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We are wrapping up our study on Ezra this morning,so flip over to Ezra 9-10.
This has been a great series for us as we have seen what it is like to rebuild a foundation of worship.
We have learned that God is able to work in incredible ways, even in the hearts of kings that don’t believe in him.
We have seen that we need to make worship a priority, and that worship is big enough to handle our fears and frustrations and discouragement.
We heard about the kinds of roadblocks we might encounter and were reminded about just how important it is to study God’s word, obey it, and help others to the same.
The more you walk with God, the more you are going to find out something that you likely already know: you are far from perfect.
The Bible doesn’t sugar coat our imperfections; instead, it calls our shortcomings and failures what they really are: sin.
When you and I choose to do what we want instead of what God wants, or when we don’t do what we know God tells us to do, even in our thought lives, it is sin.
What do we do when we figure out that we have sinned?
We are going to answer that by looking at how Ezra handled sin in these last two chapters of the book.
Let’s back up a bit and remember what has gone on so we have the proper view of what is taking place here.
God had specifically chosen the people of Israel to be his special people.
He had given them an incredible land to live in, and he promised that they would have everything they needed as long as they kept him first.
However, they chose to chase after all kinds of other gods, and they stopped honoring the one true God.
Eventually, God caused most of them to be killed or carried off to captivity in Babylon.
Remember as well that the kings and emperors in those days had habits of mixing up different nations, so he would have moved in people who weren’t Israelites and had them settle in Israel.
We pick up this morning after God has started to send some of his people back from Babylon to the land he had given them.
This particular return was led by a man named Ezra, who was a priest and knew God’s law really well.
His role was to go back to Jerusalem, Israel’s capital, and make sure that they were worshiping God like they should.
Not long after he got back, he found out something devastating: God’s people had become heavily involved in sin.
As we see how Ezra led God’s people through getting right with God in this area, we are going to see how we are to handle our own sin and how to help others as they struggle.
Let’s look at the text to see what they had done.
Read with me Ezra 9:1-3.
God’s people had disobeyed him by marrying people from the other nations that were around them.
I want to explain this very clearly and carefully.
In those days, when you married someone from another nation, you would be tempted to start following their God.
That would cause you to either stop worshiping the one true God or to put other gods on the same level as him, which is idolatry.
Because of that, God had commanded his people not to marry anyone who was a part of the pagan nations around them.
Hear me very clearly: this is not a prohibition against interracial marriage today.
There is absolutely nothing in the Bible that says a Christian cannot marry another Christian of a different race or ethnic background.
There is nothing in Scripture that says a white Christian cannot marry a black Christian, or an Hispanic Christian can’t marry an Asian Christian, or anything of the sort.
The prohibition here was warning the nation of Israel against marrying someone from a different nation because they would have worshiped a false God and led you to do the same.
The principle of not marrying someone who is not a believer is found in the New Testament, but it isn’t tied to race or ethnicity.
Rather, 2 Corinthians 6:14 warns us not to be “unequally yoked,” or in close partnership, with someone who is not a Christian.
There is no closer human partnership than marriage, so that teaches us that a Christian should not pursue non-Christian for marriage.
Let me also add, though, that if you are married to an unbeliever, you are called in the New Testament to handle this differently.
We can’t fully look at it this morning, but 1 Corinthians 7:12-16 tells a believer to remain married to an unbeliever if the unbeliever is willing to stay.
If you have any questions about this, please contact me.
I would love to talk with you more about it!
Back to Ezra...
God’s people had sinned by marrying those outside of God’s covenant family.
This was a big deal, and we want to outline three steps of how to handle sin as we look at Ezra’s reaction.
First, when we discover sin in our lives, we must...
1) Let it break your heart.
Ezra was rightfully devastated by what he found out.
Pick up in 9:3-5a
When he finds out what has happened, Ezra is devastated.
He reacts with the typical signs of mourning in those days.
When the Israelites were brokenhearted, they would tear their clothes, tear hair from the head and beard, and sometimes throw ash on their heads in mourning.
That’s how Ezra responds, but why?
Ezra is devastated because God’s people still haven’t listened!
Think about what has happened over the previous 120 years or so at this point.
God’s people had made compromise after compromise, and a lot of it had to do with marrying foreign wives who brought worship of their gods with them.
That’s what got Solomon off track, and he was the wisest man who ever lived to that point!
God’s people continued to worship those gods, which led to the destruction of Jerusalem and carrying everyone off into captivity.
And what have the people done?
The very same thing!
Ezra could have made excuses, couldn’t he?
He didn’t say, “Well, I guess it is understandable.
After all, there aren’t as many Israelite women around, so they didn’t really have much of a choice.”
He never said, “Oh, well, they didn’t have good role models or examples, so they are off the hook.”
No; he knew God’s word, and he knew it was sin, and he didn’t try to make any excuses.
He simply let it break his heart.
When you and I realize we have sinned, we need to start in the same place.
We don’t need to make excuses, we don’t need to try to cover it up, we simply need to let it break our hearts.
I am not trying to be mean, but you have to remember what sin is: it is telling the God who made you that you think you know better than he does what you need.
It is rejecting his love, grace, power, and plan, and choosing to do your thing instead of his.
Sin is a big deal, that’s why James would tell us in the New Testament:
God may not call you to express it through torn clothes or by pulling out hair, but you and I need to take sin seriously and let it break our hearts.
We have fallen short of what God called us to do and be, and it is an affront to a holy God.
This isn’t being sorry you got caught, by the way; it is a sorrow that sees clearly what you have done.
This the idea behind repentance: to allow God to break your heart over your sin to such an extent that it causes you to feel the weight of it.
It is a consequence of putting his glory first, like we talked about last week, and then realizing you missed it completely.
When is the last time you were broken for your sin?
Have you had a time when you saw something from God’s word and realized that you had messed up, and it broke your heart?
That’s where we have to start in dealing with sin.
We can’t seek forgiveness if we haven’t realized how far we have fallen.
However, it doesn’t stop there.
That brokenheartedness over sin pours out into the next step...
2) Confess it.
When it came time for the evening sacrifice, Ezra cried out to God in a beautiful, powerful prayer of confession.
Look at how he prayed in verses 6-15.
As we mentioned, Ezra doesn’t try to make excuses.
He begins by owning their sin without any caveats.
Beyond simply saying that they were guilty, though, Ezra does two things that we should do in confession as well:
A) Acknowledge God’s faithfulness.
Look at what he says in verses 8-9.
Ezra makes it clear that their sin is not God’s fault.
He has continued to be faithful to Israel in spite of their unfaithfulness to him.
When we are confessing sin, we should do the same.
Acknowledge how you have seen God continue to work in spite of your sin.
This forces us to again see just how far we have fallen short and how great he is.
It both rebukes and encourages us as we see that we fail but he doesn’t.
That leads to the second part of his prayer of confession.
We must also...
B) Agree with him about the sin.
Look at verses 13-15...
Again, Ezra clearly calls sin what it is.
He doesn’t seek to get out of it or justify their actions in any way.
This the primary idea of confession: to say the same thing God says about our sin.
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