Pressing On (Ezra 5:1-17)
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
A. Preliminaries
A. Preliminaries
Good morning. We continue our sermon series this morning on the Book of Ezra.
If you would please turn with me in your Bibles to Ezra, Chapter 5.
Last week, we covered how things were going in Jerusalem, and they were not so good. The people in spite of God’s command to rebuild the temple had been more focused on their own homes, even (likely) using the building materials meant for the rebuilding. Life was very comfortable, while they were neglecting all their duties.
Verses 1 and 2 that gave specific mention of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah who were post-exilic prophets who preached to the people of Jerusalem to try to rouse them from their laziness.
For what happens next, let’s begin at verse 2.
Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak arose and began to rebuild the house of God that is in Jerusalem, and the prophets of God were with them, supporting them.
Let’s Pray.
Holy Spirit, come and illuminate the words of our God. 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)
B. Transition to Sermon
So, I want to show you at least three things from our text this morning in Ezra, Chapter 5, and they are that this work resumes because
1. God was Keeping Them
2. They Knew Their God
3. They Knew Themselves
I. God Was Keeping Them
I. God Was Keeping Them
So Zerubbabel and Jeshua rise up and begin to resume the work. And the prophets are there, supporting them. And basically what happens next is the Persian governor of the region shows up and says “Who told you that you could do this?” And he ends up writing a letter to the King, to warn him about what these Hebrews are up to.
He even mentions the big rocks that are involved
Be it known to the king that we went to the province of Judah, to the house of the great God. It is being built with huge stones, and timber is laid in the walls. This work goes on diligently and prospers in their hands.
So the people have gotten back to work and the governor and his associates show up asking for names.
At the same time Tattenai the governor of the province Beyond the River and Shethar-bozenai and their associates came to them and spoke to them thus: “Who gave you a decree to build this house and to finish this structure?” They also asked them this: “What are the names of the men who are building this building?”
So he comes and asks for names. Now that might not seem like a big deal, but this is the equivalent of someone coming up to the door and saying “Papers, please?” What are the names? Who told you that you could do this?
And then we read this:
But the eye of their God was on the elders of the Jews, and they did not stop them until the report should reach Darius and then an answer be returned by letter concerning it.
We are not immediately told what their answer was (that will come later), but it didn’t stop the governor from writing this letter.
But what we are told is that God had his eye on them, and that the work didn’t stop until the Darius could send a reply. In other words, God made sure that the process of this communication was slow enough that for a significant amount of time the work did not slow down.
And this is a good reminder for us, that it is not our job to stop doing God’s work when it gets scary or costly. Rather, our job is to stay at our post, and do the work God has set before us with diligence, courage, and joy.
So what is the work God has given you to do? As we talked about in the Wednesday Night series on work and vocation—what has God put around you? Has he given you a house? Start there. A family? Friends? Start there. Co-workers? Start there. Has he given you a wife? A husband? Children? Start there.
There will be setbacks, challenges, disappointments, and plenty of sin to repent of. But that doesn’t stop the work God has given to you, or his promises to give you strength for it.
II. They Knew Their God
II. They Knew Their God
So what did they say when that governor and his friends showed up asking questions?
In effect it was, Good afternoon Mr. Governor. We respect that you work for the King. But we work for the Greater King.
Let’s have a look at the letter, starting in verse 6:
This is a copy of the letter that Tattenai the governor of the province Beyond the River and Shethar-bozenai and his associates, the governors who were in the province Beyond the River, sent to Darius the king. They sent him a report, in which was written as follows: “To Darius the king, all peace. Be it known to the king that we went to the province of Judah, to the house of the great God. It is being built with huge stones, and timber is laid in the walls. This work goes on diligently and prospers in their hands. Then we asked those elders and spoke to them thus: ‘Who gave you a decree to build this house and to finish this structure?’ We also asked them their names, for your information, that we might write down the names of their leaders. And this was their reply to us: ‘We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and we are rebuilding the house that was built many years ago, which a great king of Israel built and finished.
They answered according to who their God was. Now keep in mind, this was a day of regional gods. You had gods over certain nations and territories. There were gods of the fields and Gods of the rivers and Gods of the light and the darkness and so on.
And they answer
...‘We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth...
We worship the God who rules everything, and everything means everything, not some backwoods low-rent forest demon. But the God over everything. The whole earth and heaven, too. The eternal God.
And this should make you stop and think, where did these guys come from? They got a cease and desist order just a little while ago and it appears to have been very effective. They focused on building their own houses and their own comforts. Where did they find the courage to stand up to the regional governor when he comes knocking on their door asking for names?
And the answer is last week’s sermon: Prophetic words. Words from God. The Word of God not only told the people what to do but it filled them with the courage to do it.
Because by that word they were reminded who their God is.
What gave David courage, when he was surrounded by his enemies? The knowledge of who his God was.
Listen to what he says
For you save a humble people, but the haughty eyes you bring down. For it is you who light my lamp; the Lord my God lightens my darkness. For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall. This God—his way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him. For who is God, but the Lord? And who is a rock, except our God?— the God who equipped me with strength and made my way blameless. He made my feet like the feet of a deer and set me secure on the heights. He trains my hands for war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. You have given me the shield of your salvation, and your right hand supported me, and your gentleness made me great.
What gave the a bunch of fishermen the courage to stand up to all the authorities of their day? The knowledge of who their God was.
But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”
Do you see the connection? They were able to stand firm on their feet, because the Gospel of their God was on their lips.
And this should be instructive for us today, and it is why regular ministry of the word to our ears and our hearts is so important. We must be a people who know our God. Who know Him. Who know of His strength. Who know of his power. Who know of His Cross, His Resurrection, His Ascension, and his present-day, right-now reign.
This is critical, because God’s work is costly. Speaking up at work or to that hard-hearted family member is hard. Standing up to evil might be risky. Speaking clearly of God’s “No” to sin, and calling the lost to repentance will bring us spite and anger. But if we know who our God is, we will find our courage, church. We will not wallow in self-pity or fear. We will say “Our God does marvelous things. Just watch.” And the comfort of Jesus Christ is given to us, not only to make us feel better, but to make us bold. Bold to confess sins. Bold to rebuild what we’ve broken. Bold to follow him into the hard work of seeing a dying city resurrected in the name of Jesus.
But there is a second thing they knew.
III. They Knew Themselves
III. They Knew Themselves
If you look at the second half of this letter, you’ll see that they didn’t just know their God. They knew their own story of sin and failure.
Let’s go back to the text. Here is the rest of the letter, reporting back to Darius what Zerubbabel and Jeshua said. They said,
But because our fathers had angered the God of heaven, he gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this house and carried away the people to Babylonia. However, in the first year of Cyrus king of Babylon, Cyrus the king made a decree that this house of God should be rebuilt. And the gold and silver vessels of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple that was in Jerusalem and brought into the temple of Babylon, these Cyrus the king took out of the temple of Babylon, and they were delivered to one whose name was Sheshbazzar, whom he had made governor; and he said to him, “Take these vessels, go and put them in the temple that is in Jerusalem, and let the house of God be rebuilt on its site.” Then this Sheshbazzar came and laid the foundations of the house of God that is in Jerusalem, and from that time until now it has been in building, and it is not yet finished.’ Therefore, if it seems good to the king, let search be made in the royal archives there in Babylon, to see whether a decree was issued by Cyrus the king for the rebuilding of this house of God in Jerusalem. And let the king send us his pleasure in this matter.”
What I want you to note is that when the leaders of Jerusalem narrated their own story they did not leave out their own sin and failure.
And this is also instructive for us. When you tell of the Gospel of God, do not leave out your own rescue. Sometimes we can. Sometimes when we speak of the Gospel we can talk about how God saves sinners form sin. And that’s good. But we mustn’t leave out how God has saved us from our sin. And how he continues to do so everyday.
One of the great helps to your assurance of salvation is the ongoing reminders of how God has rescued you.
And what I want you to see here today is they talked about their sin, and they talked about the consequences. And they talked about their rescue. They said our fathers messed up big time. And all the gold and silver got carried off, and then God restored it to where it was supposed to go.
They knew their story had a lot of sin in it, and they didn’t leave that out. It was, so to speak, part of their testimony. Now what I love about this text is that part of their testimony is generational sin.
They said
But because our fathers had angered the God of heaven, he gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this house and carried away the people to Babylonia.
It is fascinating to me to observe that the psychological literature in our day has begun to freely speak of generational trauma and how sin patterns get carried from one generation to the next. And when I first heard about that, I had to stifle a laugh. I was thinking “Congratulations, guys You’ve stumbled upon something Christians have been talking about for centuries.”
But this is big encouragement to us because I never want the culture at Grace Presbyterian Church to be one where we feel like we need personal testimonies of horrific sins to make us better emissaries of the gospel. My wish for all of you and your children is that you have relatively boring testimonies by worldly standards.
“I have grown up in the house of faith all my life. There was never a time I can remember when I didn’t know and worship Jesus.”
Yes and amen. So then, is that my whole testimony? Well first, that’s a great testimony. But second, not necessarily. If you want some greater insight into what God has saved you from. No problem. Just go back a couple of generations, and you might discover just what kind of darkness God has left buried in a tomb in Jerusalem that’s missing a body.
And you can say “I had every reason to end up like that. But God has rescued me out of generations of exile to display in me his love.”
And that is why we delight to sing Psalm 124. That is a song given to God’s people for all generations. “Yes. It looked like we were done for. It looked like we were trapped, but Let Israel Now Sing in Faithfulness that even though all our enemies’ wrath against us fiercely roared, and even though at times it has looked really bad, our only help is in God’s Holy Name. Who made the stars and all the heavenly frame.”
And if you are wondering, “But Bryan, what if the patterns aren’t broken? What if I see the same sin in me that was in my parents and their parents, and maybe their parents before them?”
My counsel to you is that Jesus Christ still breaks curses today. Talk like the men of Jerusalem and bring that sin to Christ and say “Lord, let redemption start with me. Let my children be liberated from this.” And get some brothers or sisters around you to help. Tell them what you are up against. And start praying, perhaps even consider fasting and praying, because some spirits only come out by such things, Jesus said. And pray for God to keep putting Psalm 124 on your lips, because he loves to write that story again and again.
Conclusion
Conclusion
So with the work that lies before us, church, in the midst of a dying city that cries out for a resurrection, what has been given to us to know?
We must know that our God is big enough to write stories of courage and redemption, even in Central Louisiana.
G.K. Chesterton, in The Everlasting Man once observed
Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it has a God who knows the way out of the grave.
So we must know this God.
And second, we must know that he writes stories of glory with ordinary sinners like us. And our sin is part of His story.
Your story might be that your family is wrecked. Perhaps the rebuilding starts with you. Bring that to God in prayer.
Your story might be that your own life is filled with secret sin. Come out of the darkness and into the light. Confess, and be forgiven, and be renewed starting today. Jesus is up to this challenge, and all your sin, vile as it is, is but a cup of bile compared to his ocean of mercy.
Your story might be one of crushed dreams and failures and disappointments. And you’re tempted to let those things confirm that God is basically done with you.
That’s not your final chapter. But it is part of your story, and you should tell it as part of God’s providential work to form you into the servant he is readying for his work today.
That work might not look like you thought it would. You might have to find your place in a new kind of work today. But that is part of why God calls us to gather as one, together, and worship him, and feast together and grow in our fellowship and maturity.
Jesus doesn’t just save you from sin. He has work for you to do, and His plans are without error. Every sin and failure of yours, he is writing into a triumph of glory that will be reversed, the same way he is reversing all the work of the enemy in this world until every heart confesses Christ is Lord. And that is why we gather and sing and hear and eat and drink. Because our God calls us to image forth what he is—every single day—bringing into reality.
I will close with a quote from Derek Thomas, who I don’t mind telling you has been no small help in this sermon series to me. His commentary on Ezra is fantastic. And he writes of the Jews in Ezra 5,
What mattered most to these returned exiles now was not their homes or livelihood, but the worship of God. Worship is the ultimate thing. Jesus told a Samaritan woman, “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him…” The question that we must ask ourselves is this: Are we driven by a concern to worship God with a singular, determined resolve, no matter what the cost?
By the grace and kindness of our God, let it be said of us.
In the name of Jesus, Amen.
