Holy Accounting (Ezra 2)
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
We continue our sermon series this morning through the Book of Ezra, which is a book about hope, disappointment, promise-keeping, redemption, revival, and reformation.
Last Sunday we surveyed Chapter 1, and this today we will do the same with Chapter 2.
So if you will turn in your Bibles to the Second Chapter of Ezra, which is on page 458 in your pew Bibles.
And get a good look at Chapter 2. All seventy verses of it. And that let that fear wash over you as you wonder if I’m about to read the entire chapter.
I am not.
It would take about 10 straight minutes of reading, and what it would demonstrate to you is that Old Testament name pronunciation is often challenging, even for Pastors.
But we will read the first two verses.
Now these were the people of the province who came up out of the captivity of those exiles whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried captive to Babylonia.
They returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his own town. They came with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Reelaiah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispar, Bigvai, Rehum, and Baanah...
This is the Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
These two verses constitute a mere preamble to what is to follow. What comes next is a list of names that totals out around 125, and I have seen Bible reading plans that put an asterisk next to this chapter with the word “skim” in the footnote. You can skim this chapter. It’s a long list of names.
And as it happens, there’s a nearly identical list over in Nehemiah 7! The list makes a comeback, just in case you missed it.
So what shall we do with this? And can Pastor Bryan really squeeze a sermon out of this thing? (Just watch me!)
The challenges of the Chapter are obvious. It’s a list of names, and that’s really boring. Unless they are yours. What do I mean?
Well, let’s start with each of you, as individuals. I bet if I asked you what your name means, you could tell me. Everyone is a self-taught expert in their name.
And furthermore, I bet more than a few of you have done some family history work. Some genealogy. Maybe traced the family tree, or at least you know someone in your family that has.
I did a little Facebook poll a few days ago, asking people about their family history and how far back they can trace it. And do you know what I got? Names. Lots of names. People aboard the Mayflower. William the Conqueror. John Webster. Some of you are connected to people on the Mayflower. Others of you to the French Huguenots.
Lists of names are not boring when they are your people.
But why is this list here?
Well, the text tells us.
Now these were the people of the province who came up out of the captivity of those exiles whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried captive to Babylonia. They returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his own town.
This is a list of God’s people. And by faith in Christ, we are bound to the everlasting cloud of witnesses. Do you know what that means? That means these are our people. If you’re a grafted in Gentile, this is your family, by the gift of the blood of Jesus. This is not a list of those people. This is a list of our people.
1. God’s Promises have Names
2. God’s People Have Work To Do
3. God is Has a Purpose for a Family
I. God’s Promises Have Names
I. God’s Promises Have Names
Ezra 2 demonstrates the faithfulness of God (first) and his love for his people (second).
The exile would have been one long test of the promises of God. Plenty died in captivity. Some might have attained to comfortable lives. Perhaps life in Babylon was “not so bad” at the time, since many stayed behind. Those who went back were those whose hearts had been stirred to do so (Ezra 1:5).
You might remember that when we looked at Chapter 1, last week, I said that Ezra was a second Exodus. You have a people returning to their land. You have a foreign king telling them to leave. You have their neighbors providing them with silver and gold vessels to take with them.
And just as Chapter 1 was the second Exodus, Chapter 2 is now our second Book of Numbers. Now rather unlike the Book of Numbers, the journey itself is left out. Now that is what we tend to think of as the exciting part. But Ezra leaves out the “exciting part” while making sure he doesn’t leave out...the names. Why? Because God is faithful, and God keeps his promises. God told Abraham your descendants shall be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. And here we have seventy verses of that promise. Adding up to all the stars and grains of sand? No, not yet. Ezra 2:64 tells us that the number added up to 42,360.
The whole assembly together was 42,360,
That’s not exactly all the stars in the night sky. In fact, it is the population of Alexandria, give or take a couple thousand. But God is keeping his promises. This is why the prophet Zechariah tells us not to despise the day of small beginnings. God loves to start with a little and then conquer the world.
So what is this list about?
It’s about “people of the province” (Ezra 2:1). In other words, people of Judah. We learned in Chapter 1 that those returning from Exile are primarily from three tribes, Levi, Benjamin, and Judah, Judah being the most significant one. And that makes sense. Judah had the largest share of the promises given to them, and it was from the line of Judah that the Messiah would come. And so especially for Judah, remaining in Babylon was a lousy proposition. God had given a promise to Judah, and so for Judah-ites, or the “Jews” as they were later called, this was them keeping covenant with Yahweh.
Because God’s people are not just an army of faceless hordes, stacking up impressive statistics for the Kingdom. God’s People have names. Remember the words of Psalm 8
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.
And what we must remember when we come to a list of names like this is that by faith in the covenant promises of Christ, and by his shed blood on the cross, these are not just names. These are our people. We have ben grafted in to the Covenant Promises of old, and that means that these people are our people. We are of them and they are of us. God makes and keeps his promises not just to a big bunch of people, but to individuals and to families and to households and to clans that have names.
II. God’s People Have Work To Do
II. God’s People Have Work To Do
So I actually wanted to take some time in the sermon and analyze this list of names a bit. I have been greatly in this by Derek Thomas who has written a terrific commentary on Ezra and Nehemiah.
So let’s have a look at the list. I want to give you an overview of this list and make Five Observations about it.
First, the returning exiles have 12 leaders. At the end of Chapter 1, you have a fellow named Sheshbazzar
...all the vessels of gold and of silver were 5,400. All these did Sheshbazzar bring up, when the exiles were brought up from Babylonia to Jerusalem.
And here in verse 2, you have (number them off)
They came with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Reelaiah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispar, Bigvai, Rehum, and Baanah. The number of the men of the people of Israel:
So that would be 12.
So think of it this way: Do we have all 12 tribes coming home? No. But we do have 12 heads of 12 families. Who are representing a smaller version of Israel which now looks less like a nation and more like a city.
Second, verses 36-39 give us a list of the four clans of priests
The priests: the sons of Jedaiah, of the house of Jeshua, 973. The sons of Immer, 1,052. The sons of Pashhur, 1,247. The sons of Harim, 1,017.
There are about 4,300 of them in total which makes up about 10% of those returning. This is not surprising. What is the mission? The mission is to rebuild the temple and restore biblical worship of the one True God. You’re going to need priests for that.
Third, There’s also a list of Levites in Ezra 2:40 who were not priests--74 of them.
The Levites: the sons of Jeshua and Kadmiel, of the sons of Hodaviah, 74.
These guys were probably going to be priestly helpers, a lot like deacons. Now what’s interesting about these guys is that they probably would not have much to do until the temple was rebuilt. Same with your singers. And your gatekeepers. Even when the temple is rebuilt, they’re ready to sign up for seemingly menial tasks. They’re not coming home to rule. They’re coming home to serve.
Fourth, if you thought the Levites had a small job to do, there are also the temple servants in verses 43-54.
The temple servants: the sons of Ziha, the sons of Hasupha, the sons of Tabbaoth...
And the sons of Solomon’s servants.
The sons of Solomon’s servants: the sons of Sotai, the sons of Hassophereth, the sons of Peruda,
Now that’s a very interesting crew. Most of them have foreign names and they were probably taken into servitude after a war. Enemies of Israel, made into servants of Israel. And were part of the exile. And now, they had a place among the people of God. They’re not slaves anymore, and their return would have indicated that they had come to believe in the God of Jerusalem. Their names have been recorded as outsiders who have been brought in. Reminding us that God has always been about bringing in the Gentiles. That’s not a New Covenant invention. It’s a New Covenant glory--actualized as never before. But God has always intended to bring in the Gentiles.
Fifth, there were those who could not prove their descent, either to Israel in general or the priestly tribe in particular. They had no access to genealogical records.
This is told to us in verse 59...
The following were those who came up from Tel-melah, Tel-harsha, Cherub, Addan, and Immer, though they could not prove their fathers’ houses or their descent, whether they belonged to Israel:
As well as verse 62
These sought their registration among those enrolled in the genealogies, but they were not found there, and so they were excluded from the priesthood as unclean.
Have you ever been unable to locate your Social Security card or birth certificate? I know for a while I was interested in tracing my own family’s history, and I hit a dead end. I was only able to trace my family tree with confidence up to a fellow named John C. Rhodes who died in Butler County, Alabama in 1844. After that there are possibilities, but it all gets to be guesswork. There are some possibilities that we might stretch back to a Rhodes Family who owned an English estate in Durham called “Little Eden” which is sort of delightful. Delightful, perhaps. But as best as I’ve been able to tell, anything but firm and certain.
These exiles come home without any proof of who they are supposed to be.
But the point is, they are still allowed to return. What qualified them for the return home was that God had stirred their hearts. Period. It is the same today. God is building a church of famous names and nobodies, and all of us find level ground at the Cross of Christ. It’s why our worship contains so many corporate acts--confessing together, praying together, singing together, responding with glad Amen’s and Hallelujah’s together, coming to the Table together, because we have been made into a family, even as we come from different families.
What I want you to see is all who were willing to return could return, and some returned knowing that what lied ahead was not thrilling work. Doorkeepers and janitors and book carriers and so on.
But they went back, because they understood what they were a part of, and what God had promised them. This is important for us as we are going to talk about aspects of our mission and work and vision together in the congregational meeting today. What does God have for us? And what’s needed for the work ahead? Is it the sort of work that is glamorous? Or does it go under noticed? Unnoticed? It’s easy for that to be a source of resentment. But the reason why churches work and work together is because we believe that our Lord had glorious things to say about people who hand out cups of cold water.
Matthew 10:42
This is especailly encouraging for kids. Kids, you might sometimes think that you don’t contribute much to the work of our church. But in reality every kindness, every good work, every word of encouragement, every good attitude you have is service to Jesus, and part of our work together. Our aim, brothers and sisters, is to please our Lord Jesus Christ in all that we do.
III. God Has a Purpose for a Family
III. God Has a Purpose for a Family
God has put his name on this people, and so he names them here so that they will be remembered forever.
One of the things I have really appreciated about the ministry of John Piper is the way he has demonstrated from Genesis to Revelation God’s absolute commitment to the glory of his own name.
For I am a great King, says the Lord of hosts, and my name will be feared among the nations.
The only person in the universe who gets to talk this way is God. The God of Heaven and Earth is not hoping for the day, someday, when the nations might be his, and when he might have Kingship rights over them.
He rules over them now.
And what does he desire for them to do? To make his name known. And Ezra records how God loves to do it. He starts with families and he moves out. He started with a man and a woman in a garden. He started with an old barren, childless couple and told them to hope. He restarted in Ezra by stirring up fathers and heads of households.
To what point and purpose is God directing this family? The answer of course, is worship. The rebuilding of the Temple was central to their identity as a people.
And to quote Derek Thomas:
Ezra & Nehemiah Exodus
God is seeking worshipers—now just as much as then (
God is calling his people back to Jerusalem because he means for them to worship Him. It will not come without trouble. It will not come without hardship and interruptions and opposition. But God is at work keeping his promises, setting good work for his people, and reminding them that he knows them and loves them right down to their very names.
And just as this Second Book of Numbers proclaims God’s faithfulness in the lives of these families and households and clans, I don’t wonder if many of them had words from the original Book of Numbers on their mind
But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.
This is a strong hope for us, too. Because if God takes the time to record his people’s names, it means that the God of the universe knows you by name as well. Yes, you are part of a massive hoard, the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is accomplishing a work that might start small in some places, but it is always oriented toward a growing and global crescendo.
And in fact, there is, what you might call a Third Book of Numbers. A Third Book of Names that will be opened up on the last day. And in fact, Jesus instructed his disciples
Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
The Book of Revelation tells us that this book will be opened on the last day, and it contains names all recorded from before the very foundation of the world.
So we begin to see that while a long list of names might seem tedious to our eyes, God keeps names because this is what he has always been about: Redeeming men and women and boys and girls out of death and hell, and bringing them into a relationship with him by name.
So I ask you again this morning to consider: Do you know the Lord Jesus? And are you known by Him? Does he know you by name?
The way to know him today is to come to him as a sinner, ready to be transformed into a worshipper. Confess the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and your name will be in God’s book forever.
In the name of Jesus, Amen.
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