Studied and Surrendered - Ezra 7:1-10

Introduction

A few years ago, we were on a vacation in Gatlinburg. And, you know how crowded the parkway gets when it’s vacation season there. Well, I don’t always find that as sanctifying for my patience as I ought to. So, I decided that I would just turn down the backroads. I assumed that they all had to funnel back to the right place eventually. Famous last words. I turned down one back road that led to another back road that led to another backroad. It got dark, and the roads seemed like they got narrower and the mountains seemed like they got taller. And, of course, there was no cell phone service for us to pull up Google Maps. And, ultimately, trying to save about 10 minutes, I cost us about two hours. And, honestly, I’m just thankful that my marriage survived.

But, you know, it’s easy to get lost when you have no idea where you’re going. We are living in a generation that’s adrift. We were designed to operate with the grounding power of absolutes, but we’ve become convinced that there aren’t any. Everything is up for redefinition, and the result is that we all feel lost. We don’t know if up is really up and if down is really down. We don’t know if male is really male or if female is really female. As CS Lewis noted, we’ve raised up a generation that doesn’t know if wonderful or if they’re just having wonderful feelings. Certainty and authority have evaporated, and our age just feels lost.

God’s Word

It’s easy to get lost when you have no idea where you’re going, and I think this is what makes Ezra so helpful. When we’re introduced to Ezra, we’re quickly told that he knew who he wanted to be and what he wanted to do. He wasn’t a man adrift. His life was aimed at true north. It says in verse 10 that “Ezra had set his heart” after the Lord. He knew where he was going.

Chris, Ezra becomes a shepherd of Judah, and he shows us Three Aims of a Faithful Shepherd (Headline), and I’m going to frame them in the words that Paul uses when he talks to the elders in the NT because they’re the same aims we see here. And, church family, these are aims that ought to be especially true in an elder’s life, but they ought to be true in all of our lives.

“Guard” the “deposit.”

Ezra 7:10 “For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.”

Ezra 7:6 “this Ezra went up from Babylonia. He was a scribe skilled in the Law of Moses that the Lord, the God of Israel, had given, and the king granted him all that he asked, for the hand of the Lord his God was on him.”

Not the “specifics,” but the “direction.”

We typically worry most about the details of our lives. We worry about who we’ll marry. After all, how well do you really know a person? We worry about where we’ll work. What if we never have a good opportunity? We worry about who our kids will become. How can we make sure they don’t rebel?

And, worrying about the details will overwhelm you, won’t they? Because you can’t work them all out, and it’s because you’re not in control, as hard as that is to accept. So, think about Ezra here. Ezra wasn’t one of the ones who were exported from Jerusalem. He was born in exile. He had almost no control over the details of his life. They were largely determined for him.

So, Ezra didn’t sweat the details. He focused on the direction. He “set his heart” toward the will of God. He didn’t know the specifics of his life, but he did know the direction of his life. Church family, how much worry would be eliminated, how many sleepless nights would be avoided if we could just come to Ezra’s realization: You’re responsible for the direction of your life, and God is responsible for the details of your life. You just aim your life in the direction of God, and allow him arrange the details that are best for you and for his glory.

Not “innovation,” but “saturation.”

We’re given three clear aims at which Ezra “set his heart.” And, his first aim is to “study the Law of the Lord.” And, I want you to notice an emphasis here. It’s not just the Law that he’s studying. It’s the “Law OF THE LORD.” The emphasis isn’t merely on the information and the rules, but the One who had given them. You see this in verse 6 even more clearly. This is the Law “that the Lord, the God of Israel, had given.” Notice this is emphasizing the covenant name of God and the covenant stipulations of the Law. So, Ezra is “setting his heart” to fully know God and to experience the full relationship with God that’s intended for his people. That’s the significance.

Now, we’re told that Ezra was “a scribe.” He’s the first one we read of in the Bible. And, that meant that he was to lead God’s people through God’s Law. So, he studied it. Deeply, intentionally, patiently. And, I want you to recognize, firstly, that God’s people are meant to be led by studied men. Our families and our churches will not rise above the discipleship of our men. Our church is to be led by studied elders. Our classes are to be taught by studied teachers. Our families are to be led by studied fathers. This doesn’t mean that you have to go seminary. It means that you have to saturate yourselves in the Bible.

And, secondly, you must see that the goal isn’t to go the Bible to find what you want to see, but to understand what God has said. This isn’t Ezra’s word, and this isn’t Ezra’s ministry to do with as he pleases. These are the words of God! This is the Law that He “has given.” We are not to be innovators of God’s word modernizing it to fit the sensibilities of the age. It’s not ours. We’re to be saturated with it so that we believe what God believes and see how God sees.

Paul, says it like this to his young apprentice, Timothy: Guard the deposit! Guard the true gospel delivered once for all to the saints. Dads, you must build up you family in the gospel and fight off the wolves that come. How? With the word of God pouring out of you! Teachers, your job is not invent the most revolutionary Bible study known to man. Your job is to build up your class to thrive in a hostile age with the old, old story of the Gospel. And, elders, Chris, this is not our ministry, and this is not our word. We build up the body by feeding the sheep, and we protect the body by defending them just as Jesus fought off the temptation in the wilderness, “For it is written!!” Let us “guard the deposit” given to us!

“Pay” careful “attention.”

Ezra 7:10 “For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.”

Ezra 7:6 “this Ezra went up from Babylonia. He was a scribe skilled in the Law of Moses that the Lord, the God of Israel, had given, and the king granted him all that he asked, for the hand of the Lord his God was on him.”

Ezra 7:9 “For on the first day of the first month he began to go up from Babylonia, and on the first day of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem, for the good hand of his God was on him.”

Israel’s shepherds were a major reason they ended up in exile. The shepherds included the kings, priests, and prophets, and Isreal had a lot of bad ones that led unfaithfully. In fact, I think that’s part of the significance of Ezra’s lineage that’s given here. They represented the priest line going all the way back to Aaron, and they were more renown for their golden calves than they were their covenant faithfulness. So, in Ezra, God is raising up a new kind of shepherd that will lead his people well.

No more “professional” Christians.

That is, you’ll notice that Ezra set his heart “to do” the word, not just to read it and know it. In fact, what’s remarkable is when you realize that Ezra was studying the Law with all of his heart before he ever knew he’d even have an opportunity to lead in any capacity. He may have been of the priestly family, but he was in exile and had never even seen the Temple. So, what we see with Ezra is that he’s not a professional Christian. He wasn’t studying just teach; He was studying to know God and obey him.

We have no need for any more professional Christians. We don’t need any more elders with nice clothes and slick lessons that wow us with their eloquence. Just like we have no need for any more nominal Christian parents who acknowledge God through a duty on Sunday, but deny him with their lives the rest of the week. Professional Christians pervert the gospel.

No, we have no need for more professional Christians, Chris, but we do have a great need for more passionate men of God. Men, who think about their own souls before they think about their sermons or lessons.

No more “proud” Christians.

And, we have even less need for proud Christians. Notice who gets the credit for Ezra’s life and ministry. Verse 6 said that Ezra found favor with the King because “the hand of the Lord his God was on him.” He was able to make the arduous, four month journey from Babylonia to Jerusalem because “the good hand of his God was on him.” That is, the credit being given is not that Ezra was persuasive or charismatic or brilliant. It’s that God had raised up him, stirred him up, and sent him out. Ezra was a faithful man, but the real story here is the faithful God that is equipping and raising him up for the good of his people.

Ezra could accomplish no good apart from the Lord, and neither can any of us. “Good” ministry and “good” results can only come from God’s “good hand.” So, we shouldn’t be so easily impressed with ourselves when our church grows or our class grows or our children turn out well. We must be so bought into God’s sovereignty and God’s glory that we can’t buy into our own hype. And then, we’re set free to do our ministries and to enjoy our ministries. You see, a heart that’s fueled by compliments will find criticism fatal. But, a heart that is filled with the glory of God will press on in the sowing, in the harvest, and in the pruning because it recognizes that it’s all the Lord.

This is why Paul tells the elders of Ephesus: “Pay careful attention to yourselves!” It’s easy to professionalize your faith so that your heart and words are far apart. It’s easy to take credit for your success. It’s easy to go through the motions. Oh, but what we need are men and women, moms and dads, teachers and leaders, deacons and elders, who “set their hearts…to do” the word of God! Who live an honorable life with a passionate faith day in and day out.

Chris, we need you to be that kind of man. Pay careful attention to yourself.

“Preach” the “word.”

Ezra 7:10 “For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.”

Ezra 7:6 “this Ezra went up from Babylonia. He was a scribe skilled in the Law of Moses that the Lord, the God of Israel, had given, and the king granted him all that he asked, for the hand of the Lord his God was on him.”

Finally, Ezra “set his heart…to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.” And, I say “finally” because it’s meant to be a culmination. When a person thinks of a scribe, they immediately think of a teacher. But, a truly good and effective teacher must have the order right. It’s always study, do, then teach. It’s always know God, honor God, and then teach about God. After all, is there anything harder than listening to a person teach about a God they don’t seem to know or that they don’t seem to love?

David Hume was an eighteenth-century British deistic philosopher who rejected historic Christianity.  A friend once met him hurrying along a London street and asked him where he was going.  Hume replied that he was going to hear George Whitefield preach.  ‘But surely,’ his friend asked in astonishment, ‘you don’t believe what Whitefield preaches, do you?’  ‘No, I don’t,’ answered Hume, ‘but he does.’ That description of Whitefield fits what we know of Ezra very well, and it fits the description of the kind of people we must be if we’re going to impact the Cheaha Valley.

Ezra reminds us that God’s people are meant to be taught by

Taught by “skilled” men.

Verse 6 says explicitly that Ezra was a skilled man. Paul talks about this with Timothy in 2 Timothy 2 about “rightly handling the word of truth.” That is, they know how divide it so that you can see exactly what God has said and how that applies to your life.

And, I am concerned about unskilled pastors preaching. There are two common errors I see. The first is to moralize the word of God so that it becomes a life principles and duties. But, if moral teaching would’ve been enough, Jesus wouldn’t have had to come. Moralizing the Bible stifles and smothers the people of God who are meant to walk in freedom. Don’t just tell me what I need to do. Tell me what Christ has already done, and help me to see how He enables me to walk in newness of life today. But, I don’t just see us moralizing. I see us modernizing. We’re trying to adjust and acclimate the message so that it accommodates the favorite sins of the culture. And, in the process, people lose hope and the church loses authority because there’s no firm foundation to which they can return. No, we need skilled men who will not moralize so that the church is stifled nor modernize so that the church is compromised. We need skillful men that can stand up week after week with an old message with fresh hope, who say “Thus saith the Lord.”

Y’all, it’s harder work. It’s easier to preach an agenda. It’s easier to come up with a list of do’s and don’ts. But, we don’t need more preachers looking for an easy, exciting message. We need more who will preach the foolishness of the cross in a life-giving way that anchors the application of what we should do the person of Christ and what He has done. We need skilled men preaching the word!

But, even more than to be taught by skilled me, we need to be…

Taught by “surrendered” men.

That is, our homes to hear from parents and our churches need to hear from teachers and preachers who completely and utterly “set their hearts” on the Lord.

You see, we’re all just donkeys. The story of Balaam’s donkey in Numbers 22 has always fascinated me. Is there anything that has a worse sound than a donkey? My grandparents used to live across the street from a pasture filled with donkeys, and the sound they make is one that will just make you want to shoot it. So, I want you to think about that. For that donkey’s whole life it made the worst racket possible. But, for a brief time, for a few sentences, it said what God had to say, and it spoke words of life.

You see, Chris, when we stand and teach our opinions and our agendas and our thoughts and our ‘wisdom,’ we’re nothing more than a screeching donkey. But, when we have surrendered ourselves to speak only those words that God has given us to speak, we speak in the language of angels. Put your opinion down, and preach the word. Preach the word in season and out of season. Preach the word as a dying man to dying men. Set your heart to preach the word.