Ezra Prepared His Heart

II.  Set Your Heart To Obey God’s Word

God is looking for a Ready Obedience, Complete Obedience, and a Continual Obedience.

An Obedient response to all that you find in the Word. 

It’s an impossible leap from “seeking the law” to “teaching the law”.

Between the seeking and the teaching, there must be a doing of the law. 

This gives us a sense of Integrity & Authenticity to our lives.

That’s the way it was with Ezra.  He had a reputation for living what he preached.

For example, (verse 20) The letter of commendation that Arterxerxes wrote for Ezra included the command for the king’s ministers of finance to provide Ezra with whatever he needed to fund the worship services in Jerusalem.  The expense was to be born by the king’s treasury.

Ezra had such a reputation for integrity that the king drafted him a blank check on the royal treasury!

Years later there is another indication of Ezra’s personal testimony.  Some 14 years after he arrived in Jerusalem, Ezra saw God bring Revival to the nation (Nehemiah 8-10 records this). 

At that time the people hungered for the preaching of the Word. 

So they erected a platform of wood on which to stand which would give him added stature as he preached.

Why were these people so concerned to hear Ezra preach and teach God’s Word?

For 14 years Ezra had been erecting for himself a platform of his life from which to expound the law. 

Platforms of wood are erected for preachers known for their platforms of life. 

For 14 years these people had seen Ezra live the law. 

When God sent revival to them, it is no wonder that they wanted him to preach the law.

III.  Set Your Heart To Teach God’s Word

The OT word “Teach” means more than standing before someone teaching.  It means “to train” and it was used of training an ox to carry its yoke, to stay in the furrow, and to persist in the plowing until the field was finished.  It is far more than just communicating. 

“Statute” is a demand that is inviolable as though it had been inscribed in letters of lead on tablets of stone.

It is a standard that cannot be altered.  It is only to be obeyed. 

“Judgment” is just another way of referring to these same inviolable standards.  But it views them as requirements that are so well established that they have become customs. 

View God’s standards as statutes and judgments – as inflexible standards by which to govern the personal, domestic, social, and religious behavior of believers.