Ezra 7 - Refocused

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If you're timing me, that's not a part of it, fake. Start now if you like. The topic today is refocused. It's not a topic which we chose. It's a topic that was given to us. So, but the more that we looked at this passage of scripture this morning in Ezra 7, we realised it was an appropriate topic to be called refocused. When I look at this idea of being refocused, immediately comes to my mind that there are three groups of people here today. They're not equal groups, but there are three groups of people, broadly speaking. And as I describe each of these groups, I want you to try and think, now, which of these three groups do I fit into? Now, it's okay. I'm not going to get you to raise your hands or move around or anything like that. This is purely a self-assessment about which group do I fit into. So firstly, there's the focus groups. In this group are people whose walk with God is really going really well. There's good fellowship, good relationship with God. Things are going really well. Then there's a second group which is like needs to be refocused. So it's a group that maybe somewhere along the line there was a focus with God, or maybe haven't quite got to that yet. And you know that you're not there yet, but you know that some refocusing needs to take place to focus more on God. Then there's a third group which are yet to focus. So my guess is in a congregation this size that there's probably some people here who have never ever entered into a relationship with God. And I don't know why. What's holding you back? Is it lack of understanding, or you don't want to, something's in the way, whatever. But today would be a wonderful day to be the day when you start that focus on God. Three groups: those who are focused, those who need to refocus, and those who are yet to focus. Now, the second thing about this topic is this, is that last week when Lindal Schultz was leading, she said as a part of her introduction to the song, and I don't know whether you picked this up, but because I was already in the throes of preparation, I honed in on it immediately, where she made this comment where she said, you know, we're talking about the Old Testament, where the temple was the dwelling place of God, but since the Lord Jesus came and lived, died, resurrected, Pentecost came, we now know that God lives where? Lives in us. And the Bible says, don't you know that you are the temple of the Holy Spirit? And so there's that sense today where there's this refocus from the external of building a temple to the building the internal as well. And so today we actually are going to be looking in two broad ways. One of these things historically, the building of the second temple, but then we're going to say, well, what are the principles that were there in Ezra's time that we can now apply to ourselves as God is building his temple within us, that refocus. So we're looking at the history a little bit, but we're also looking at principles that we can learn as well. Anse is a bit of a history buff. I enjoy reading history. I never really enjoyed learning it. I don't know whether it's all in your mind about the history of what's taking place here. By the way, we're going to go through a fair few slides this morning, and I'm not going to spend a lot of time on some of them, so either you're going to have to take a photo to take it in, or else— I'll email the PowerPoint to, I think, online or somewhere, but certainly to Colette, and you can get a copy of the PowerPoint from her. But this is the broad outline, which we're not going to go through in detail at this time. So we've got Israel, disobedient, God sends them into captivity, firstly with the Assyrians, who are then taken over from the Babylonians, who are then taken over by the Persians. And there's a number of Persian kings that are mentioned, and only a few of them, only—not all of them—are mentioned in Ezra and Nehemiah, but they are mentioned there. And then there's the returns after the period of the exile, is that 50,000 or so came back under Zerubbabel. The temple was completed under him. So, by the way, I've got the kings of Persia there now, Cyrus and Darius, and then Ezra returns about 60 years after the temple. So there's about a 60-year gap between chapter 6 and chapter 7. Only takes a split second to go from reading 6 to 7, but 60 years there. And then later on, Nehemiah returns with 42,000. So Ezra and Nehemiah actually ministered together at their time overlapped. By the way, Persia is now called Iran. So Persia became Iran in about 1935. It's not as simple as that historically. Both terms have been and are still used side by side at times. So I don't know whether you're aware, but we've got a Persian—not the cat type, but the real Persian Iranian—in our church, and he's here this morning. Do you mind if I point you out, Milad? There he is. Milad, can you stand up, please? So Milad is from Iran, born there, but now he's a good Australian, married to Sarah, and she's born and bred Australian. Thanks, Milad. You can sit down now. Don't take over. You've heard all the preachers up here struggle with the pronunciation of some of these names. So I've had a couple of conversations with Millard about how do you say Cyrus, and he says it very differently. He says it the way the Iranians do. Having said that, by the way, we know all the problems with going on in Iran at the time, at the moment. So Millard has his mother here and a nephew here. They've still got family back in Iran. They're not near where the major problems are, but they're still there and impacted. So you pray for Millard and Sarah and the family. Maybe periodically just sidle up to them and say, We're praying for—is there anything particular we can be praying for you at this time, significant that that's taking place? So if you want to know what Cyrus and Darius, all those blokes look like, just go up to Millard and say, I can have another look at you. Right. I'm going to read part of chapter 7, and when I read it, in a moment I'm going to ask you to stand while I read it. And you're going to say, Why on earth, if you're able to stand, do so, but if you can't, that's all right too. But you might say, Why do I want you to stand? Because we want to reenact something here. Because, you see, Ezra is also mentioned in Nehemiah, and in Nehemiah chapter 8, from verse 5, it says this: Ezra opened the book. All the people could see him because he was standing above them, just like I am here, standing above them, and as he opened it... The people all stood up. Ezra praised the Lord, the great God, and all the people lifted their hands and responded, Amen and amen. So Ezra opened the book to read all the laws of God, and as he stood in front of everybody else, he stood up, opened the book, and everybody stood. Can we reenact that now? I'm going to read, and if you're able, if you'd like to, stand while I read parts of chapter 7. So from Ezra chapter 7 and from verse 1: After these things, during the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, Ezra son of Seraiah, and after that sixteen names are mentioned. I'm not going to read them because some of them are too hard to say. But if you're expecting a boy, you might want to read through this and pick out a name for you. So there's sixteen names there, and it says there, down in verse, at the end of verse 5, it says, son of Aaron the chief priest, and then verse 6 it says, This Ezra came up from Babylon. He was a teacher well versed in the law of Moses, which the Lord, the God of Israel, had given. The king had granted him everything he asked, for the hand of the Lord his God was on him. Some of the Israelites, including priests, Levites, singers, gatekeepers and temple servants, also came up to Jerusalem in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes. Ezra arrived in Jerusalem in the fifth month of the seventh year of the king. He began his journey from Babylon on the first day of the first month, and he arrived in Jerusalem on the first day of the fifth month, for the gracious hand of God was on him. Second time we've read that phrase. This ten, for Ezra devoted himself to the study and observance of the law of the Lord and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel. The end of verse 27. Praise be to the Lord, the God of our fathers, who has put it into the king's heart to bring honor to the house of the Lord in Jerusalem in this way, and who has extended his good favor to me before the king and his advisers and all the king's powerful officials. Now this phrase again, because the hand of the Lord my God was on me, I took courage and gathered leading men from Israel to go up with me. And all the people said— you didn't really say, Can't we sit down now? And yes, you can. Thank you. Amen, amen, and we know that God always blesses the reading of his word. Jesus said to his disciples, When you pray, pray this way. Say, Our Father. Let's pray. Our Father, day by day, three things we pray: to see you more clearly, to love you more dearly, to follow you more nearly, day by day. Amen. I'm thinking of a time back in my ministry pastoring a church, and I'm thinking way, way back, many, many, many moons ago, a time I'm thinking about before even the internet existed. It's back in the time when all telephones were tied to the wall, and we used to be given a book. Used to be given a book with everybody's name and address and phone number in it. When TVs, where we only had four channels, and to change channels, you had to get up and walk over to the TV to physically change channels. And some of us even had what were called rabbit ears to go with our TV. Now, if you're young and you don't know what rabbit ears are, well, just see anybody my age or thereabouts, and they'll be able to explain what rabbit ears are to you. So I think at that period of time, I was pastoring a church, and there's one aspect of the church is very similar to our church today, in that we had a small group ministry, and even the small group ministry was much the same, in that certain requirements by the church for each of the small groups, but beyond that, the small groups were free to do whatever they wanted to do. Within that time, a group rose up as a small group, and they decided they wanted to do things differently. One of the things they wanted to do differently was this, is they didn't want to have any leaders in the group. This group was just going to function. Now, please understand very clearly that these are good Christian brothers and sisters. They'll be in heaven with us, but, you know, amongst some other things was not what the church required at that particular time. And the leaders became aware of it, and the leaders discussed it. And once again, don't start imagining things. It's not as though, you know, excommunication was never discussed or discipline, that was never discussed. But what do we do with this group out of a concern for them? Because there's good reasons why the church put in some regulations in this way. And so I said to the leadership, I said— I think we don't need to do anything, because whenever you get a group of people together, one of two things is going to emerge, is going to occur. Either a leader is going to emerge in that group, or the group is going to disintegrate. Now, if you're a student of group dynamics, or if you're a student of leadership, you need to write that down if you weren't aware of that. When you get a group of people together, one of two things is going to happen. Either leadership will emerge, or the group will disintegrate. Well, to cut a long story short, the group didn't last too long, and that was okay as well. They didn't experiment. It didn't work, but that's quite okay. So why do I say that? Because that principle about either leadership will emerge or the group disintegrates occurs not only just in small groups in churches, but it's a universal principle. Not only in small groups, but it follows through right through to nations as well. And you see, so what we have here is that we have Zerubbabel, who has come as the leader, and a good leader, but a builder leader to rebuild the temple. And so the first six chapters of Ezra is all taken up with Zerubbabel's leadership. But something occurred, because what happened when the temple was built and it was opened, the keys handed over, whatever they did in all of that time, Zerubbabel ran out of, What do I do now? As far as leadership in building is concerned, he was the best, and he was a good leader. But once it came that there is no more project here, he had no idea what he was going to do. And as I said, if there's no leadership, things start to fall apart. And they did. If you're aware of Ezra's marriage started to become a bit dysfunctional, all sorts of things started to occur because of the lack of leadership, which is another leadership principle, is that somebody can be a fantastic leader in one setting, but in another setting, they are not leadership material at all. Fantastic in one, don't fit over here. So there's this change. So it's called the book of Ezra. The first six chapters, we don't hear anything about Ezra, but chapter seven, we start to hear about him. So you see there, and I've got blue in that top line that there's a change of leadership from Zerubbabel, chapters one to six, and Ezra, chapters seven to ten. Now, just as an interesting idea in all of this is this, is that you'll see I've got some little numbers up in superscript up above the chapter lines there, and they stand for this. In the first six chapters, Zerubbabel is mentioned, the name Zerubbabel is there six times, and Ezra is mentioned zero. However, once you get to chapter seven, in chapter seven to ten, what you find there is Ezra's name is mentioned how many times? Thirteen times, and Zerubbabel is mentioned— Zero. So there's this clear change in leadership from building the temple to a refocusing of building the people, a change of leadership from Zerubbabel, fantastic leader when it comes to building projects, but not so good in building people, over to Ezra, that's his forte. That's the calling on his life. Remember, we read this: the hand of the Lord was on him. So we move on from there. Those headings there, they're in our study if you wanted to read that in the handout in the book there. So along comes Ezra, Ezra the man. So here he comes, Ezra the man. Now, it's important to understand this, is that Ezra had these sovereign foundations. Sometimes in our society, we're talking about sociology, we hear the term a family of origin, and that's okay, talk about the family of origin. But when we look at it from God's perspective, it's not so much a family of origin as a sovereign foundation, is that this is where God has placed me. I'll say a bit more about that in a few moments' time. But remember, in the beginning of Ezra chapter 7, there are all these names mentioned, 16 generations of people mentioned, which we skipped over because of difficulty, because reading all those names doesn't really grab our attention. And yet it's very important for us to note this, because Ezra traced his lineage all the way back to Aaron, who was The first priest, high priest. It was important for us to realize this is that it's important for that particular time. Why is it important? Well, if you go back to chapter 2, Ezra chapter 2 and verse 26, we read of a different group of people there. And what we're reading there is about a group of people who claimed that they were belonging to the priestly line. But in Ezra chapter 2 and verse 62, it reads this. It says about these people who wanted to be recognized as priests, it says, These searched for their family records, but they could not find them, so they were excluded from the priesthood as unclean. So it's important to realize this, that Ezra lineage, Ezra's lineage, going all the way back 16 generations, qualified him. So it didn't take God by surprise that Ezra was here on the scene. No, it's part of the sovereign plan of God that everybody is placed in a particular place in a particular time, including you and me, which we'll mention again in a while, is that Ezra is there. And what do we know about him? Is that phrase which I read three times in chapter 7: The hand of the Lord was on him. The hand of the Lord was on him. What does that mean? Well, it certainly means that God's presence was with him in a particular way. It also means that God's involvement in his life was there in a special way. And it's also this awareness that God's power was at work in him and through him as well. You know, even today we find that God's hand is on some people in a special way. But I also want to say this, is that there is another sense where God's hand is on every one of us in a particular and special way. And it might not be to do great and wonderful feats like Ezra or some other people, but where we are, where we're placed, is part of God's sovereign plan. We also discover that he was a gifted teacher. It says in verse 6 that he was a teacher. In chapter 7 and verse 10, that he was teaching God's ordinances and decrees throughout Israel. So he's gifted, but it was also his lifestyle as well that he was well versed in the law of Moses. So he had studied the law of God and he had learnt it. And then he was responsible for this refocus, the refocus from buildings, from building buildings to building people. Now, a key verse in all of this is Ezra 7 and verse 10. It's a verse well known to me because it's my ministry verse that God gave me many, many years ago. And we said in the study. That we have written there. Our challenge to you is this, is whether you will actually memorize this verse. Won't you put your hand up if you have. But if you haven't, then my encouragement to you is to memorize it. I memorized in a different version. So Ezra devoted himself to study the law of the Lord and to practice it and to teach his ordinances throughout Israel. So my whole ministry comes through this focus. So here's the history of Zerubbabel, we've been talking about for the last number of weeks. Now shifted to Ezra, shifting from building buildings to now we are building people. And so the question is, what are the principles that we can learn from this? I've got six principles that I want to bring out. Now I reckon about ten minutes on each principle, that's an hour. We'll be through by lunchtime. No. As I said, some of these we'll be doing very, very quickly, and so you'll have to be very quick with your cameras or get the thing later on. Here are six principles that I want to be aware of. Number one is this, is the idea of focused leadership. And what I want to say this is not aimed at our leaders so much, because we've got good leaders in the church. I want to say it aimed at us as followers of leaders. You see, the thing is this, is that we, in our own humanness, is that we're easily sucked in by the— By the glamorous. Back when I was in a leadership role in the denomination, it was interesting. Young people, young adults are the classic ones in all of this, is that we could see over a period of time how a particular church became the in church for all the young people to go to. And after a while, the whole herd would shift from this church to that church. And after a while, the whole herd would again shift from this church to another church. And in my time there, we observed three or four different churches which became the in church for young adults. In fact, don't get sucked in by the size of the church, by the facilities of the church, by the programs which the church operates, or by the charisma of the leader of the church. Don't get sucked in by that. But what's the basic question which we need to be asking in all of this? And be asking is, how are lives being changed for Jesus in this place? Beware of trendy preachers and beware of trendy churches. We don't need religious entrepreneurs. We can see and observe them in various ways and various sizes all over the place. We need people and we need leaders that will help us to connect to God. One of the hardest things for a pastor to answer, one of the hardest questions is this: What do you pastors do? Only see you for half an hour a week on a Sunday morning. And I was with a pastor once, and he was asked that question, What do you pastors do? And he had this classic answer, which I've never forgotten. He said, My role as a pastor is to help people connect to God. I thought, Yes, that's what it's all about. It's not just for pastors, but for all leaders, to help people to connect to God, either for the first time, which is evangelism, or in an ongoing, in deeper ways, which is discipleship. So focused leadership. The second principle I want to say is this, is talk about is sovereign foundations. We mentioned about Ezra and his 16 generations back to Aaron and how that qualified him to be a priest. And I want to state here categorically today that whatever your sovereign foundations are, the hand of God was there. My sense is, is that probably most of us were born into well-established, stable families. But there are probably people here, and I know there are people here, who were adopted out, some people who don't know who their mother is or who their father is, some people have been born into dysfunctional families, and we're tempted to ask, Why did God allow this? Why is all of this happening to me? I want to say this, and say it quite clearly, is that God knew. where you were going to be born, and it was all a part of his plan and purpose. Whether we understand it or not is not the situation here. There's a woman who was born a long time ago. She was born in 1896, had the wonderful first name of Ethel, Ethel Waters, African American woman. She was born as a result of her mother being raped. So her mother was just 13 years old, was raped and became pregnant, and Ethel was born as a result of that. Ethel had this very rough, dysfunctional upbringing. She had her first marriage when she was like 13 or 14 years old. She subsequently had about three marriages and other relationships. Dysfunctional life all the way through, drugs, relationships, or anything you could name went wrong with Ethel. And the thing was this, is that when she was aged 60, in 1957, she went to Billy Graham crusade, and she received Jesus as her savior, and her life was changed dramatically. Changed so much, she, in her life, was an actress and a singer, is that from then on, her life was changed so dramatically that she used to go along and periodically sing at Billy Graham crusades. You may have heard she wrote her biography, autobiography, and it was the name, the title of her autobiography is a song which she made famous, His Eye Is on the Sparrow. She wrote that. But not only that, this woman who was born as a result of a rape, married first time aged 12 or 13, all of this gave her life to Jesus. Jesus radically changed. And you know what she used to say? She used to say this, I know I'm somebody because God don't make no junk. And some of you need to hear that. Some of you need to hear that clearly today, that you are somebody because God don't make no junk. Third principle is devoted. Ezra, from Ezra 7:10, Ezra devoted himself. Devoted means focused or refocused, committed. And does that sound familiar to you? Look over here. What do we have? A word here, committed. And so Ezra had this commitment to these three things: to study, to live, to teach. But I want to ask you a question right now. Once again, not going to ask for hands up or whatever. On a scale of one to ten, how committed are you to Jesus? Just once again, self-assessment. Just think it in your mind. How committed am I to Jesus? I had to give it a number. And I know you're expecting me to say right now, Why aren't you a number 10? And yes, that's a question. But I want to ask you now, what's stopping you from just nudging it up maybe one point, or two points, or three points? What is something in your life that you could do differently, something you could start doing, or something that you could stop doing, that would make that impact in your life where that commitment was, Well, David, right now I'm a five, but if I did this, maybe I could get to a six, and, you know, God is so patient and gracious with me that, you know, down the track I'd get to a seven and ultimately get up to there. So it's commitment, which is over here. He's committed to these three things. Number one is my number four here. He's committed to study the Word. See our four values? That's the first one. Inform. What's the inform? We are informed by the Word of God. I ask you this morning, how much time do you spend in the Word of God? Sometimes it's really hard to know what to do when you read the Bible. In fact, you need to be reading your Bible and need to be reading it regularly in a disciplined way. I came across this, and we're not going to go through all of these things, this model, and there's many other models around. You can read that from back there. It's called Space PETS. It's not my idea; it's somebody else's, which I've borrowed. It's been reproduced so many times, is that to read a passage of Scripture, and I've done this often from time to time on a notebook to write down the side, Space PETS, with knowing that these are the ten things there that I'm looking for, and as I read the passage of Scripture, I'm looking for these things. Because God wants to do a work in his word or through his word to me. Won't always find something that fits every category, of course, but sometimes there'll be a gap. But all of these things: sin to confess, promise to claim, an attitude to change, command to obey, example to follow, prayer to pray, error to avoid, truth to believe, something to praise God for. I used to do it regularly. I haven't done it for quite a few years, even when I sat down to do this, it was still in my mind. I didn't need to look it up. So that's number four. Number five is to obey the word. And to obey the word is what? What's our second value after inform is transform. What does transform have to do? Transform has to do with obeying the word. It's not enough just to read and to know the word, but to obey it. Now, understand this very clearly. Spend a bit more time on this one. It said if you think that this is a list of rules, you're starting all wrong and you've got it all wrong. Because it's not a list of rules that we need to obey to have our lives transformed. It is rather love's response to God's love for us. Let me illustrate it this way. Well, Ephesians 5:10 and 17 are worth reading. Ephesians 5:10 says, Find out what is pleasing to God. And the implication is, find out what's pleasing to Him and then do it. You meet somebody, can be a person of the same sex, but let's just think about boy meets girl. They have eyes for each other. And early on in the relationship, what are they doing? They are assessing each other, and they are trying to work out, as they get to know them, what is it that pleases this person? How can I do something to impress them? And so there's this lifelong discovery of finding out what pleases each other and then doing it. And Anne and I recently celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary, and she was still a teenager when we got married. I wasn't a teenager when we got married. You can take that whichever way you want. But after 50 years, I mean, we still do things that surprise each other. Don't misunderstand that, but yeah, after 50 years, we know what pleases each other, but we also know how to get under each other's skin if we want to as well. You know what I mean? And nowhere along the line in those 50 years have we ever sat down with a pen and paper and said, Here are the rules which we need to live by. It's not a case of rules, folk. It is our love's response to each other. And so if we reduce this transformation of our lives to God's plan for us, if we reduce it to a list of rules, we've got it completely wrong. God loves you in a special way. Remember, He makes no junk. God loves you in a special way, and as you get to know God, as Ephesians 5:10 says, you find out what pleases Him, and you live your life accordingly. You know, of course, God has called us to live this life for Him. And the Christian life is not difficult, folk. It's impossible to live. Do you agree? It's only impossible if we're trying to do it in our own strength. But with God, all things are possible. He's patient, He's gracious, and He'll grow us into the person, the man or the woman that He wants us to be. And we find ourselves wrestling within about some things in our lives. There's a hymn, and a line of a hymn which says, Take away the love of sinning, Alpha and Omega be. You know, sometimes I've had to pray that prayer: God, I know You don't want me to do this, but I really love it. I have to pray, God, take away the love of sinning. And I want to ask us this question, and me as well: am I willing to change in that area of my life? Or at least if I'm not willing to change, am I willing to be made willing? To understand the work that the love of God is doing in our lives and through our lives. Number six, we're just about there. Sharing the Word. We're up to number three and four in our values here, folk. Sharing the Word. It's inreach and outreach. Just as I said earlier about leaders helping others to connect with God, it's our responsibility as well to help other people to connect with God as well. And we do that by our walk and by our talk as well. And I used to have a bit of paper here, which I must have left down there. Have I left some papers? No, it's here. It sort of fits in with this about helping others, working with God, or helping others to connect with God, in our walk and in our talk. Have you heard this poem? It's called The Gospel According to You. There's a Gospel according to Matthew, to Mark, Luke and John too. There's another Gospel many are reading, and that's the Gospel according to you. Many read not the words of the Bible. I'll tell you what some of them do. They're reading the book you are writing, the Gospel according to you. You're writing a Gospel, a chapter each day, by the deeds that you do, by the words that you say. Men read what you write, whether faithful, less or true, say, what is the Gospel according to you? Well, there's my six applications. Summarising them, they're all up there on the screen there. It's too much for you today to take all six of these and say, I've got to go home and work out on all of these. My encouragement to you today from Ezra chapter 7 is we look at the idea of Ezra building people. For you before God to say, God, is there one or two or three, and I don't think God's going to go more than that, but he might, just one, two or three of these things that you want to focus on with me in my life in the days ahead. And if so, God, what are those ones? And what's the next step? What's the first step? What's the next step in doing something about you building in me your temple, maybe the temple of the Holy Spirit? I want to ask you this: does God feel at home in your life? Ann mentioned we've got a granddaughter just staying with us a couple of days. She just walks in and takes over the place. She's 21, nearly 22, just takes over the place. We're so pleased about that. You know why? Because she feels at home. She's got a friend with her, and these two girls, young ladies, been friends since before school, they were telling us. She is not the same. She's a guest, first time she's been to our place, not the same. But I wonder, folk, this morning, is God feeling at home in your life? And which of these areas may need a little attention so that in your refocus that he might feel more so? We're going to conclude by singing a song, and it's a song which I have chosen because it's a song of refocus. And some of the words of this... Lord, please light the fire that once burned bright and clear. Replace the lamp of my first love that burns with holy fear. God, just do something in my life, that your hand, that the hand of God on me might be seen by others. Then the next verse is, I want to take your word and shine it all around, to be one that glows in the presence of others. I'm going to bow in a word of prayer, and just a time of quiet reflection. You might think and pray about these six things, or maybe something else has been said today in the presence of God, that you might do some business in that love relationship, God's loving you and you loving God.