Stil Lazy

Here is this weeks sermon, 'cause I'm still Lazy. HOpe to actuially update it this week comin up.

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 Israel, it was because of this grace that Ezra made it safely to Israel from Babylonia, and it was because o this grace that Ezra was able to stand before the LORD. Ezra continually reminds us that he succeeded because the “good hand of God was upon him.”

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 Israel.

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 Jerusalem, would not have written this book. Without his faith, there simply would be no journey whatsoever. And so, when we begin to look at Ezra’s journey in, we must start with his faith.

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 Jerusalem. More than this they can rebuild the Temple to the Lord. And even more that this, it is not because the Jews earned favor with king or God, but because God so ordained it. It was because of God’s promise, and not because of Israel’s obedience that the Temple is going to be rebuilt.

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 Temple; however the story doesn’t end there. Ezra writes that through God’s prophets, the people are told to begin rebuilding anew. They do, and King Darius blesses the endeavor. He even gives all the money plundered from Israel’s Temple back, plus extra money to make a peace offering. He gives the Jews a note that tells the local officials to give them whatever they want or need.

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 Israel.

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 Jerusalem, bringing with him all sorts of treasure. Ezra tells that the king sent him with

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 Babylonia to Jerusalem, and they are going to walk the entire way. There were no planes or cars to drive in. So they are going to travel in a very large caravan, carrying all this by hand. No one could blame them for wanting an armed escort. We use armed escorts today for far less. There are armored cars all over this town to collect money from various shops and bring them safely to a bank. It just makes sense, right? Well look in your program and see what Ezra does. We read in Ezra 8:22-23

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 Israel? Does Ezra really need to travel with all this stuff with no protection?

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 Israel in the Promised Land, and sets up for Himself a kingdom. Now if God is the same, why wouldn’t He still protect?

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 Israel at that moment in time. I think he would have told the first 7 chapters of Ezra to the king, recalling what had happened in his lifetime. He would have explained how all this had come about because the mighty hand was upon him. He would have, to borrow from evangelical circles, testified.

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 Franklin, and told me that God helped

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 8:31

31Then we departed from the river Ahava on the twelfth day of the first month, to go to Jerusalem. The hand of our God was on us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from ambushes by the way.

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 Holyoke at night with all the money we have hanging out of our pockets to prove our faith, or test our selves, or God. That is not the point. But there will be a situation where we all will need to journey in, and either choose to live by faith, or run to the world and be comfortable.

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 Israel messing up. I think I would have ended with the great triumph of arriving in Israel safely with all that loot. I would have praised God, and myself and my followers, and be done with it, but that is not what Ezra does. He continues to tell us of failure and heartache before his tale comes to a close. He knows his journey in isn’t finished, and he is going to get to the end

Here is what happens.

Ezra shows up in Jerusalem, and he sets up camp. They weigh out all the money, and do with it what the king had told them too, giving the designated sums to the designated areas. Everything seems to be going well, they give sacrifices to God, and meet with all the king’s officials, and then it happens. Ezra is hanging out and is approached by his officials. They tell him that the Jews have intermarried with all the tribes around. Now this was directly forbidden in the Law, and Ezra knows it. This is Ezra’s response:

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 Israel broke faith there is hope for them in spite of this. So Ezra gathers all the Jews and calls them on their sin. But he doesn’t stop there. In Chapter 10:10 we read

10And Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, "You have broken faith and married foreign women, and so increased the guilt of Israel. 11Now then make confession to the LORD, the God of your fathers and do his will. Separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign wives." 12Then all the assembly answered with a loud voice, "It is so; we must do as you have said.

So Ezra confesses, and then repents. And Israel does the same. Ezra’s journey in does not stop with the confession of the sin, but with a change in action after the confession. Now this story is hard for our modern sensibilities. Why is it hard? Well let’s look at the conclusion. All the men of Israel who married foreign women send them away, along with any children they may have had.

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 Israel thing up. They were supposed to be a people set apart, and instead they were inviting other gods into their houses. There was more going on here than marriage. Idols would have been given at wedding, and put in the home. And whose god do you teach the children about? These men were married, not just to a different race of people, but to a different everything. When people get married, they don’t just marry a person, but, and especially in ancient culture, their family, customs, religions, sins. These men were not just marrying a woman, but were marrying the world.

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 Israel to kill everything in Jericho in the book of Joshua, and continue to slaughter the surrounding peoples in Judges. Why? One reason is that He is setting up a kingdom for himself and it has to be pure. This theme even comes into the New Testament. Ananias and Saphira are struck down dead for lying to the Apostles. Why? Again He is establishing His kingdom. The same theme is running though this story. God is re-establishing for Himself a people, and it needs to start pure. Why? Well just look at how messed up it gets hen it starts pure, imagine if it wasn’t pure to begin with. It wouldn’t last but 1 week. So God seems harsher at moments like these.

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 Dedham State for 2 and ½ years of my life. I wasn’t ready for that, so I had to leave my friends behind.

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, Ezra, Israel, I, didn’t try to become holy on our own power. If it was up to me and my strength I would have never left all my friends. But it wasn’t my strength. It was Gods. I was only able to divorce the parts of the world that I have because of God’s Grace. Israel was only able to sever ties with the surrounding people as a response to God’s Grace. Ezra was only able to repent as a response to God’s Grace.

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 Israel divorce its foreign wives because he felt like being a jerk, he did it because he had something so much better in store for them. He has prepared for them a kingdom. God, today, is not calling us to divorce our worldly spouse, whatever she is, because he wants us to not have fun, or live a good life, He is doing it because He has something better prepared. He has set up for Himself another kingdom, one where moth and rust do not destroy, and he has set up a place for us.

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.

Sorry I suck

Sorry it has taken me so long to post, and I am going to be lazy. I have been overwhelmed with tasks and parties and just stuff, so my post is just my sermon for the week. Hope you like it. If oyu are around, I guess you'll hear it too,

This week we begin our summer sermon series. We are going to be walking through three leaders of the Bible, and their journey. The first person we will look at is Ezra. Conveniently enough he has a book named after him, so we will be going through the book of Ezra picking out pieces of his life to look at.

Now with all three leaders we are going to map out their relationship to God, to themselves, to others, and finally to their disciples, so naturally that is what we are going to do with Ezra. We will begin this summer series by looking at Ezra’s relationship to God.

I you will turn with me to your programs you are going to see a bit of Scripture that has seemingly nothing to do with Ezra, it states:

EZRA 1:1

In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing:

Now this proclamation was that the Temple should be rebuilt and the Jews allowed to return to Jerusalem. Now we might expect that Ezra’s story starts here, but he is not mentioned by name for another 6 chapters. So why am I even mentioning all this. I thought we were going to talk about Ezra, and now I am talking about history that has seemingly nothing to do with him? Well that’s just the point, isn’t it. This verse does have something to do with Ezra, does it not?

Well before I answer that question, let me summarize the first six chapters of Ezra. We just read the first verse, and the book continues to spell out the decree. The Jews were allowed to return home, they began rebuilding the temple (with Babylonian money), the rebuilt the altar of the LORD, then a new king, Artaxerxes orders the building to stop. This surely is where Ezra enters, right? No. There is break, and all work stops, but then God tells the Jews to begin rebuilding anew through His prophets Haggia and Zechariah, so they begin rebuilding and the King Darius gets wind of it and questions them. They explain that Cyrus told them they could do it. Well Darius looks into it, finds Cyrus’ decree and blesses their work. He gives them permission to build and money to do it. So they rebuild the temple and dedicate it. And then, finally, in the seventh chapter of the book we hear about Ezra. The text says:

“Now after all this…Ezra went up from Babylonia. He was a scribe skilled in the Law of Moses that the LORD the God of Israel had given, and the king granted him all that he asked, for the hand of the LORD was on him.

And not two verses later we again read:

7:9For 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.

Now it seems like I am making a big deal of this, and I am. Why? Why is this such a big deal?

Well the main reason I am emphasizing this is that this is the essence of Ezra’s relationship to God. What does that mean? I will explain.

See when we read about Paul or David or others in the Bible there seems to be a moment or moments of direct relationship with God. We see their journey up. We read that Abraham walked with God, or of Paul’s conversion. But Ezra never directly speaks of his journey up.

We never see Ezra unconverted.

We see plainly Ezra’s desire to become holier (and I will speak on this later in the series), but we don’t see Ezra as unholy, or unconverted. Well that is bad news if you have to give a sermon on Ezra’s journey up, or it seems like bad news at first. However, if we look deeper at the text, we can see how Ezra relates to God. We do get a glimpse at his journey up.

Ezra himself sums this up later in chapter 7. We read:

7:27

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, 28and 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.

I believe that this is the crux of Ezra’s faith, and here again we have him telling us that the hand of the LORD was upon him.

Ezra had the same relationship with God that the Jews as a whole had with God at this time. That statement seems convoluted, so let me explain.

Let us go back to the first verse in Ezra.

EZRA 1:1

In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing:

Remember what God had done for Israel?

He brought them out of Exile. He rebuilt for them His Altar and Temple. Now why does He do this? In other books of the Old Testament we read that God restored Israel because they began to worship Him again. Because they sanctified themselves. You read this a lot in Judges. God smiles on Israel when they behave, so to speak. Now is this the reason the God brings the Jews out of Exile here? No. We read that the reason that they were brought out of exile is because God promised it would be so. Cyrus made a decree so that God’s word might be fulfilled.

So the relationship that the Jews had with God at this point was more of God having a relationship with the Jews. Does that make sense?

See God was not smiling at the Jews because they were wonderful, or even attempting to be wonderful. Gods is smiling at the Jews because He has a plan to reconcile them to himself. He is smiling on them undeservedly. He is, wait for it, giving Israel grace.

God uses a Pagan king to resotre the Jewish Temple, certainly some of the Irony is lost on us, but I imagine that the ancient Jews would have taken this fact for all it is worth. It would be like the president of Hampshire College paying off this building for us, and then giving us money to reach the entire Pioneer Valley for Christ, but on a more grand scale.

And what’s more is that the reason for this kindness wasn’t because the Jews were faithful to God, or because they found favor with Cyrus, or because they really, really wanted it, or any reason exept that God so desired it to happen.

This is the beginning of Ezra’s journey up. He was in Babalon during all of this. He saw the Jews unfaithfulness, he saw God’s faithfulness anyway. He saw God rebuild his Temple and call His people home because it was God’s word that it would happen.

He saw God begin a relationship with the Jews before they were worthy to be in relation to the Most High God.

And then he sees God raise himself up. He sees favor get bestowed on Him by the King, not because he was a great speaker, or an intelligent advisor, but because the hand of God was upon him. Three times in chapter seven alone we read that Ezra succeded because the hand of God was upon him. So then we can say that Ezra’s relationship to God was, like Israel’s, in fact God’s relationship to Ezra. Ezra is able to serve the LORD because the LORD’s hand first rested upon him. This is the beginning of Ezra’s journey up.

Now does this attitude change as Ezra matures? As Ezra becomes sanctified does his relationship to God change? Well, yes and no.

I say yes his relationship to God changes simply because Ezra is human, and like all humans grows and changes by his nature. I doubt that Ezra relized at 15 all that he did when he wrote this book. But in the same breathe I say that Ezra’s relationship to God does not change one bit. He still, wether in the beining of his ministry or towards the end, he still realizes his utter dependence on the Grace of God.

We read that the hand of God was upon him in chapter 7, three times. Now this chapter is describing how Ezra came to get to Israel. It describes his journey in Babalon, and ultimately to Jeruselam. It is the beginning of his journey.

What then, is his attitude once he arrives in Jeruselam? Is he filled with pride because he was chosen? Does he set about to find his worth in how holy he is? Well, as we can guess, the answer to those questions is NO. Ezra’s attitide about where he stands in relation to God remains the same. We read in Ezra 9:8

But 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[a] 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[b] in Judea and Jerusalem.

And later in his same prayer

9:13And 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, 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."

See Ezra understands the Grace that has been extended him. He knows that He is unclean. He understands that Israel deserves punishment, and even more punishment then they have gotten. He sees that Israel did nothing to deserve King Cyrus’ decree. They didn’t deserve to even be left a people group. Ezra sees that Israel and himself sinned against God and deserved nothing less than death. But he sees the Grace that was given them. God, he says, extended his love to them. They did not extend it to Him. God gave them good gifts while they were totally undeserving.

Ezra doesn’t for one moment thank God for doing what he should have done anyway. His prayer isn’t thanks for setting up Your Temple, but we really deserved it because we were holy. He doesn’t even claim holiness for himself, although we are told in 7:9 that he “was a scribe skilled in the Law of Moses”, or because as stated in verse 7:10 that he “set his heart to study the Law of the LORD, and to do it, and to teach it statutes and rules in Israel.”

He never claims that this is a reason why God should smile on him, but rather the opposite is true. Because God smiled on him, because “God’s good hand was upon him”, he was able to do these things.

Ezra realizes that he has nothing to offer God, and praises the grace that God pours out on him and Israel anyway.

This then is the Relationship that Ezra has to God. It is one of complete dependence on God, and thankfulness for the Grace that has been poured out. Ezra claims that there is more punishment that was deserved, for their guilt was great, but thanks be to God for showing them Mercy.

As he stands before God, he even claims that none can stand before Him. How is this possible, except that God is showing Grace upon Grace, even at that very moment?

Ezra’s whole story is based on the Grace of God.

Well it seems then that the application that we should extrapolate from Ezra is fairly straight forward. We are here by grace. This seems juvenile and a little cliché though, doesn’t it. It seems like it is the easy way out of any sermon. Just say, “and we all need grace”, and be done with it.

But it is the application we must take out of Ezra. It is how he became the head scribe of Israel. It is how Israel was even a nation again to begin with. It is how the entire book of Ezra came to be.

See, although it is juvenile and cliché, it is also true. We are here only because of God’s grace. Ezra was raised up only because of God’s grace.

Now we didn’t read it this week, but in the weeks to come we are going to find out that the first thing that the Israelites did when the got back to Jerusalem was break the Law. And what does God do about this? From reading other books of the Old Testament, we could assume that fire and brimstone were going to come from Heaven, and God would wipe Israel out. But He doesn’t do that. He allows Israel to come to Him. He shows them Grace.

Ezra sees this. Ezra lived this. Ezra’s entire relationship with God’s was based upon God’s relationship to him. It was upon the foundation of God’s grace that Ezra was able to build his love of the Law. It was upon God’s grace that Ezra was able to stand before the Lord. It was upon God’s grace that Ezra was able to call the Israelites to a holier standard. It was upon God’s grace that the Israelites repented from their former ways and began to follow God.

And so it must be with us.

Now I know that I just said that this seems juvenile and cliché, but at the same time it is one of the most important doctrines of the Christian life. Paul says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace. If we don’t know this with all our being, we have no reason to be leading in church. We must first have our relationship to God fixed before we can even begin to have a healthy relationship to anyone else, including ourselves.

As I was meditating on all this, and struggling with where to go with this sermon, a few routes came to mind. I could stand here and tell us all how broken we are. Or I could just talk to the leaders, warning them not to become boastful. I could also talk to those of us who desire to be leaders, but aren’t quite there yet. I could prescribe that the way to leadership is resting in God’s grace. The sermon could become very Puritanical, which I have no problem with as those of you who have heard me preach before could attest.

But I don’t think that this would change anyone of us. I could stand on my high horse and wag my finger, and those of us in the audience who believed what I say could judge those who don’t, and none of us are any closer to the Grace that Ezra experienced.

So I sat in Panera for hours trying to hear from God. Trying to find a bridge for this sermon, and here is what I have.

On October 7, 2006 I quit the Mullins Center to come work for the Church, for this church. I have told this story before. I am relatively sure most of you have heard it. Sarah and I had no supporters, no health insurance, and a baby on the way. We took a leap of faith and for the last 8 months, God has provided for us. We new He would provide for us. Every month, with out fail Sarah and I have eaten. When MERCYhouse had no more money to give us, we sent out a second support letter, and people who were not going to support us before, are now supporting us. At every step we trusted in God, and not in ourselves, and we have been provided for.

Now I could tell you about how much I have done for the church, and I have done stuff. I wouldn’t have a job still if I hadn’t. In fact, I can say in true humility, that most of the things I have done here at MERCYhouse I have poured my heart into. There are the paintings and visible things that all of us see, but there is also a lot that no one or only a select few see.

One example of this is Sunday morning itself. See I have been trying to “programmatize” the whole thing. What does this mean? It means that I have been trying to make check lists and the like, so anyone can just come in and look at a list and see what need to be done.

Now why am I telling you all this? Am I telling you because Sunday morning goes so smooth now, all because of my lists? Or so that you will appreciate all the things you don’t see? No. I am telling you all this because I think, I truly believe, that Sunday morning has gone smooth in spite of me. For those of you who don’t know me, I can be kind of jerk. Just ask the Sunday morning team.

Sunday morning has gone smooth because there are people who get God’s grace. Sunday morning has gone smooth because I rest in God’s grace.

It is the reason I am preaching today. Robert hasn’t given me opportunity because I am a smooth talker, or because I’m wicked smart. I have been given opportunity because I rest in the grace of God. I believe that I deserve worse punishment than I have ever been given. I believe that God rescued me from exile, not because I am so great, but because he is Merciful. I know that the relationship I have with Him is first and foremost the relationship he has with me.

Now in some ways I have been blessed with the story I lived out. It is very easy to believe that you need God’s grace when you cannot control your desire to party. It is easy to see your life is out of control when you are broke and hung over. It is much harder for me now to still believe at all times that I need God as much as I do. But the fact of the matter is that I am just as broke now as I was then. I need to continue to rest in his grace. I must daily thank Him for His mercy now more than ever.

Ezra feels God’s mercy throughout. He rests on God’s grace from the first verse until the last. So must we be this convinced.

Why does God set up His Temple with this generation? Because of his grace. But there is a little more to it. This book, this man Ezra’s story is a foreshadowing of things to come.

Why does God send Jesus into the world? Was it because 1^st century Palestine was so devout and good? Was it because they had pleased Him and now they were to receive their reward? The answer to both these questions is a resounding NO. The reason Jesus came when he came was because of Grace. None of us deserved Christ. None of us were worthy enough to die for. But that is just the point, isn’t it? It is written that while we were still sinner Christ died for us. And more than this, Paul in Romans 5 states:

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

We were enemies of God. There was nothing worth dying for. Who dies for his enemies, rather we kill them, right? But Christ died to reconcile us to God. Now what claim can an enemy have to his own salvation? It is grace that saves them. It is grace that saves us.

And more than this, it is this grace that we can rest in. I am a terrible leader by myself. I get angry fast, am ill tempered, I expect too much from people, I very rarely encourage people or thank them for what they have done, and I expect people to follow me regardless. The only thing I have going for myself is the grace of God. I can always come back to that.

We can always come back to that.

So then this is the juvenile, cliché, grand, and awesome application- God’s gives us grace, let us rest in it.

There is no other way that I have been able to find.

See there is two manifestations of Grace here. There is the first, of which I believe people who attend church are more familiar, and that is that God died for our sins. This is the Grace that was given at the cross, that although we didn’t deserve it, Christ went as a willing sacrifice, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was whipped, beaten, and crucified. This is the grace that allows us to come unto Him, and join God’s family. This is he Grace that Ezra claims for himself when he states that

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 we need to know this Grace. This is saving Grace. This is how we enter the kingdom. We need to know that it is not by works, that no one may boast. It is by the cross alone, by Christ’s sacrificial atonement for our sins that we may approach our Maker, and rejoice at his presence.

It is this Grace for which the song states:

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.

It is this Grace that we point to most often, I believe, when we talk of Grace. And there is good reason for it. It is by this Grace that we who are Christians are here this morning.

But there is more to Grace than this one act of God. There is so much more.

The last time I preached, you may remember, I said that when asked why they should get into heaven, the majority of Americans said because they did the best they could. Well, right now I am going to throw a few other studies at you.

If 85% of Americas claim to be Christians, and 94% claim to be good, and one of the basic tenants of Christianity is that no one is good, that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, or in Jesus’ own words no one is good but God, then what is going on here. There seems to be a major disjoint in our beliefs.

If these people are Christians, how are they claiming all these things?

I belive the answer is found in our lack of understanding of the other face of Grace.

Grace, although it is the cross, is not only the cross. Ezra was resting in God’s grace well before he confessed his iniquity in the pray we have been looking at.

We believe that we are basically good, and have screwed up a few times, and that is why we need Jesus. We also believe that we deserve things in this life. They are wrapped up together. Because I am basically a good person, I deserve a good job, a secure future, a weekend to myself. Because I am honest and pay my taxes, I deserve a raise and time off.

I think that we believe that we deserve things based on our merit. Criminals believe they deserve probation because of good behavior, drug addicts believe they deserve help because this illness wasn’t their fault, college students today believe they deserve good grades because they pay and attend class.

Now I am not saying that criminals shouldn’t have probation and early releases, or that drug addicts shouldn’t get help, but do they really deserve it?

We believe today that since we are trying to be good we deserve for God to bless us. This is the heart of the prosperity Gospel, is it not?

I am not saying that we all believe in the Prosperity Gospel, but to some extent I think we do, whether we admit it or not.

I, myself, am guilty of it. Some of you worked with me at Mullins Center, and I ask you how many times did I complain about things because I felt that I deserved something- Be it a raise, health insurance, a promotion?

I believe we all forget this second aspect of Grace, not just our salvation, but EVERYTHING, comes from God. We are not deserving of anything on our own. Ezra understood this. Does he tell us that he was able to go to Jerusalem because he was so great? NO, he says he found favor with the king because God’s hand was upon him. He claims for himself nothing, save his sinfulness.

It was by God’s grace that he was chosen to be head scribe. It was by God’s grace that the king smiled upon him. It was by God’s grace that he made it safely to Jerusalem. It was by God’s grace that Israel was saved. It was by God’s grace that the Temple was rebuilt. See a pattern here?

So must it be with us. Yes it is God’s grace that saves us from death, but it is also God’s grace that sustains us every moment. It is why you have a job. It is why you have your health. It is why you have anything and everything.

This is the Grace we must find our rest in. We must rest in God’s grace every moment of every day. We must learn to thank Him for His salvation, and our daily bread. For it is not by our labors that we do anything, but by His face smiling on us.

If we don’t know this with out heart of hearts, what happens? We begin to be resentful, boastful, proud. We see others succed and feel that we should too. We neglect the fact that we have been put where we have been put for a reason. We forget to thank God for the money we have, and instead get angry that we don’t have more.

If we don’t live with His Grace at every moment, and desire to know it more, we allow ourselves to begin to be cut off from God. We stop seeing every person who walks through our front doors as a blessing, as a person who need to be connect with, as a potential new friend, and we start to believe that they should want to be here even if we are offering them nothing. We see that we are the new, cool, postmodern church, and we focus on our hip-ness, boast in our outreach, and the whole time we isolate ourselves from those sinners out there. Instead of Praising God for each new body, we believe that they should be privileged to be here, and we forsake our first love.

When we don’t live in God’s grace every second it becomes easier and easier to see others mistakes, while harder and harder to see our own. We focus on the failures that others have caused, while the whole time we convince ourselves that we have the solution.

We believe that we deserve more money, more fame, more friends, more followers, more blessings. We become proud in our correct ways of doing things. We believe that we posses the answers to all of life’s problems. Oh, why don’t they just listen to us!

But if we live in God’s grace, we are saved. Our resentments fade away. Why should we be so angry that God is blessing another? Another person, another church, another couple. We are thankful for what we have, knowing we deserve even less.

If we hold this truth close to our hearts then we are in constant praise to God. We look at every meeting as a divine appointment. We see every blessing as a good gift from our Father.

We can say with assurance that God will provide, because his Grace is sufficient. We will know, as Ezra states, that the good hand of God was upon us.

We will not carry out resentment, our fears, or our guilt. How could we? We were never good enough to begin with. Like all the saints before we will find our righteousness, not in our actions, but in Jesus.

We will always let ourselves down. We will either not live up to our own standards, to our bosses, to our friends, or to God’s. No matter how hard we try we will always fail at some point. Be it in our struggles against lust, or anger, or being a good husband or wife, we will always fail.

What is true of us, is not true of God. His grace did not fail Ezra. His grace has not failed me. His Grace will not fail you. So I beseech you now to cast your baggage away, and come to the cross. Rest in the Grace of God, through His Son, Jesus Christ. I say this not just to those of you who are unconverted, but to all who sit in this building this morning, Come Rest in Him. Find your peace in His Grace. Know that the good hand of God is upon you. He wants to heal your wounds, calm your storms, restore your soul. Ask him to do so.

We deserve nothing, but today He is offering us all life. His grace is enough. His grace is enough.

Let us pray.