Ezra 8 - Return pt.2

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Thanks very much, Michael and the team for leading us there. So great to be able to sing those songs of praise and be reminded of those truths. We're going to come to God's word now, so if you've got your Bible there, you'll need that in Ezra chapter 8. As Pastor Doug said, we're continuing our integrated study. We're in week 7. If you've missed any of the previous weeks, jump online. You'll find all the messages, sermon notes, that sort of stuff up there. And like always, if the slides are too quick or there's too much on there today, feel free to hit up the website later on and you'll find them there. If you need them before that, feel free to contact us in the office or just take a photo. You're okay to do that as well too. Before we read God's word, let's just pray and ask Him to help us. Father, we do thank you for your word. As we read it now, help us, Lord, to listen carefully, to respond faithfully. Soften our hearts. Teach us to trust in your gracious hand. And Lord, would you help us to not rely on our own strength, but on you. Show us Christ, Lord. Strengthen our faith so that we might be shaped by your truth today. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. We're going to read chapter 8, and there's some big words, names in here, so bear with me. These are the family heads and those registered with them who came up with me—this is Ezra writing—from Babylon during the reign of King Artaxerxes: of the descendants of Phinehas, Gershom; of the descendants of Ithamar, Daniel; of the descendants of David, Hattush; of the descendants of Shecaniah; of the descendants of Parosh, Zechariah, and with him were registered 150 men. Of the descendants of Pehath-moab, Eliohenai son of Zerahiah, and with him 200 men. Of the descendants of Zattu, Shecaniah son of Jahaziel, with him 300 men. Of the descendants of Adin, Ebed son of Jonathan, and with him 50 men. Of the descendants of Elam, Jeshaiah son of Athaliah, and with him 70 men. Of the descendants of Shephatiah, Zebadiah son of Michael, and with him 80 men. Of the descendants of Joab, Obadiah son of Jehiel, and with him 218 men. Of the descendants of Bani, Shelomith son of Josiphiah, and with him 160 men. Of the descendants of Bebai, Zechariah son of Bebai, and with him 28 men. Of the descendants of Azgad, Jonathan son of Hakkatan, and with him 110 men. Of the descendants of Adonikam, the last ones, whose names were Eliphelet, Jeuel, and Shemaiah, and with them 60 men. Of the descendants of Bigvai, Uthai and Zaccur, and with them 70 men. I assembled them at the canal that flows towards Ahava, and we camped there three days. Just pause there for a moment and just acknowledge that's a mouthful, right? There's a lot of weird names. We're not from this culture. We don't pronounce them wrong. I'm sure I've butchered a bunch of them, but that's okay. Because it's important for us to not come to a passage like this and just skip over that and go, you know what, that's too hard. I'm just not going to read it. It's there for a reason. And I think in this case, it's really helpful for us to know and note that these are real people. This is a real record of a second group of exiles that chose, their hearts were stirred by the Lord, softened by Him, and they chose to go with Ezra back to Jerusalem in this second wave. If you actually go back to the first wave of exiles that went back some 80-odd years earlier in Ezra chapter 2, you'll see that a lot of these family lines are mentioned again. So this is now a few generations past, and we've still got soft hearts within these generations that are choosing to send extended family back to join up with those that went in the first wave. So I find that really interesting and helpful to know that this is real history. It's important for us to understand that these were all folk that God had stirred their hearts to go back. It's a lot smaller number this time than the first group that went back. We add all of those up, it's like 1,500-odd men. Add to that maybe their women and children, and you're looking at maybe a few thousand people, as opposed to the 50,000-odd that went back in the first wave. So it's a smaller crew. But anyway, let's keep reading. Ezra chapter 8, we'll keep reading there. Ezra continues. He says, When I checked among the peoples and the priests, I found no Levites there. So I summoned Eliezer, Ariel, Shemaiah, Elnathan, Jarib, Elnathan, Nathan, Zechariah, and Meshullam, who were leaders, and Joiarib and Elnathan. There's a bunch of Elnathans there. These were men of learning, and I ordered them to go to Iddo, the leader in Casiphia. I told them what to say to Iddo and his fellow Levites, the temple servants in Casiphia, so that they might bring attendants to us for the house of our God. Because the gracious hand of our God was on us, they brought us Sherebiah, a capable man from the descendants of Mahli, son of Levi, the son of Israel, and Sherebiah's sons and brothers, eighteen in all, and Hashabiah, together with Jeshaiah and the descendants of Merari, and his brothers and nephews, twenty in all. They also brought 220 of the temple servants, a body that David and the officials had established to assist the Levites. All were registered by name. Then there by the Ahava Canal I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe journey for us and our children with all our possessions. I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen to protect us from the enemies on the road, because we had told the king, The gracious hand of our God is on everyone who looks to him, but his great anger is against all who forsake him. And so we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and he answered our prayer. Then I set apart twelve of the leading priests, namely Sherebiah, Hashabiah, and ten of their brothers, and I weighed out to them the offering of silver and gold and the articles to the king, his advisers, his officials, and all Israel present there had donated for the house of our God. I weighed out to them 650 talents of silver, silver articles weighing 100 talents, 100 talents of gold, 20 bowls of gold valued at 1,000 darics, and two fine articles of polished bronze as precious as gold. I said to them, You as well as these articles are consecrated to the Lord. The silver and gold are a freewill offering to the Lord, the God of your ancestors. Guard them carefully until you weigh them out in the chambers of the house of the Lord in Jerusalem before the leading priests and the Levites and the family heads of Israel. Then the priests and the Levites received the silver and gold and sacred articles that had been weighed out to be taken to the house of our God in Jerusalem. On the twelfth day of the first month, we set out from the Ahava Canal to go to Jerusalem. The hand of our God was on us, and he protected us from enemies and bandits along the way. So we arrived in Jerusalem, where we rested three days. On the fourth day, in the house of our God, we weighed out the silver and gold and the sacred articles into the hands of Meremoth son of Uriah the priest. Eleazar son of Phinehas was with him, and so were the Levites, Jozabad son of Jeshua and Noadiah son of Binnui. Everything was accounted for by number and weight. And the entire weight was recorded at that time. Then the exiles who had returned from captivity sacrificed burnt offerings to the God of Israel: twelve bulls for all Israel, ninety-six rams, seventy-seven male lambs as a sin offering, twelve male goats. All this was a burnt offering to the Lord. They also delivered the king's orders to the royal satraps and to the governors of Trans-Euphrates, who then gave assistance to the people and to the house of God. It's the word of the Lord. We thank him for it. I wonder if you've ever been watching a TV show or a movie and something dramatic happens. Suddenly the screen goes dark and the words appear, four months earlier. It's a kind of familiar storytelling device that most of us would be familiar with. You already know the story from the episodes that have come before or from where you've already seen in the film or the show, and now the writer takes you back and shows you how everybody got there. They kind of do a little bit of detail catch-up, and that's essentially what's happening as we move from Ezra chapter 7 into chapter 8. Last Sunday in chapter 7, we saw that Ezra left Babylon and arrived safely in Jerusalem. We knew that already. In Ezra 7, verse 9, we're told that he arrived in Jerusalem on the first day of the fifth month, and he began the journey on the first day of the first month. So the journey takes about four months. And so as chapter 8 begins, it's almost like we're getting this flashback, this hone-in on a bunch of detail. What it is to do before he left. What happened? How did they prepare? What was the journey like? This is essentially what we're getting filled in here: the preparations, the gathering of the people, the problem of the missing Levites, the huge amount of silver and gold that needed to be transported, and how the people prayed and fasted before they set out on this dangerous journey. Chapter 8 helps us to see how God provided for them along the way. And so you can kind of think about chapters 7 and 8. They kind of read together. It's a really interesting way of looking at those verses, chapters. But when you kind of survey them like that, you can see that the chapters teach us that when we devote ourselves to the Lord, we can trust Him to provide what we need, especially for the work that He's called us to do. And I think we see that pretty clearly in chapter 8 this morning. Our key verse last week from Ezra chapter 7, verse 10, had showed us how God had been preparing Ezra long before he turns up on the scene to lead His people back to Jerusalem. Ezra was a priest and a Levite, but we know he'd been in exile. He'd been stuck in Babylon, far from the temple. And yet God didn't waste those years for Ezra. He wasn't able to do the job that he was born to do in Jerusalem because he was in exile in Babylon. And yet God didn't waste those years for Ezra. Ezra didn't waste those years. We see that Ezra devoted himself to the study and the observance of the law of the Lord and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel. That repeated phrase that we saw last week, the hand of the Lord his God was on him, or the gracious hand of his God was on him, that's repeated in the chapter that we read this morning. We saw that in verses 18, 22, and 31 of chapter 8. What I think this is showing us is that God's provision for the people was this leader, this spiritual leader, Ezra. But God had been providing for Ezra long before. And Ezra kind of knew this. His confidence wasn't in his own planning. It wasn't in his persuasiveness or his power as a leader or a teacher. His confidence rested in God's gracious provision. And I think we see that in chapter 8 as it unfolds. We certainly see that God provides what his people need to worship him, and God provides protection as his people humble themselves before him. And so we're going to kind of unpack that a little bit this morning. The first one there, God provides what his people need to worship him. You kind of see that theme from chapter 7, verse 11, right through to chapter 8, verse 20. We saw last week, King Artaxerxes gives Ezra this extraordinarily favorable decree. He authorizes him and the exiles to return to Jerusalem. Ezra is given authority to teach the people the law of God and how to obey it. And Artaxerxes gives generously to the function of the temple. He gives out of his own treasury. He gives silver and gold so they can purchase what they need to worship when they arrive. And he permits offerings to be collected before they leave Babylon. You can read about that in chapter 7 there from verse 11 on. He permits Ezra to connect with the treasurers in the region when they get there, and they'll give him whatever he needs. And there's an irony here in that Artaxerxes, this pagan king, he doesn't do any of this out of reverence for God or because he's come to believe in the Hebrew God, in Yahweh. He does it because he's concerned that Israel's God might become angry with him and his sons. And so he sends Ezra and the exiles back as kind of an insurance policy. It's really bad theology. And yet somehow through this muddled motive of a pagan king, God accomplishes his purpose. We see God graciously providing what his people need in order to worship him. That catches us up from chapter 7 to the end. And then chapter 8 now, Ezra gathers everybody who's registered to come back, and they're beside this canal before they're about to head off. And it's a smaller list that went back with Zerubbabel in Ezra chapter 2, and they're almost ready to leave. But then we see this problem in verse 15 of chapter 8. Ezra notices, as he's checking the list, as he's making sure everything's in order, he notices the problem in verse 15. He checked among the people and the priests, and he found no Levites there. And you kind of think, well, that's not that big a deal, right? No Levites? Oh, that shouldn't be too bad. You've got the permission to go. You've got the money to go. You've got everything you need to worship when you get there. Just trust God. He's in control. He'll sort out the Levites when you get to Jerusalem. Ezra doesn't do that. Because missing these Levites was actually a big deal. They had a vital role to play in the teaching of the law and in the ministry of the temple and throughout Israel. The Levites had an important role in the worship and service of God. And so it was important for them to join Ezra on the journey. And so Ezra stops. He checks and he sees that something's missing, and he does something about it. He gathers leaders and he sends them to Iddo. He coaches them on what to say as they make their request. Then we read in verse 18, Because the gracious hand of our God was on us, they brought us Sherebiah, capable man from the descendants of Mahli son of Levi, the son of Israel. We read that earlier. They end up with 38 Levites in response to this request to help them out. God stirred the heart of Iddo and the Levites that were there that there were some that would go. Not only that, we're told in verse 20 of chapter 8 that 220 of the temple servants were also willing to leave Babylon and serve the Lord. And so we see God providing once again, the gracious hand of God providing again. First it was resources and sacrifices for the temple. Now it's these Levites and temple servants who were a provision from the Lord. I think there's a little bit of a pattern there. We see God acts in his sovereignty and power. He gave favor with Artaxerxes, who provided provision of resources, etc. So God acts. And then Ezra responds. Ezra acts. In response to the goodness and the gracious provision of God, Ezra knows he's got a job to do. He's been given this call from the Lord to go back and to fulfill this role as a spiritual leader for the people. And so Ezra acts. He gathers the leaders. He plans to go. He starts checking everything off. And then he realizes there's a problem. And so once again, God acts in the provision of the Levites. But the Levites respond. They decide that they're going to join the work of God and dedicate themselves to the ministry, to seeing the law of God taught and God worshipped. They came willing to serve. And I think that pattern shows us something really, really important. God's sovereignty and his gracious provision, which we've been reading about right throughout Ezra, this doesn't remove our responsibility. God acts in grace and provides sovereignly, but we have a responsibility to the call that he's given to us. The fact that God's gracious hand is upon Ezra doesn't mean that he can stop thinking or planning. It doesn't mean he can sit back and check out and say, Oh, well, God's got this. I'll just sit back and see what happens. Faith in God doesn't mean we can switch our brains off with a type of let go and let God attitude. That's not what the Bible teaches. Ezra is a spiritual leader of the people. That was what God had called him to be. And so he'd been given this responsibility. He's got to work in faith while trusting God to provide. I reckon Ezra understands that there's a point where his planning and his persuasiveness, his power reached their limit. I mean, he could coach the guys on how to ask Ido to send Levites to join them on the journey, but Ezra would have known that he can't change the hearts of the Levites. Only God can do that. Ezra can send the invitation, but he can't make the people willing to serve. That's the work of God. And so you can see both of those things: Ezra's responsibility and the work that he did, and you can see the gracious provision of the Lord. Friends, we need to understand, like Ezra did, that faith in God doesn't make us passive. Faith in God doesn't make us passive. We should still work hard to faithfully discharge the responsibilities that God has given to us. Real faith gets to work while recognizing that ultimately God provides the outcome. It's a both-and. We can trust Him to provide what His people need to worship and serve Him, but we need to worship and serve Him. There's work to be done. I wonder if you realize that one of the great gifts that God gives to us as we seek to worship and serve Him is each other. Paul says in Romans chapter 12, verses 4 to 5, For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. Part of God's provision for the local church. is a local church. It's you and me. If you know and love Jesus, he hasn't called you just to believe in him privately and then get on with your life. It's not like discipleship in isolation. Christ brings us together as one people. Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 13 says that through the blood of Christ, those who were once far away have been brought near. Paul goes on to say in verse 19 of Ephesians chapter 2, we're no longer foreigners and strangers. We're fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household. It's amazing. It's so cool. Jesus doesn't just reconcile us to God. He brings us into a family. And part of God's gracious provision for you is that family, brothers and sisters who will pray for you, who will encourage you, who will remind you of the gospel when life is hard. People who will help teach your children about the Lord or sit beside you when you're grieving. People who challenge you when you're wandering off the narrow path. Brothers and sisters in the Lord who encourage you and serve you in practical ways as well. People who make you coffee or welcome you at the door on Sunday. People who prepare Bible studies and host midweek discipleship groups in their homes. Folk who give financially to support the work of the Lord or tend to the gardens or the grounds. I could go on and on and on. There's so many ways that our church family turns up and serves. Friends, if you've ever received a blessing from a brother or a sister in the Lord, It's because the local church family is God's gracious provision to you. But there's a flip side to that, isn't there? You are also one of God's gracious provisions to your church family, to this church family. If you call Caboolture Baptist your church home, that's worth thinking about. I think a helpful diagnostic question is this one: Do you see church as simply something you attend, or is it something that you're part of? They're two very different things. If church is simply an event in your diary, something you attend for an hour or so on Sunday because that's what Christians are supposed to do, then I think you've missed the joy of what Jesus has invited us into. Church is not somewhere I go; it's a family I belong to. These are my people. I love this church. I love being with you. Because it's a family, though, that means that sometimes it's messy, like all families. Because we're all sinners and in need of a saviour, sometimes we disappoint one another. Sometimes we disagree with one another. Sometimes we even annoy one another. Sometimes loving one another is hard work. But that's precisely why we need Jesus. We need to help one another on our journey with Jesus. As we worship and serve the Lord, I need you to point me back to Jesus, and you need me to serve you by pointing you back to Jesus. There's something beautiful and profound here. As each part of the body of Christ is willing to play its part, we can truly see God's provision among us. As he provides leaders for our ministries, finances to support the work of the kingdom, pastors and teachers to equip us, people who are willing to pray and hands that are willing to serve. Now, of course, no one person has to fill every gap, but I think we all ought to ask, where has the Lord placed me? What has he entrusted to me? And how might I be a part of his provision for his people? I think it's a really good question to ask. That second lesson we learned this morning, that God's provision provides protection for his people as they humble themselves before him. Ezra gets this Levite problem resolved, and you might expect him to say, Cool, all right, let's go. Off we go. We're good. But you notice there, as we read earlier in verse 21, he proclaims a fast. He calls them to fast and ask God for protection, for safety on the journey. Obviously, he knew that this wasn't going to be an easy journey. I think we said last week it was the thousands of kilometers or something. It was a long way. They had kids with them. They had a bunch of livestock. They had this extraordinary amount of gold and silver. Eric and Katie have done the math for us. It's something like 25 tons of gold and silver, which is a lot. In today's dollars, as of yesterday, it's about 760 million Australian dollars. It takes up a big space. It's a lot of haulage. That carrying that sort of wealth would have made them an obvious target for bandits. Ezra would have known that. And so what does he do? He calls the people to humble themselves before God. They fast and pray and seek the Lord and petition him for protection. We saw there in verse 22 that Ezra tells us why they were worried about the trip and why they asked God for protection. He says there in verse 22 he was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen to protect them because they'd already told the king that the gracious hand of our God is on everyone who looks to him. It kind of sounds a bit foolish from Ezra. I mean, he had such favor with the king. He's got all these resources that are going to be available to him from the Trans-Euphrates treasurers at his disposal. I mean, surely he could have asked the king for soldiers to protect them along the way. But instead, Ezra tells the king God can be trusted. So it wasn't foolish at all. He's actually teaching the king something about God. And so Ezra, along with those who'd signed up to go with him, they have to put their money where their mouth is now. They've got to trust the Lord. And so they come before the Lord in humility through prayer and fasting. And I find that incredibly challenging. You think about it. It could be easy to tell other people that God is trustworthy, or as we gather on Sunday to sing the songs about God's faithfulness. It's easy to say that God is sovereign and in control. But then eventually there comes a moment when we've got to live that out as though we actually believe it. That's the challenge. This is what Ezra does, is he calls the people to pray. He's calling them to demonstrate their faith and devotion to the living God as they ask him for a safe journey. It's interesting to note that Ezra's confidence in God doesn't make him casual. He's not just so, you know, casual about it that he's not concerned at all. It doesn't make him arrogant because he's got God on his side and everybody else better look out of the way. It actually drives him to humility. It drives him to his knees. Ezra knew that God had the power and the desire to protect them, and he knew that God would provide. And so he prays. Verse 23 says that God answered their prayer. I think there's a, we can see a beautiful New Testament parallel in 1 Peter chapter 5, verses 6 and 7. Peter encourages us to humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Friends, that's what Ezra and the Israelites were doing. They were humbling themselves under God's mighty hand. They were placing their fears and their anxieties into his hands, knowing that he cared for them. We've got an even greater reason to pray, don't we, this side of salvation history. We know that because of Jesus, who is our great High Priest, we're told that we can approach the throne of God's grace with confidence. Hebrews chapter 4, verse 16 tells us that we can approach God's throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. So there's all the more reason for us to humble ourselves and pray. We don't come before God in that throne of grace because we've prayed enough, or because we've prayed the right way, or because we've served enough, or been devoted enough. It's not because we've read our Bible enough. There's nothing that we can do to earn that right to ask Him for help. But because of Jesus, because of the relationship that Jesus gives us access to the living God, because of what Christ has won for us on the cross, we can go right into that throne room and petition the living God. We can go right into God's very presence and ask of Him. It's a wonderful, beautiful thing. And so when the journey becomes difficult or dangerous, when you don't know what to do, maybe when you don't have the strength, when your resources aren't enough, Jesus invites us to come to the throne of grace, to humble ourselves before the living God and to cast our anxieties on Him because He cares for us. We can rest in the knowledge, like Ezra did and the people did there, that God is able to provide for His people as we humble ourselves before Him. I wonder if you noticed there in verses 24 to 30 that something interesting happens after this great faith that the people exhibit. He's prayed, he's trusting God for protection on the journey, but even before he sets out, he does something strange. He grabs 12 priests that are trustworthy, and he portions up all the gold and silver. He weighs it out carefully, and he sets them apart, and he says, Guys, you've got to look after this. This is devoted to the Lord. This is for Him. And you're going to protect this along the journey, and when you get to Jerusalem, then you're going to meet with the priests, and we're going to weigh it all out again and make sure that it all got there safely. It seems like a strange thing to do after such a great example of faith. Ezra's kind of doing all this careful planning again, and you're like, well, hold on, man. You just said you were trusting God to protect you on the way, so why are you going to all the trouble of weighing it out and distributing it and appointing all these people to guard it? What's happening there? It seems like he's got faith, but he's acting like he doesn't. Well, no. I think what he's doing is wisdom. Trusting God doesn't mean abandoning wisdom. It's the same tension we saw with those missing Levites. God's power and control doesn't remove our responsibility to act. Faith in God doesn't mean switching our brains off. It's not just throwing our hands in the air like we said earlier and saying, God's got this, and neglecting the responsibilities God has given us. Ezra prayed for protection, and he believed that God could do it. But in wisdom, he put safeguards in place. He made sure that there was a good plan of good stewardship, and he entrusted these funds into the care of trustworthy men. He weighed it all out before they left, and he weighed it all out when they arrived. Verse 31 tells us that once again, the hand of God was on them. God did protect them from their enemies and the bandits along the way, and even that protection from the Lord doesn't invalidate Ezra's wise stewardship. I think the gracious provision of the Lord and Ezra's faithful responsibility still work side by side right to the end of this chapter. Prayer isn't what we do instead of working; it's how we confess that our work depends on God. See, we pray and we commit our work to the Lord, but we've still got to get up and do the work that God calls us to do. Real faith leads to action, and that action is often best done humbly submitting ourselves to God. I know that some of you have already experienced the joy of gathering on Tuesday nights or Thursday afternoons or midweek in your discipleship groups for prayer. Pastor Doug mentioned those already. And just as Ezra and the Israelites were doing before their journey, our heart for these prayer times is to humbly seek the Lord together. They might read a word from the Word and praise God in response, and then spend time praying for people in the church who are in need. As Doug said, praying for missionaries, praying for our local chaplains, for RI teachers, praying for our region, for our nation, for our world. We're demonstrating our faith by gathering and praying in this way, and it's a beautiful thing. I reckon it would be amazing to see more folk from our church come along to those times of prayer, or even just if you can't make it, to find some time to stop and join us from wherever you are, and just offer up your prayers for the church. It's such a good thing for a church family. There's so much that we can praise God for, but yet there's also so much work for us to do for the sake of the kingdom. There are so many people around us, just in the Caboolture and Morayfield region, who need to hear the good news of the gospel. There are young people in our schools who are ready for someone to come and tell them about Jesus, and yet there's not enough religious instructors. There's so much going on in the life of our church and in our own lives and families that we could be praying for and trusting God with, humbly presenting to Him. And we're doing that. We're praying for two church council members whose terms are going to come to an end this year, and we need folk who are willing to step into that gap and serve on our church council. We're looking for more musicians to join our music teams and to help share the load of leading us as we worship in song on Sundays. As Lacey said, we're about to do a Christmas outreach, and we need many hands to make that work happen and successful unto the Lord. We could do with more volunteers with Neo and the team up the back on the sound and media, so we've got words to sing and so our live stream goes online each week. It could go on and on and on. There's so many ways that we could praise the Lord for what He's doing amongst us, and there's many, many ways that we could pray to God for the work that He's called us to do. We could never run out of things to pray, and we need to pray because, like Ezra realized, we realize that we can't rely on our own planning or our own persuasiveness or power. Jesus said in John 15:5, He said, I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in Me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. But apart from me, you can do nothing. We need to pray. Let's humble ourselves before God and seek Him together. Let's trust that He will provide all that we need to accomplish the work that He's called us to do. And then, and only then, once we've humbled ourselves before the Lord, then we go out in faith and we get to work making disciples as He has instructed us. I think those two lessons will be enough. I'll leave the rest of chapter 8, anything else you want to glean from that into the study during the week. Thank you to Eric and Katie for putting that together for us, and yeah, look forward to that in your discipleship groups if you're a part of one of those. I think one thing that we do see throughout this whole journey from chapter 7 and chapter 8 is God's gracious hand at work throughout the whole thing. God provides this spiritual leader for the people who's knowledgeable in God's law and he's prepared to teach. He prepares the way for this leader and the people to travel back to Jerusalem. He gives them resources for the temple. He gives them Levites who are ready to serve, and he protects them until they get there. It's a wonderful picture of God's provision. But again, we're blessed to be this side of salvation history. We know that God's greatest provision for us is not money, it's not facilities, it's not leaders, it's not even other people, though they are all good gifts from the Lord. The greatest gift that God has given to us so graciously is His Son. Romans 8 asks this question. It says, What then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? The God who's given us Jesus has already given us the greatest gift we could ever receive. Through Jesus, our sins are forgiven. We're brought near to God. We're welcomed into God's family. Friends, through Jesus, we don't have to walk this journey alone. So after the band comes back, we sing our final song. We're going to go out to morning tea, and then we go home, out into the week, and the messiness of life comes rushing back. The finance and relationship struggles are real. The health concerns, perhaps, the care of the children or aging parents, ministry burdens. It's the work or school or uni that you've got waiting for you on Monday. Maybe decisions you don't even know you'll have to make this week. Ezra's invitation through this chapter is not, Stop working. God's got it. Just leave it all to him. Ezra's invitation is, Humble yourself before the living God and seek after him. Trust in his gracious provision, and then go faithfully do the work that is placed before you. Amen. Let me pray. Band, please come up and sing. Heavenly Father, Lord, we do just thank you so much for these words. Lord, we thank you for the example of Ezra and your people, and Lord, for what we see of you, our God. Graciously providing for the work that you've called us to do. And Lord, that wonderful invitation for us to trust you to do just that. Thank you, Father, that we're not called to walk as disciples alone, but we're part of a family. We're part of a kingdom, citizens of your family. Lord, we pray that you'd help us to be a family that is devoted to you, brothers and sisters who worship and serve joyfully, humbly trusting that you'll provide all that we need to faithfully do the work that you've called us to do. Father, as we leave here today, would you strengthen our faith? Help us to not rely on our own strength, but on your gracious hand at work in us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.