Meeting Ezra

Introduction, Part One: Why Ezra?

Good Morning.

As I’m sure most of you know, last Sunday, we concluded our series through the Apostles’ Creed. My hope and prayer is that it was a blessing to you. It was a sermon series about foundations. And it seemed good to me to follow a sermon series about foundations with a sermon series about building.

As I think all of you also know, we are currently in a Wednesday Night Series that is dedicated to reviewing the work of your Elders at our recent Session Retreat in December, and discussing Mission and Vision for this body for the next few years.

That has been a really enjoyable and rich time, and there will be a summary of all of it at our congregational meeting later this month, so if you’ve been unable to attend Wednesday Nights, I would encourage you to be present for the Congregational Meeting.

Finally, let me tell you the third thing I think all of you know: At Grace, we like to preach through entire books of the Bible. While there is nothing wrong with preaching a topical series (and in fact, sometimes it is a good and necessary thing to do), we like to move verse by verse and chapter by chapter through a book. And my preference is to move back and forth between Old Testament and New Testament Books. So you might remember some time ago we did a sermon series on the Book of Psalms. Then we went over to Ephesians. Now we are going back to Old Testament.

And I gave it a lot of thought and prayer--there were several contenders. But the reason Ezra won out was that I talked with some pastor friends of mine and they said “If you’re in a season where God is refreshing a sense of mission and vision and even reformation among your people, preach through Ezra and Nehemiah.” And if you’re in a place where your people feel like your city is in a state of ruin or near-ruin and desperately needs the healing of Jesus, preach through Ezra and Nehemiah.

And the more I considered it, the more that made sense. Now you may have just heard that and thought “Wait, two books?” Well, in its original setting, among the Hebrew people, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah were originally one book. They got split into two much later. But they are meant to go together, so I think it good to preach them together. But for the sake of organization, I will frame this up as a sermon series on Ezra first, followed by a series on Nehemiah.

But before we start working our way through Ezra, I wanted this morning to preach an overview of the whole book, or I should say books. At first I thought this was going to look like a Chapter by Chapter explanation, but that ended up taking way too much time, and at some point it would just be me repeating myself.

So I thought I would just hit the major themes and let you know what’s coming. So let’s get started.

Introduction, Part Two: Returning and Rebuilding

Please Turn with me in your Bibles to the third Chapter of Ezra. Ezra (in your English Bibles, at least) is just after First and Second Chronicles, before the Psalms and the Prophets. The sort of theme verse for our sermon this morning is from Ezra 3, and you can find it on page 460 of your Pew Bibles.

Ezra 3:8–13 ESV

Now in the second year after their coming to the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month, Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak made a beginning, together with the rest of their kinsmen, the priests and the Levites and all who had come to Jerusalem from the captivity. They appointed the Levites, from twenty years old and upward, to supervise the work of the house of the Lord. And Jeshua with his sons and his brothers, and Kadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah, together supervised the workmen in the house of God, along with the sons of Henadad and the Levites, their sons and brothers. And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments came forward with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the Lord, according to the directions of David king of Israel. And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the Lord, “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever toward Israel.” And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God!

Ezra and Nehemiah are about a Homecoming. If you know your Bible History, you know that in Deuteronomy, God gave Israel a Covenant and He told them that if they walked in his ways, they would be blessed, and receive the blessings of the covenant and would flourish in the Promised Land, but if they did not, if they spurned God, and turned to idols, they would suffer plagues like Egypt, and they would eventually be removed from the Land and forced into Exile.

Deuteronomy 28:36–37 ESV

“The Lord will bring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known. And there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone. And you shall become a horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the Lord will lead you away.

And we do know this is exactly what happened. Nebuchadnezzar II, about 500 years before Jesus’s birth would eventually destroy Jerusalem and take the people of God into a 70 year exile.

But one day they would come back. That’s what our story is about. King Cyrus would decree that the exiles could return home, just as Isaiah said that Cyrus would do (by name, by the way). And so Ezra and Nehemiah are about the Return home from exile, and the work of rebuilding the temple and city of Jerusalem. It is a book about two things: Reformation and Revival. Which are important but different works of God.

Francis Shaffer, in his essay “The Lord’s Work in the Lord’s Way” observes

Often men have acted as though one has to choose between reformation and revival. Some call for reformation, others for revival, and they tend to look at each other with suspicion. But reformation and revival do not stand in contrast to one another; in fact, both words are related to the concept of restoration. Reformation speaks of a restoration to pure doctrine, revival of a restoration in the Christian’s life. Reformation speaks of a return to the teachings of Scripture, revival of a life brought into proper relationship to the Holy Spirit. The great moments in church history have come when these two restorations have occurred simultaneously. There cannot be true revival unless there has been reformation, and reformation is incomplete without revival. May we be those who know the reality of both reformation and revival, so that this poor dark world in which we live may have an exhibition of a portion of the church returned to both pure doctrine and a Spirit-filled life.

From No Little People, page 74; emphasis added.

Ezra and Nehemiah is in many ways the story of a magnificent Reformation that is unfortunately in search of an authentic revival.

Let’s Pray.

Holy Spirit, come and illuminate the words of our God. Keep all your Words ever brightly shining before our eyes. Show us the wealth of glory that lies beneath the old, familiar stories. Teach us the meaning hidden in the songs of Zion. Raise us to the heights of aspiration reached by the wings of the prophet. Lift us to the summit of faith that is trod by the feet of the apostle. Open our eyes that we may behold wondrous things out of your law, and Amen.

(Based on a prayer by George Matheson)

As I said, Ezra and Nehemiah are books about a Reformation, and as we will learn in due course, it is a Reformation in search of an authentic revival.

And so in our overview of Ezra and Nehemiah this morning, I want to bring three things to your attention that will become important themes for our time together in this important book of the Bible.

First, the Foundation of Reformation

Second, the Response to Reformation

Third, the Target of Reformation

I. The Foundation of Reformation

The exiles come home, let by a fellow named Zerubbabel a descendant of David, who is one of the great-great-great grandfathers of the Lord Jesus. He leads the people until Ezra becomes the primary leader, but believe it or not that’s not until Chapter 7. The first six chapters are a people under Zerubbabel’s leadership. And his name means “Planted in Babylon.” And this tree planted in Babylon is, as it were, uprooted and replanted at home in Jerusalem. And Jerusalem is something of a wreck. In ruins.

And so they set themselves to work, and the first thing they do is rebuild an Altar. The Exiles come home in Chapter 1, a list of names is given in Chapter 2, and then what’s the firs thing that happens in Chapter 3?

Ezra 3:2 ESV

Then arose Jeshua the son of Jozadak, with his fellow priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel with his kinsmen, and they built the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the Law of Moses the man of God.

And the next thing they do is build a temple. What this should tell you is that for the people of Israel, the first priority was worship. Before we reestablish our city. Before we get the infrastructure figured out. Before we straighten out the zip codes and make sure the public restrooms have enough toilet paper, we must restore worship. Worship is the foundation of a people. Even before they can get the temple built, priority number 1 is the altar. Because Worship is always at the center of the work of God’s people. It cultivates and stabilizes our identity, it fuels the work God has put before us, and it is nothing less than obedience to what he has commanded.

To quote Russian Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann (pronounced Shmem-mun), man is not simply Homo Sapien (that is, “thinking man) he is Homo Adorans (“worshipping man”). We worship because it is what we were made for. Either we will worship the true and living God, or we will worship a god we design, or we will worship a God we imagine inside of ourselves, but we cannot help but worship. We were made for this. It is the foundation of who we are.

And in the early chapters of Ezra what you see is that they rebuild the altar and then the rest of the temple. And when they lay the foundation, there is a glorious worship service that is an odd mixture of joy and grief. It’s the text we read at the start.

Ezra 3:12–13 ESV

But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away.

What an absolutely bizarre moment. And I think by way of an admittedly imperfect parallel, this can remind us that when God does a new thing, there is joy in the present and for the future. And that joy is--among a people--often mixed with heartache at the memory of the way things used to be. There’s nothing wrong with that, it is as natural as the seasons. But what is most important is that at this point in the story, the people are still focused together on the foundational priority of the right worship of God.

And in fact, when we get over to Nehemiah we will see that worship itself before God has an order that people can follow, with many of the same elements we use in our own service.

Nehemiah 8:4–8 ESV

And Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that they had made for the purpose...And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was above all the people, and as he opened it all the people stood. And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. Also...[they] helped the people to understand the Law, while the people remained in their places. They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.

There is a platform where the Scriptures are read, there is time given over to a sermon, people stand for the reading of the Word, and they respond with a loud and glad “Amen.” We also see physical actions of worship including lifting hands as well as kneeling and bowing down. This is important for us to see that in Scripture there are patterns for worship given to us to follow, and they are for our good and our blessing.

So Ezra and Nehemiah are books about Reformation and Rebuilding. And they are also about what happens whenever Reformation starts...

II. The Response to Reformation

Ezra 4:1–5 ESV

Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the returned exiles were building a temple to the Lord, the God of Israel...the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah and made them afraid to build and bribed counselors against them to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia.

Both Ezra and Nehemiah face significant resistance when they try to build. And that should not surprise us. Wherever there is Reformation, the people of God face trouble and setbacks and temptations to despair.

Martin Luther once observed that

For, where God built a church, there the devil would also build a chapel.

(Martin Luther, from the Colloquia Mensalia (1566) Chapter 2 (translated by H. Bell as “Martin Luther’s Divine Discourses,” 1652))

Both Ezra and Nehemiah encounter severe resistance to their work. Because, in short, when Reformation comes to town, the devil gets angry. When people start returning to all God’s Words, when the people of God turn from their sin, when the glory of Covenant Renewal Worship is restored, the demons get mad.

And both in Ezra and Nehemiah, God’s people encounter resistance as soon as they start doing the kind of work that threatens the idolatry of the nations around them. Not all Israel remains steadfast, and you see corruption polluting the priesthood, and even the high priest. Reformation brings with it opposition and temptations, and never assume that your Pastor or your Elders don’t need help and accountability and protection, not just from ordinary temptations or temptations that come with affliction, but the temptations that come when things are going well, and the Lord is giving growth and Reformation everywhere you look.

And we must take this seriously. Because how frequently we talk about the sad state of our city, and its desperate need for revival. But here’s a question you need to take very seriously. If the Lord Jesus were to give us marching orders and say “Go and win the city. Go and see people converted. Go and see crime brought to new lows. Go and see political corruption exposed and rooted out. Go and see the widow and the orphan protected. Go and see your city made beautiful.” If all our dreams for Alexandria were to come true, are you ready for the reaction? Are you ready for the resistance? Are you ready to be hated? Are you ready to be called nasty names? Are you ready to be slandered by everyone around here? Are you ready for membership at Grace Presbyterian Church to translate into dirty looks at work? If that is what the Lord gives us, are you ready to be made uncomfortable for the sake of your neighbors and their eternal souls? Are you ready for savage wolves to attempt to come in, to use the words of the Apostle Paul (Acts 20:29)? Or are you only committed to forms of ministry that would result in us being seen as the nice people? True Reformation and Revival has a cost. It will bring resistance and despisers.

But the presence of enemies does not mean something has gone wrong. It’s a sign that must accompany work that’s being done right. This does not mean that all persecuted work is good work. But it does mean that all good work is persecuted work.

So Reformation has foundations, and it will garner a response. Finally, it has a target.

III. The Target of Reformation

(That is, the Heart)

What begins to come out as the story of Ezra/Nehemiah goes is that all the work is being done, but not all the hearts of the people are in it. Some are lazy, contributing nothing to the work. Others get caught carelessly working on the Sabbath. Still others are still married to pagan women, rejecting God’s warnings about intermarriage with the pagans, and how it would ultimately bring about more idolatry.

And we will talk about this more when we get to it, but it is really remarkable just how much marriage features in Ezra and Nehemiah, and how not obeying God in the matters of marriage contributes to the downfall of a people. Reminding us that marriage and the family is not just something we do because we like it, but it’s right at the center of how God has designed humans and human civilizations. We tend to demote it, thinking if we could only get a more competent mayor or better people on our city councils, then our city would prosper! And there’s some real truth to that. But the reason why marriage features so much in a book about rebuilding foundations and a city is because the two are connected. We are one of the first cultures in human history to assume that healthy marriages and healthy families are relatively insignificant to the overall health of a people and a culture. In fact they are right at the center. More on that when we get to it.

But you have to imagine that these episodes of covenantal unfaithfulness sound real notes of despair in the story. I know that between Zerubbabel and Ezra and Nehemiah they have to feel like Mom coming into the room that she just finished cleaning 15 minutes ago, and the kids have already wrecked it, and she’s tempted to blow up and say “Oh come on, can we not keep this clean for a few minutes?”

But what this reveals is that you can work at all the Reformation you want, you can set up all the circumstances for revival that you want, but if the Lord Almighty does not have the hearts of the people, none of it will come to ultimate success.

And in fact, I am sorry to say, the book of Nehemiah does not have a happy ending. The Book of Nehemiah ends with him crying out to God saying “Lord, I don’t know what to do with these cold hearted sinners, will you at least give me some credit for trying?”

But this is important for us to understand that the sad ending of Nehemiah is put there intentionally, in the Lord’s wisdom.

Because what many people don’t know is that our Old Testament book order is something we got from the Greeks and the Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint. In the original Hebrew Order of the Books of the Old Testament, Ezra and Nehemiah are not at the halfway point, they are at the end, almost the very end. And so the function of Nehemiah’s grief is meant to grieve you the reader as you say “Surely there must be something better.” The Mission that God gave to Israel--to see the name of the LORD cover the earth as the waters cover the seas--we are clearly not there yet at the end of Nehemiah. Surely something better must be still on the way. And indeed, as the Old Testament comes to a close, this longing without an answer goes up that is waiting for a baby’s cry in Bethlehem to break the silence.

Conclusion: The Great Foundation

I believe that Ezra and Nehemiah are meant to give us great hope and even some direction for Reformation and Revival in our moment. But they also remind us that our only hope in life and death is to build on Christ the Solid Rock. The one who has died, and in his death has taken all our sins on himself so that he could forever pronounce us clean and create a clean, forgiven, unstoppable body of forgiven sinners on earth that he will use to turn cities and nations upside down. He is the only foundation stone that can never be moved.

But Christ is not only the Cornerstone of his Church, he is also her Chief Architect. And so the work before us is to build according to his will, according to all his words, loving what he loves, hating what he hates, and trusting him for all the grace and strength we need for the work ahead.

If we don’t do this, all our work is in vain.

Psalm 127:1 ESV

Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.

On the other hand, if the Lord blesses our work, there is nothing that man can do to stop it. So how do we pursue that kind of blessing?

Well, not to go for the obvious answer, but we should probably ask for it. In prayer together, especially on Sunday Nights as we meet and plead for the Lord to do a mighty work in and through us. As we confess our sins and ask God to make us a clean people, with our hearts totally owned and possessed by him, with all our idolatry getting exposed and dissolved.

For that we will need to learn how to confess and forgive each other frequently. That’s the reason for the upcoming Wednesday Night series on conflict resolution and peacemaking. And we will need to learn how to love the great work of serving our neighbors with all God has given us--that’s the reason for the Spring series on hospitality and loving your neighbors.

There is good work ahead. There are fields ready for harvest. And we will make good use of the opportunities the Lord gives us with un-defeat-able gladness, and we will say to one another

Nehemiah 8:10 ESV

...Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

In then name of Jesus, Amen.