morning, and I have four diagnostic questions I want to give you about waiting to help you with your waitability.

God is patient as He unfolds His plan for our lives.

Well, in the story of Ezra, it's in some ways a long and complicated story, full of stoppings and haltings.

Even Before the story even begins,

the Israelites have been in exile in Babylon for 70 years.

They know the promises of God to their nation, but they haven't seen them fulfilled.

They're just left there in exile for years.

· When you and I read the story, we can go right through 1 and 2 Chronicles and then right into Ezra and to us it doesn't seem like any time at all.

But if we were living these,

a lifetime would have passed.

Longer than I've been alive,

from when the narrative breaks off of their captivity to when Ezra picks up again.

Time goes.

The people wait.

In chapter 1, though, the great news comes.

King Cyrus has said that they can go back to their land and build the temple.

But it takes some time, you know,

to get those things together.

it was not instant.

In chapter 2, there's this very long list of exiles.

it had to take a long time to get all those people together.

Thousands and thousands of people.

Time form declaration of War to actual fighting +

The United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917.

American troops conducted their first major action on May 28, 1918, when the 1st Division rolled back a German salient at Cantigny. (kan·tig·nee)Soon after, American forces were deployed along the Western Front,

Imagine the anxiousness and restlessness that the soldiers wanted to

Back in chapter 1, receipts had to be had for this dish and that pan, this bowl and that other article.

And then finally, then there is the journey to Jerusalem itself,

a journey of a thousand miles over land.

More waiting, more waiting than most of us are used to these days.

And then the chapter we looked at last week, chapter four, where there was all this opposition.

And so the building came to a standstill for 15-16 years.

The building came to a standstill.

It's harder to wait sometimes, isn't it? Once you begin to see the fulfillment of something you want, that makes it almost harder to wait.

They had begun, they had rebuilt the back in Jerusalem,

they had rebuilt the altar,

they had even laid the foundations of the temple and then it came to a standstill in chapter 4

and they waited, we read, until the second year of the reign of King Darius.

Well if we go on and read the passage that we have for this morning, we find that there's moregtoing and froing about this.

· In chapter 5, once again, some nosy officials come around. T

hey say, what are you doing here building? And so they send off a letter to the king.

The king comes back, affirming that they can continue to build.

And after five more years, they finish rebuilding the temple.

So they've had about two years building the first part of it that we see in the early chapters and then about five years,

about seven years,

just like Solomon's temple had taken seven years to build.

So this temple was rebuilt in about seven years.

· Interestingly, it seems to have been finished in about 516.

We see the date here in chapter six in the 14th verse that I read to you,

Ezra 6:14 -15 “14 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; 15 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.”

Well, we can date that to 516 B.C., 70 years after the temple had been destroyed in 586.

Well, waiting was no doubt very hard for them.

They had a lot of it. And waiting can be very hard for us.

What makes this Patience/Waiting necessary?

Well, we want things now that we don't have. And unlike God, we're not all powerful.

We can't arrange things so that we have exactly what we want. And so waiting for us becomes often a very hard thing to do because our hearts have run off after something that we don't have. We're tempted to say that waiting is too hard, that it simply can't be right.

But the reality is that God's timing is different than ours.

Even in this book of Ezra, we see that in chapter seven, when you begin the sort of second half of the book of Ezra,

look at those very first three words, they're very small.

Ezra 7:1 “1 Now after this, in the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, Ezra the son of Seraiah, son of Azariah, son of Hilkiah,”

Chapter seven, verse one, after these things.

Well, you would think he was narrating something that took place right after the last verse in chapter 6.

It was 60 years later after these things.

The next thing in God's plan as he was unfolding,

the next significant thing that God did with his people was 60 years on as Ezra is sent to restore covenant life to Israel?

Well, waiting seems to be a part of life.

Sometimes we have to wait.

Patients in hospitals know that.

Expecting parents know that.

So do prisoners.

So do students. We have to wait sometimes.

Sometimes we have to wait even for God. And that's when especially the problem comes because sometimes people have thought that especially for God, we should not need to wait. If he is God.

· We get discouraged waiting, we don't like waiting, but the Jews in Babylon, they had to wait. They waited year after year, decade after decade. The early Christians knew what it meant to wait also. Obviously, some people have been complaining to Peter about just this.

2 Peter 3:3-9 “3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. 4 They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” 5 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, 6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. 7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. 8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

God’s delay is God’s greatest way to perfect His saints.

What makes waiting wrong?

We tend to promote procrastination over patience

We often fail to consider the gradual, cumulative effect of sin in our lives. In Saint Louis in 1984, an unemployed cleaning woman noticed a few bees buzzing around the attic of her home. Since there were only a few, she made no effort to deal with them. Over the summer the bees continued to fly in and out the attic vent while the woman remained unconcerned, unaware of the growing city of bees.

The whole attic became a hive, and the ceiling of the second-floor bedroom finally caved in under the weight of hundreds of pounds of honey and thousands of angry bees. While the woman escaped serious injury, she was unable to repair the damage of her accumulated neglect.

Robert T. Wenz.

Sometimes you know waiting is wrong. And looking at this story, I think there are at least a couple of ways that are instructive examples for us in this. First of all, when we're waiting for the wrong thing.

Israel in the Old Testament had really counted on having a king of the line of David, on having a temple built, on being in Jerusalem, to give them a sense of identity. But it was in the exile that God taught them that these things were simply particular means of His making them His people.

The point was never a particular building in a particular place with a particular ruler but

resting in God's presence, living under his rule and reign. And that ultimately there would be no limit of this to a temple in Jerusalem and to an earthly Davidic monarch.

What a lot of Jews learned during this time of the exile is that they were waiting for the wrong thing.

But even more clearly in this story, we see that waiting is wrong when we're really unwilling to act or to do the right thing for merely selfish reasons.

But God used the waiting and delay to mature His people.

Judah had responded the wrong way to the opposition to the Temple building.

Instead of building the temple, they resorted to building a life apart form God.

They built houses and farms thinking they would return to when they get a chance.

But just like anything else that is not important, they forgot about the temple and went on with their lives, but it ddi not pan out like they had thought.

Sometimes we wait and we wait for the right thing, but we wait selfishly for the wrong reasons.

Haggai 1:1–12 (ESV)

1 In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest: 2 “Thus says the Lord of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.” 3 Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, 4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins? 5 Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 6 You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes. 7 “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. 8 Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord. 9 You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. 10 Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. 11 And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors.” 12 Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him. And the people feared the Lord.

This delay of the building work that happened for 15 years about in Chapter four, delay, you could say, was a simple delay motivated by their fear and their sinfulness. Haggai in the first chapter of his prophecy, actually, we have recorded the sermons here, some of the sermons that were preached that are mentioned in the book of Ezra and in the very beginning of Haggai, which if you want to read it, you can.

You see, they were delaying because they were consuming their resources selfishly.

They weren't delaying out of any kind of pious waiting upon God in that instance.

They were delaying because they were being selfish.

Their waiting Patience was a sin.

They were waiting on God to work, but in-fact they were procrastination because they were more consumed with other tings in life.

So what about for you?

Are you doing some waiting that's wrong this morning? Are you waiting for something that's wrong this morning? Are you waiting for something maybe that's the wrong thing? What are you waiting for? What's the next big hill on the horizon of your life that you're convinced once you get over that hill, then life will coast on along about like you'd like it to? What are you waiting for like that? A different job? Different health? Different friends? Or even in holy things, what are you waiting for? You waiting for a different preacher? You waiting for a different kind of message that he would give you during this time? You waiting for a different kind of building that you like better? Are you waiting perhaps for a different style of worship that moves you emotionally? What are you waiting for? Are you waiting for the kind of things that God calls you to wait for? What if Paul had decided that he would wait until his thorn was removed? He wanted his thorn removed, whatever this thorn in the flesh was that Paul talks about in the New Testament. He wanted it removed and he would do nothing else for the Lord until he got that removed. He would just wait for that to be removed. That's the wrong thing for him to wait for. That's not what the Lord had called him to do. What are you waiting for? Sometimes like children with particular toys that they like, we get stuck to particular means of God's grace and we want God's grace to come this way. And if it doesn't come that way, we won't take it.

Be careful that you're not waiting for the wrong thing.

Also, be careful you're not waiting for the wrong reason, maybe you're waiting for the right thing this morning, but perhaps you're waiting wrongly like these Jews out of fear or selfishness. You know, our inner lack of commitment can sometimes cause us to exaggerate the strength of the outside difficulties that we're going to face in obeying God. Well, what about your life? Are you holding something back from giving over to God and his service out of fear? Or out of selfishness? You won't be able to consume for yourself as you would like to. If you're certain of God's will, then cast aside your fear and spend yourself for Him. A member of this congregation gave me one of my favorite wedding gifts

How do we know if we are being patient or procastinating.

Look at the last phrase in Haggai 1:12 “12 Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him. And the people feared the Lord.”

Delay is procrastination when you fear man

Delay is patience when you fear God.

The famous saying of Jim Elliot, the martyred missionary to the Alcas back in the 1950s. He is no fool to give what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose. Don't waste time waiting for the wrong thing. Don't waste time waiting for the right thing when God calls you to act. Third, what makes the right kind of waiting possible? God calls you to act. Third, what makes the right kind of waiting possible?

What makes the right kind of waiting possible?

4th What makes waiting worthwhile? What makes waiting worthwhile?

God’s promises makes waiting worthwhile.

Well, quite simply, it's the promises of God.

Throughout this book, what the people of Israel are doing, they are pursuing promises that God gave them. That's why they adventure as they do, going from Babylon to Jerusalem over that thousand mile journey. It struck me one time while we were living in England that everybody I saw there was the child of someone who had stayed. And the reason maybe Americans always look so funny in England is because Americans by and large are the children of people who came. What a strange gene pool you end up with in a country when so many of them who came had to survive and endure the things they had to survive and endure to be here. Well, in a funny way, these exiles were the same. They were people who pursued the promises of God across a thousand miles, often a fairly barren wilderness. They spent themselves because they knew that God's promises were worthwhile. So, will you spend your life waiting on the promises of God? John Milton, one of the greatest poets in the English language, when he was only 43, lost his eyesight. It happened to him fairly quickly through disease, first one eye and then the other. And he wrote this poem as he was grappling with the loss of his sight. When I consider how my light is spent, ere half my day is in this dark world and wide, and that one talent which is death to hide, lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent to serve therewith my Maker, and present my true account, lest he returning chide. Doth God exact day labor, light denied? I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent that murmur, Soon replies, God doth not need Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best bear his mild yoke, They serve him best. His state is kingly, Thousands at his bidding speed And post or land and ocean without rest, They also serve who only stand and wait. They also serve who only stand and wait. Waiting has always been a part of what it means to serve God. And you know, you never do nothing when you wait. Waiting is continuing.

Patience means living in a particular direction and trusting God's will and God's timing.

That's what we see in the lives of many great Christians of the past. Corrie ten Boom. John Bunyan.

The people here in the Old Testament as they waited for a promised son, a promised land, as they waited for their deliverance, for the temple and for the Messiah.

And that's what we see in our own lives. As we wait as a church, as we wait individually. This is not a culture that encourages us to wait. We want things fast. We want them now. And if we can't have them that way, we don't want them. Friend, I'll tell you now, you may not be a Christian with that kind of attitude. It is in the very nature of serving God that we wait on His timing, that we follow His instructions and His command. In this city, they say information is power. If you get information a day ahead of someone else, you've gained a great thing. You don't wait for information. Wouldn't it be amazing, though, to be able to wait? To know that godliness with contentment is great gain. Pray that you be able to wait. Pray that God help you to know what it is you should wait for. Pray that you learn the promises of God and that you wait for them faithfully as His people.

Let's pray.

Lord, we pray that You would look into our hearts. You know the ways, Lord, in which we are impatient. You know the ways in which this life seems either too fast in the wrong direction or too slow in the right direction. Father, we chafe sometimes, we feel. We're not patient.

We don't wait.

Lord, give us the ability in this hurried age to wait upon You. Give us the freedom, the freedom of a child to be able to play until the parent comes. Lord, to be able to work with one mind until You tell us that it's time for us to do something else, or that it's time for us to come home and be with you. Lord, in this day of a thousand images, we pray that you would keep us single-minded, single in eye and thought and heart, in our devotion to you. We pray, Lord, that you would do this for Jesus' sake. We pray, Lord, that you would do this for Jesus' sake.