If you were here last week you know that we are walking through the life of Ezra. The way we are doing this is by looking at the relationships Ezra has with God, himself, others and his disciples. Last week I talked about Ezra’s relationship to God.
You may remember that Ezra’s entire relationship with God was based on God’s grace. It was because of this grace that Ezra was chosen to be head scribe of
Before we go any further, it is crucial that we understand this point. Ezra was only able to go to the next step, a good relationship with himself, because he rested in the grace of God. It must be the same with us.
Now I’m not saying that to have a relationship with ourselves we must first have a relationship with God, that simply isn’t true. But I am saying that to have a good relationship to ourselves we need a relationship with God. We need to understand this grace that I spoke of last week and rest in it before we hope to conquer all the demons and skeletons that we have locked away.
However, although this is true, the journey doesn’t stop there. Rather, knowing God and his grace is just the beginning.
When we stand secure in our Fathers Arms, we can begin to journey inside and clean our own house.
This is the principle behind all 12 step programs.
Step 2 and 3 have to do with coming to know God, and steps 4 through 8 are about the relationship we have to ourselves.
Ezra also understood this principle. We read in chapter 7 that
9For on the first day of the first month he began to go up from Babylonia, and on the first day of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem, for the good hand of his God was on him. 10For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the LORD, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in
See, first the good hand of God was upon him, and then he set his heart to study the Law. He first rests in God’s grace, and from that foundation is able to build his Faith.
Ezra’s journey in, is really a journey in two acts, the first is this Faith that grows in him. It seems that a faith journey should have been covered in his journey up, and certainly his faith was part of that, but it also is an integral part of his journey in. Without his faith, we can be fairly certain that there would not have even been a journey in.
Ezra would not have become head scribe, would not have moved to
We already read the first verse that we are going to be looking at today, but it is important, so let’s read it again.
But before we get to this verse, let’s recap what Ezra has seen during the first few chapters of this book.
Ezra writes about King Cyrus proclaiming that the Jews can return to
And then we are told that Artaxerxes demands that building stop. So the Jews stop. And for his whole reign, not a brick was put back in the
And it is at this point that Ezra enters the story as a character, and not just as the author.
We are told that the King granted him all that he asked in 7:6 and then that
EZRA 7:9-10
9For on the first day of the first month he began to go up from Babylonia, and on the first day of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem, for the good hand of his God was on him. 10For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the LORD, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in
All that history precedes Ezra’s love of the Law. It was because he saw all that God did that he was able to love the Law. It was because of his faith that he was able to become who he was meant to become.
Let me explain that a little. If I were writing a book named after me, I would probably put my credentials first. I would begin by telling people about my college degrees, and then about my Faith, and finally, if it were about families, I would throw in that I am married and have a child. We see this all the time in book stores. People make sure that you see their Ph.D. in their names, or the prologue is all about them and the reasons that their opinion should matter.
It is not so with Ezra. We don’t here about his credentials until the book is almost over. Why? Because he has journeyed in and found that the only thing worth bragging about is his God, and his faith in Him. Ezra’s journey in is undeniable linked to his journey up.
It is upon this foundation of Faith that he tells us that he loved the Law. It is upon this foundation of faith that his journey in is going to continue.
And Ezra’s story does continue. He is called by the King and told to return to
EZRA 7:15-16
15and 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, 16with 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.
EZRA 7:22
22up to 100 talents of silver, 100 cors of wheat, 100 baths of wine, 100 baths of oil, and salt without prescribing how much
EZRA 8:26-27
26I weighed out into their hand 650 talents of silver, and silver vessels worth 200 talents, and 100 talents of gold, 2720 bowls of gold worth 1,000 darics, and two vessels of fine bright bronze as precious as gold.
Let me break down this treasure into modern terms.
There were 71250 lbs of silver and 7515.25 lbs of gold. Never mind the wheat and other stuff. The price of Gold and Silver while I was writing this sermon was $675/oz and $13.71/oz respectfully. This means that they Jews had $81,168,750 in gold and $15,629,400 in silver, for a total of $96,798,150 in metal. Add to this all the other commodities, and the salt, which was worth its weight in gold, and the treasure easily grows to over 100 million dollars.
Now we would assume with a treasure that large that there is going to be an army to protect it. Remember the Jews have to take all this treasure from
22For I was ashamed to ask the king for a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemy on our way, since we had told the king, "The hand of our God is for good on all who seek him, and the power of his wrath is against all who forsake him." 23So we fasted and implored our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty.
What?! They had over 100 million dollars on them and the way they were going to protect it was to fast and pray! How could Ezra possibly see this as a good idea? Sure there is something to be said for God, but shouldn’t we be good stewards of our stuff? Wouldn’t God use the soldiers that were protecting the treasure to get is safe to
Well here is where his faith comes in. Now it would seem that it was just shame that made Ezra not ask for protection, right. The text plainly says just that, doesn’t it? Well, it does and it doesn’t. Yes Ezra writes that he was too ashamed to ask for armed escort, but let’s look at why he is ashamed before we jump to any conclusions. He is ashamed to ask for escort because he has been talking about how strong God is. He has been witnessing, if you will.
The way the text reads, I think it is safe to assume that the king has been questioning Ezra about his love for the Law, and about his faith in general. The king is interested in all this Jewish religion. And Ezra, loving the Law and God, is more than happy to tell the King everything he can about God. And wrapped up in the Law are the Exodus and the giving by God of Canaan Land to the Jews.
Now in these stories God clearly provides for His people. He provides a way out of slavery, physical protection from Pharaoh’s army, food in the desert. God clears out the land before
If I were a gambling man, I would also bet that Ezra told about his own life. He would have told the king about God’s faithfulness to him and to
And after all this, how was he supposed to ask for an armed escort. It would have been a slap in the face to his faith. He would have had to believe that God wasn’t in fact as powerful as he had made him out to be. I can sympathize with Ezra being ashamed here. I have felt the same thing, and very recently too.
When Sarah and I joined staff, we sent out about 100 support letters, and if I am not mistaken, three people responded. I was talking with my mother, who was upset to begin with about the letters. She asked how the fund raising was going, and I was honest, but also said that God would provide. She quoted
those who helped themselves, and I told her she was wrong, God helped those who relied on Him fully and without condition, and that she wasn’t quoting the Bible, but Franklin. I simply explained that I would send out a second support letter, and see where it got me. Well she got very upset. The call ended with me more resolved to cling to God. She had wanted me to look for other jobs, get health insurance, etc. She called back a few times to tell me her fears and how silly I was being. Well, in a last ditch effort to get me to find a real job she offered me 3000 dollars to get us through the tough time if I would look for a different job. She said it was there at any time, for the taking, if I would just stop relying on God, (my words) and get a real job. Well the point of this story is that I may have taken the money and quit this ministry business had I not been telling my mother for years about the power of God. I was way too ashamed to ask for her help, and instead went before God, and fasted and prayed and begged and cried for His.
Now it is not that I was feeling shame about how much money I make, or that I would not sometimes like a $3000 dollar gift for finding a higher paying job, but I was ashamed to ask for help from a person to whom my life was a witness. I knew that all that I said about God providing would have held no weight whatsoever if I left ministry for a mere $3000. This is where Ezra is too. He isn’t ashamed that he would like help guarding all the treasure, per se, but more would be ashamed if his witness to the king was broken.
Because he had this faith that had been built up over the years, he knew that God could be relied upon. He casts out his fears, and fully submits to God. Because his journey up was secure, he could go out on a limb, and sacrifice his well being during his journey in. He could die to self and give all that he had into the hands of the Almighty, and even brag to the king that all would come out protected on the other side.
And so because he was ashamed, and because he had seen God’s mighty hand work before, Ezra takes this leap of faith, and they begin a five month journey, carrying over 100 million dollars, through the wilderness of the ancient world. And what happens? We are told in
31Then we departed from the river Ahava on the twelfth day of the first month, to go to
We are not told how God delivered them, but he did. And what must this have done for Ezra’s faith? And for his journey in? It surely helped both of them.
So this brings us close to the end of Ezra, and his journey in. The entire time it has been based on faith in God, and a love for His word. It seems that this road that Ezra takes is one that all of us must walk as well. The first step is coming to rest in God’s Grace, Loving Him. Next is loving his Law, the Word of God, the Scripture. This seems like a natural progression, for how can we love Scripture if first we don’t love the author.
The next step in our journey in is the reliance of that faith in a real world situation. It is all well and good to believe when all is safe, but when we are confronted with comfort or faith, that is where we can really grow. Don’t mishear me. I am not saying that we need to all do what I did, or what Ezra did. We don’t need to walk down town
The twelve step programs phrase it this way, first we come to believe in God, and then we put our trust in Him. They are two different steps. But the journey isn’t done their. There are 9 more steps.
Ezra’s journey doesn’t end their either, although it seems like a great way to go out. The final story in Ezra seems a little anti-climactic. The book ends with
Here is what happens.
Ezra shows up in
EZRA 9:3-15
As soon as I heard this, I tore my garment and my cloak and pulled hair from my head and beard and sat appalled. 4Then all who trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of the faithlessness of the returned exiles, gathered around me while I sat appalled until the evening sacrifice. 5And at the evening sacrifice I rose from my fasting, with my garment and my cloak torn, and fell upon my knees and spread out my hands to the LORD my God, 6saying:
"O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens. 7From the days of our fathers to this day we have been in great guilt. And for our iniquities we, our kings, and our priests have been given into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plundering, and to utter shame, as it is today. 8But now for a brief moment favor has been shown by the LORD our God, to leave us a remnant and to give us a secure hold[b] within his holy place, that our God may brighten our eyes and grant us a little reviving in our slavery. 9For we are slaves. Yet our God has not forsaken us in our slavery, but has extended to us his steadfast love before the kings of Persia, to grant us some reviving to set up the house of our God, to repair its ruins, and to give us protection[c] in Judea and Jerusalem.
10"And now, O our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken your commandments, 11which you commanded by your servants the prophets, saying, 'The land that you are entering, to take possession of it, is a land impure with the impurity of the peoples of the lands, with their abominations that have filled it from end to end with their uncleanness. 12Therefore do not give your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters for your sons, and never seek their peace or prosperity, that you may be strong and eat the good of the land and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever.' 13And after all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great guilt, seeing that you, our God, have punished us less than our iniquities deserved and have given us such a remnant as this, 14shall we break your commandments again and intermarry with the peoples who practice these abominations? Would you not be angry with us until you consumed us, so that there should be no remnant, nor any to escape? 15O LORD the God of Israel, you are just, for we are left a remnant that has escaped, as it is today. Behold, we are before you in our guilt, for none can stand before you because of this."
The first thing Ezra does is confess his sinfulness. Now there are a few reasons why he does this, first and foremost is that he really would have seen this unfaithfulness by some of the Jews as his sin as well. There was no idea of individual sin. All sin had a communal aspect to it. This is something that as been lost today. We tend to think that our sin affects only us. When we pray, we pray that our sins be forgiven. Maybe on rare occasions we apologize for the sins of our direct ancestors, but can any of us imagine repenting for the sin of our neighbor? The ancient Israelites could. When one person sinned in the community, they would have seen it as affecting all who come in contact with that person. And there is more truth to their thoughts than to ours.
Looking back at my life, I can clearly see how my sin affected others around me, even though I didn’t think so at the time. My drinking obviously affected my family and friends, but it also affected all whose booze I stole, or money I borrowed. Now that is sort of an extreme case, and I doubt any of us think that an alcoholic affects only themselves, but this is true of all sin.
I will give you a more subtle example. I used to be very irresponsible with money. When I was working at Mullins, and Sarah was working at a school, we always had money coming in, so we always had money going out. Sarah put me in charge of finances, and I got us into debt. Now I wasn’t spending money necessarily on stupid things. I was buying for us food and clothes and furniture, but I was not doing it responsibly. I charged everything, since we always had another pay check to pay for it. Well today we are still in dept because of it. It affects Sarah because we have to be more frugal now than we should have to be, and believe it or not, it affected all of us here today. One way that it seeped into MERCYhouse is that for a few months Sarah and I did not give any money in the offering because I was so focused on paying bills. That means that all of you had to bear a greater burden. And that is just the tip of the ice berg. Do I need to talk about how sexual sin hurts everybody close, or how anger can hurt us all? See sin really is communal whether we want to admit it or not.
So Ezra comes before God and confesses. This is the next step in our journey in. In AA it is step four and five. What are these steps? Well four is to make a complete moral inventory, and five is to confess it away. In the grace of God this is possible. If we try to do this apart form his grace, it will crush us under its weight, believe me. How many of us have sat up at night thinking about how we messed up that day. I know I have, and it has consumed me for hours. And that was just for the day. If I were to meditate on all the ways I have messed up, and not rest in the Grace of God, I would have gone insane long ago. Notice that Ezra doesn’t just dwell on the negative. He doesn’t sit in his sin for the entire day. Now he does repent for quite a while, but in his prayer he also praises God’s grace. He confesses his iniquity, and praises God for using him anyway. He appeals to God’s grace, leaves his sin with the Most High, and moves on.
How do we know this- well the story continues. Ezra writes in chapter 10 that although
10And Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, "You have broken faith and married foreign women, and so increased the guilt of
So Ezra confesses, and then repents. And
Now I know this is a hard story, and I am not saying I have all the answers. I think we need to wrestle with this, and ask God for guidance, but there still is value in the story for us today.
What is going on here? Is God contradicting himself and supporting divorce? No. What is happening here then? Well for one thing when these men married these foreign women, they also married their gods. They were messing the whole
So God tells them to cut it off. One of the reasons for this is seen throughout the Bible. It seems that God is always harsher when He is starting a new thing. We see Him tell
The second theme running through this story I hinted at already. Ezra, God, is not just calling his people to divorce these women, but to divorce the world. When Ezra tells these men to confess and then repent, he is letting them know that it is going to be messy and painful. The marriage to the women was just an outside symbol of what was going on in the people’s hearts. The pain and heartache that was going to happen by divorcing these women was just an outside symbol of the pain and heartache that was going to have to occur in the people’s hearts if they were to truly repent. The point here is not that God supports divorce, but that true repentance is messy. Truly coming before God, confessing our sin, and changing our behavior to come in line with his hurts a lot.
See the final step in our Journey in must end here as it did in Ezra’s life. When I was in AA, for the three month I went, I walked trough all of the 12 steps, and none was so painful as the fourth and fifth. Getting brutally honest with myself about what I have done, and then setting about the change was a death in and of itself.
This is what God is calling all of us here to today. We have all been married to the world in some way. We have all taken some sort of foreign wife for our own. And we must all divorce her. This is painful. There is heartache and death involved. It means turning our backs on something we love. I am still in the process of this. I have small victories at a time, and that gives me the resolve to continue in this vein.
One thing that Sarah and I used to be married to, admittedly me more that her, was TV. I love TV. Mostly I watch the geek channels, but I still love watching it. I would justify it by saying I am watching the Science Channel so I am learning, but it is watching TV nonetheless. We had the best cable money could buy. The digital cable with almost all the channels, and I loved it. If you don’t have digital cable you may not know this, but you can set up reminders on the cable box. This means that you tell the TV to remind you when a specific show was on, and a box popped up letting you know it was time to put on another channel. I loved this feature. I would sit when there was nothing on and decide what we were going to watch for the next week. I would set multiple reminders for the same time slot, so I could watch multiple shows at the same time during the commercial breaks. I loved digital cable. And then they came out with On Demand, which meant when there was nothing on, I could go to a vast library of TV shows, organized by category, channel, title, etc. and find something on. Well, as you can see, with my addictive and compulsive personality, this became a problem. For months I said we should get rid of the cable, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. And then one day, against every fiber in my bones I disconnected the box and brought it to Comcast. And that was that. We still have cable and watch TV, but only the basic service, and not there are limits we put on our viewing.
Now this doesn’t seem like a big deal, but to me at the time it was. It was like a divorce. I had bought into the world’s idea that I needed TV. When I told people what I was doing, they thought I was crazy, and I did too. What was I going to do with all those hours I used to watch TV? It was messy and painful. It was like a divorce.
And this is all our stories. We are all married to the world. This is the final step in the journey in then, we must confess our sin, and repent. After we come to know God and his grace, and after we put our faith in him, and after we clean our closets, we must change our behavior. We repent. We walk away from the world. We divorce ourselves from everything but God.
I want to tell one more story that is a lot closer to what the Jews were going through in this story.
When I was 17 I became a Christian. Now at that time most of my friends were not Christians. More than this, they were drinking and doing drugs and all the stupid things that I was doing before I found Christ. Now these guys and gals were still my friends. I loved them. I wanted to be light to them more than anything. But there were a few problems. First, they were not very supportive of the new me. I was the constant butt of jokes, but I could get past this, since that is what 17 year old boys do, they make fun of each other.
But there was another problem. I was on probation. Now part of my conditions of probation was that I would not be arrested again. It didn’t matter if I was found guilty, I couldn’t be arrested. Well this doesn’t sound like a big deal, but, as I said before, my friends were drinking and doing drugs. Now the problem with doing this at 17, is that they are both illegal activities, and illegal activities have a tendency to involve police at some point. I begged my friends to just let me know if they had pot or booze in the car, and I would find other ways to get to where they were, so that I wouldn’t be arrested. Well, they didn’t think it such a big deal, so over and over I found pot in the car I was driving in. If the police found it, I was heading to
I told them about my decision. How I couldn’t hang out with them anymore, even though I would always love them. This left me with 3 friends left in High School. If any of you have been to high school before, than you will know that having only 3 friends is not good for ones reputation. I had to leave it all behind. I had to divorce the world that I had become so entangled with. And it hurt. It hurt me, it hurt my friends, who couldn’t understand my abandonment of them, it hurt everyone involved. And it is the same for us today.
There are things in our lives that we need to divorce on our journey in. To live up to God’s standards, the Israelites had to divorce their actual wives. In a way we have it easy, but at the same time, we have it just as hard. There will be just as much pain, agony, and heartache today if we truly journey in, and find that we are married to the world.
I was tempted to give a list of ways that we may be married to the world, but I decided that we all in this room know better about our own stories than I possibly could. SO I ask us all to be honest with ourselves, and see what part of the world we have married. And after w have identified it, you may think that I am going to say divorce it, but I am not.
After we find our worldly spouse, run to God with it. See,
Don’t leave here today telling yourself that it is time to be holier, and then just willing it so. You will kill yourself trying. Leave here today knowing that God is better than all that you have married, that He is a better spouse than the world. Leave here today knowing that the Grace of God rests upon you, and then, as a response to His mercy, offer your bodies as living sacrifices.
God’s call is out there today, right now. Yes he is calling us to a higher standard. Yes is is demanding we divorce the world. But he is not opffering a vacuum in its place. He is offering you Himself. He didn’t demand
He wants us to divorce the world because He has called us to be His sons and daughters.
So I say, don’t divorce the world, and then run to God with your accomplishment, but rather run to Him in our inability to cut it off, and Find Him there ready to help you along the way.
Divorce the world, yes, but don’t do it in an attempt to be holy, but as a response to the overwhelming love that God has for you.
Ezra first understood God’s Grace, and from there was able to journey in. He first was secure in his journey up, and from there was able to confess his iniquity, and repent.
We must first be able to know the GOOD hand of God is upon us, and then we will be able to run to Him with our sin, and come out alive on the other side.
Hear that again. We first must be able to know that THE GOOD HAND OF GOD WAS UPON US. Then anything will be possible. We will cease seeing this call to holiness as an insurmountable task, as a horrible request from a bitter deity, and see this call as an attempt by our loving creator to bring us closer in relationship with Him.
God is calling all of us here today to a higher standard, to a standard that seems impossible to reach, and it is. That is the Gospel. We can not please God on our own. That is why He showed us such unbelievable Grace on the Cross. Christ died so that this impossible standard comes within reach. Paul declares that all things are possible through Him who strengthens me. And it is just as true of us. This call to holiness is possible today, through the power of him who knew no sin. When we find first our righteousness in Him, we are ten able to become Holy.
So let us run to the Cross. Let us know that He is good. That his Grace is all that sustains us. Let us fall on our faces, pull out our hair, and throw ash on our heads, crying out that were are sinful, that our family is sinful, that our people are sinful. Let us confess our iniquity, and rely on His goodness.
Like Ezra, let us journey in as a response to God’s goodness and mercy. Let us see His hand upon all our endeavors, trust in His protection for all who love him, come before the king, wrapped in our finest rags, crying out our sin and fallen-ness, and repent of our old ways.
Let us divorce al that we hold dear, for His kingdom holds more for us than we could ever even hope to imagine. Let us rest in His Grace.
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