The Ideal Mother (1 Samuel 1-2)

Introduction

A. Preliminaries

Good morning. We continue our sermon series on the book of Ezra this morning, and we find ourselves in the 11th verse of the 7th Chapter. So we are starting with 7:11.

Last week, we met Ezra, who comes onto the scene decades after the Temple is rebuilt. He comes with credentials and a mission and a passion to extol and live out and teach God’s Law and Words to the people.

And what we find out this morning is that he comes to Jerusalem from the land of exile, with a mission authorized by the King of Persia.

B. Sermon Text

Let’s read. It’s a long text, so let’s walk through it together.

Ezra 7:11–28 ESV

This is a copy of the letter that King Artaxerxes gave to Ezra the priest, the scribe, a man learned in matters of the commandments of the Lord and his statutes for Israel: “Artaxerxes, king of kings, to Ezra the priest, the scribe of the Law of the God of heaven. Peace. And now I make a decree that anyone of the people of Israel or their priests or Levites in my kingdom, who freely offers to go to Jerusalem, may go with you. For you are sent by the king and his seven counselors to make inquiries about Judah and Jerusalem according to the Law of your God, which is in your hand, and also to carry the silver and gold that the king and his counselors have freely offered to the God of Israel, whose dwelling is in Jerusalem, with all the silver and gold that you shall find in the whole province of Babylonia, and with the freewill offerings of the people and the priests, vowed willingly for the house of their God that is in Jerusalem. With this money, then, you shall with all diligence buy bulls, rams, and lambs, with their grain offerings and their drink offerings, and you shall offer them on the altar of the house of your God that is in Jerusalem. Whatever seems good to you and your brothers to do with the rest of the silver and gold, you may do, according to the will of your God. The vessels that have been given you for the service of the house of your God, you shall deliver before the God of Jerusalem. And whatever else is required for the house of your God, which it falls to you to provide, you may provide it out of the king’s treasury. “And I, Artaxerxes the king, make a decree to all the treasurers in the province Beyond the River: Whatever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the Law of the God of heaven, requires of you, let it be done with all diligence, up to 100 talents of silver, 100 cors of wheat, 100 baths of wine, 100 baths of oil, and salt without prescribing how much. Whatever is decreed by the God of heaven, let it be done in full for the house of the God of heaven, lest his wrath be against the realm of the king and his sons. We also notify you that it shall not be lawful to impose tribute, custom, or toll on anyone of the priests, the Levites, the singers, the doorkeepers, the temple servants, or other servants of this house of God. “And you, Ezra, according to the wisdom of your God that is in your hand, appoint magistrates and judges who may judge all the people in the province Beyond the River, all such as know the laws of your God. And those who do not know them, you shall teach. Whoever will not obey the law of your God and the law of the king, let judgment be strictly executed on him, whether for death or for banishment or for confiscation of his goods or for imprisonment.”

That is the conclusion of the letter, and then it’s followed up by Ezra’s Doxology:

Ezra 7:11–28 ESV

Blessed be the Lord, the God of our fathers, who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king, to beautify the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem, and who extended to me his steadfast love before the king and his counselors, and before all the king’s mighty officers. I took courage, for the hand of the Lord my God was on me, and I gathered leading men from Israel to go up with me.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God!

C. Transition to Sermon

There are lots of moments in Scripture that are strange across cultures. Some of them might seem especially strange in our cultural moment, but there are stories in the Bible that just sort of defy easy explanation.

There are talking donkeys. Floating ax-heads. There was the time Peter found tax money inside a fish. There was the time Jesus healed a blind man by spitting into the dirt and rubbing the mud on the man’s eyes.

This morning’s moment in Ezra is not really as strange as all that, but still has some real strangeness to it.

Ezra comes bearing a letter from King Artaxerxes of Persia, sending him back to Jerusalem with gold and silver and practically limitless funds, authorizing him to operate essentially as the chief teacher of the law, and to appoint other magistrates and judges to teach other Jews the law of God (which they had apparently forgotten). And to punish those who refuse to obey it. And what’s weird about that is that Artaxerxes was—by all accounts—as lost as a goat.

I mean could you imagine a president of the United States telling a Christian pastor: “Here’s a blank check. Go teach the Bible. Appoint church leaders. And if anyone disobeys your church’s teaching, punish them!’

We would very likely not trust that guy. And I can understand why. I’m not saying we should trust that guy. But that’s what Ezra 7 is like.

So what’s going on here?

Well, I want to share with you at least three things I think are happening, and why they matter for us today.

Here are three elements I want to draw out from this text. There is

I. An Anxious King

II. A Needy People

III. A Sovereign God

D. Sermon Prayer

Let’s Pray

God, Our Father,

We confess that there is no ignorance as dark as what we think we know. We pray that your Spirit would banish any ignorance of this sort this morning, and that we would let go of it gladly, and without a fight. Teach us from your Word, for we pray in Jesus’s name, and Amen.

(A Prayer by Douglas Wilson)

I. An Anxious King

We read earlier that Ezra was sent by the Persian King and his advisors with a job to do.

Ezra 7:13–15 ESV

I make a decree that anyone of the people of Israel or their priests or Levites in my kingdom, who freely offers to go to Jerusalem, may go with you. For you are sent by the king and his seven counselors to make inquiries about Judah and Jerusalem according to the Law of your God, which is in your hand, and also to carry the silver and gold that the king and his counselors have freely offered to the God of Israel, whose dwelling is in Jerusalem,

And what was he supposed to do with that money? Buy animals (verse 17)—rams, bulls, lambs. To buy vessels for the temple, whatever was needed. And if they ran out of money? Come get some more!

Ezra 7:20 ESV

And whatever else is required for the house of your God, which it falls to you to provide, you may provide it out of the king’s treasury.

The King sends Ezra with a letter of authority and with several millions of dollars (in today’s money) in resources.

And he even gives the priests a tax break.

Ezra 7:24 ESV

We also notify you that it shall not be lawful to impose tribute, custom, or toll on anyone of the priests, the Levites, the singers, the doorkeepers, the temple servants, or other servants of this house of God.

Do you think that made Ezra some friends? And some enemies probably.

So what is going on here?

What’s going on is something that is hard for us in the modern world to grasp, but it’s been well attested by trustworthy biblical scholarship, and that is that pagan kings saw the world in terms of regional gods. They saw wars as contests between gods of different peoples.

Well the Persians thought themselves a bit more enlightened than others in the ancient world because they made it a priority not to make any of the other regional gods mad.

They didn’t worship the God of Jerusalem, but they thought it was good for peace in their territories that the Jews didn’t make the Jewish God mad. And I don’t wonder if the angels in heaven were thinking “Now if only we could convince the Jews all the time that that’s a good idea!”

So the King sends Ezra—an expert in the law of God—back to Jerusalem to make sure that things are run properly, according to their God.

Which again is just baffling to us.

But it reminds us that God uses all things, even the anxiety and unbelief of kings, to accomplish his will.

As we are told in Proverbs 21:1

Proverbs 21:1 ESV

The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will.

Sometimes its a Nebuchadnezzar to discipline his people. To give them a spanking. To bring the rod of correction. And sometimes its a Cyrus or Artzerxes to bless. And by the way, biblically, it’s way more blessing than judgment, that’s God’s way. He longs to show mercy!

God loves his people so much that he is committed to them and will work all things together--even the unbelief and anxiety of a king--to bless them.

And this should be a great encouragement to us. Because honestly, this is God just showing off.

He’s using the anxietieis and fears and weird religious pluralism of a ruler in order to bless his people. This is no doubt why we are told to pray.

1 Timothy 2:1–3 ESV

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior,

That’s why we prayed for our authorities this morning. It would be best if they were believers and governed accordingly. That would be magnificent blessing to us and to our neighbors. But even if they are not, we are encouraged to pray that they might bless us anyway!

Because this is God’s way. He takes your fears and he makes them your servants. What a marvelous grace that is.

Think of the biggest, scariest threat in your life. Could God use it to bless you?

When Jesus says

Matthew 17:20 ESV

He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”

Is Jesus really talking about geological rearrangement? I mean maybe. There’s really no examples in Church history of Christians praying for the relocation of mountains.

What is Jesus’s point? He’s taking the biggest, most intimidating thing he can think of—mountains. And he’s saying God can reduce those things to the lowest point—bottom of the ocean.

He’s saying God’s power is for you in such a way that the biggest threat to you can be dissolved below sea level if you trust him. The dragons get turned into servants. That is the God you serve.

II. A Needy People

So why was Ezra there?

Commentators are pretty well agreed that Ezra comes for three reasons. And those commentators aren’t just making it up, but they are rooting two of the three reasons in stuff later on in Ezra that we haven’t gotten to yet, so for now I am asking you to trust me. But the reasons are

The Reasons for Ezra’s Arrival:

1. The people were ignorant of scripture

2. Spiritual disciple was lax

3. There was growing compromise with pagan cultures.

Sound Familiar?

Any nation you might be able to think of where these things are in play?

I mean, I know we all love to trash the Church in America. I try not to do it too much because she is, after all, still part of the bride of Christ, and I try not to trash talk my Lord’s wife.

But on the other hand it does seem like the more things change, the more they stay the same.

It seems to be something of a foregone conclusion that God’s people will stray. If they didn’t, Paul wouldn’t have had to write any letters. God’s people are beset by various temptations and trials. And they need correction.

And Jesus delights to bring them back.

And He appoints really strange ways to bring them back.

So we know there was a knowledge problem from verse 25

Ezra 7:25 ESV

“And you, Ezra, according to the wisdom of your God that is in your hand, appoint magistrates and judges who may judge all the people in the province Beyond the River, all such as know the laws of your God. And those who do not know them, you shall teach.

So Ezra had come to teach

So faced with ignorance of scripture, pathetic spiritual discipline, and growing sin and compromise, what does God do with his people? Give up on them? No. He sends them help.

This is a marvelous comfort to us.

Do you want to know God’s Word? Guess what? He wants you to know it to.

He wants you to know it more than you want you to know it.

And he appoints and sends his servants to go to places where there is darkness in order to bring light. This is the work he sets before prophets and scribes and pastors and teachers, and parents and plumbers, and widows, and children.

Not to bring their own wisdom, but to bring the power of God’s word in the Scriptures as a light in dark places.

This also means that God does not give up on his people nearly as quickly as we do.

Do you know someone who is far from the Lord? Ignorant of his Words? Pray that God would bring light into their darkness. By way of you? Maybe. But also it’s no sin to pray “Lord, use me, but if they can’t hear it from me, send them someone who they will listen to.”

Or, alternatively,

Are you that one who is far away? What will it take? How many opportunities does God have to give you? How far from him do you have to stray? How tightly do you have to clutch to your own pride and arrogance? God has put you in this room this morning, listening to a sermon from a sinner in need of the mercy of all kinds of help.

Will you come today?

III. A Sovereign God

When Ezra considers the scope and glory of all God has done and means to do with and through him, what does he do?

He worships.

Ezra 7:27–28 ESV

Blessed be the Lord, the God of our fathers, who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king, to beautify the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem, and who extended to me his steadfast love before the king and his counselors, and before all the king’s mighty officers. I took courage, for the hand of the Lord my God was on me, and I gathered leading men from Israel to go up with me.

The steadfast love of God is what causes Ezra to worship.

So it is with us.

Two things are set before us here in this text.

That God is totally in control.

That God loves his people.

If these two things are true, fear is silly.

If one is true and the other isn’t, we’ve got big problems.

If God loves us, but he is not in control, then why worship him? If he’s just like a kindly grandfather in the sky, but has no power over anything, why worship him? If he is like a great divine cheerleader that just gives us gleeful words every now and again, but is not actually the sovereign Lord of the universe, then why worship him?

On the other hand, if he is sovereign over everything, but he does not love us, then we are done for. If he is in control of every atom, but has not an ocean of mercy and love and grace in which he drowns the entire of mountain range of our sin and rebellion and hatred of him, we have no hope.

But the Christ that we proclaim is one who moves toward us in love and longs for us to be reassured of that love. He comes to us with words and water, with bread and wine and says “Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.”

He’s not a liar.

He means it.

So come and know the rest of Christ. Be refreshed daily by his Words. Be refreshed weekly at his table. Be refreshed monthly as we gather together to sing. Be refreshed throughout the year by opportunities for fasting and feasting.

Press on to know the Lord who is sovereign over kings and dust mites, and has called you to know Him and be known.

In the name of Jesus, Amen.