Ezra 7

Lord God, thank you again for this gathering and Lord. Thank you for your word. We pray that your words would have their effect on us

Lord that they would reveal more about what you're like and who you are and also

God that they would Help sanctify us and help this to become more like Christ every single day

God we pray that We pray that that sanctification process would happen

We we ought we often don't want it to be with through discipline and through Difficulties Lord, but we know it often is

God either way. We pray that that you would change us change our hearts Help us to be more like Jesus in his name.

We pray. Amen All right Ezra chapter 7 these are the words of God Now after this in the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia Ezra the son of Sariah son of Azariah son of Hilkiah son of Shalom son of Zedek son of Ahithab son of Amariah son of Azariah son of Mary off son of Zehariah son of Uzi son of Buki son of Abushua son of Phineas son of Eleazar son of Aaron the chief priest

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 God the hand of the

Lord his God was on him and there went up also to Jerusalem in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the king some of the people of Israel and some of the priests and Levites the singers and gatekeepers and the temple servants and Ezra came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, which was in the seventh year of the king

For 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 for 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 This is a copy of the letter that King Artaxerxes gave to Ezra the priest the scribe a man learned in the matters of the commandments of the

Lord and the statutes for Israel Artaxerxes king of kings to Ezra the priest the scribe of the law of the

God of heaven peace And now I make a decree that any one of the people of Israel or their priests or Levites in my kingdom who freely offers

To go to Jerusalem may go with you For you are sent by the king and his seven counselors to make inquiries about Judah and Jerusalem according to the law of your

God Which is in your hand and 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 with 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 With this money then you shall with all diligence buy bulls

Rams and lambs with their grain offerings and their drink offerings and you shall offer them on the altar of the house of your

God That is in Jerusalem Whatever seems good to you and your brothers to do with the rest of the silver and gold you may do according to the will of your

God The vessels that have been given you for the service of the house of your

God You shall deliver before the God of Jerusalem and whatever else is required for the house of your God Which it falls to you to provide you may provide it out of the king's treasury

And I Artaxerxes the king make a decree to all the treasurers in the province beyond the river

Whatever Ezra the priests the scribe of the law of God of the God of heaven requires of you

Let it be done with all diligence up to 100 talents of silver 100 cores of wheat 100 baths of wine 100 baths of oil and salt without prescribing how much

Whatever is decreed by the God of heaven Let it be done in full for the house of the God of heaven lest his wrath be kindled against the realm of the king

And his sons we also notify you that it shall not be lawful to impose tribute custom or toll on any one of the priests the

Levites the singers the doorkeepers the temple servants or other servants of this house of God and You Ezra according to the wisdom of your

God that is in your hand appoint magistrates and judges who may judge all the peoples in the province beyond the river all such as Know the laws of your

God and those who do not know them you shall teach Whoever will not obey the law of your

God and the law of the king let judgment be strictly executed on him Whether for death or for banishment or for confiscation of his goods or for imprisonment

Bless me the Lord the God of our fathers who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king to beautify the house house of the

Lord that is in Jerusalem and 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.

This is the word of the Lord And so today finally in chapter 7 we get introduced to the person the book is named after Ezra likely wrote chapters 1 through 6 as well, but now he enters the book as one of the active participants

And so if you notice the last paragraph it actually switches voices switches from third person to first person

Which I think is an indication that Ezra wrote everything And so he uses the third person when he talks about things

He wasn't involved in and he uses the first person when he is in the action And so this week we start to learn a little bit more about Ezra what he was about what his role was in the nation of Israel Also again, we see the the common theme of almost every one of these sermons so far

We see the theme of the length that God is willing to go Who he's willing to work through to accomplish his plan again, we see

God working through a political leader King Artaxerxes This is in a

Another official declaration another official law Artaxerxes is using all of his authority

Official channels of power letters. This is important stuff. I think you know we

Have a 24 -hour news cycle all kinds of politics is Pumping through the news and through Facebook all the time and this is the thing politics matters to God he works through it

He works through it What happens in the halls of Congress or in the White House or in the

Supreme Court or even City Hall? God is working through all of this whether for good or for bad

The acts of politicians can be a blessing or they can be a curse and I think this week

We see that God is blessing the people through King Artaxerxes. I don't think there's any question about that Even Ezra actually comments on this political activity

He says that blessed be the Lord the God of our fathers who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king

You see Ezra identifies the very clearly kick this this whole idea of to help him and to provide for him

This didn't come from King Artaxerxes This came directly from God it came through Artaxerxes from God according to God's own will

So he gives the credit to God And I think this is again something we can apply today

So when when good things happen through our leaders, we can we can say, okay, that's the grace of our Almighty God And of course when bad things happen through our leaders

We can still say this is revela revelatory of God's wrath against sin

So we've talked about that. We've spent six chapters talking about that already So I want to focus on a different part of this chapter,

I want to focus on one verse what it says about Ezra Verse 10 actually a few sentences before a few words before verse 10

This is what it says about Ezra. It says the good hand of his God was on him

For 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 It says that Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the

Lord and to do it and to teach it That's a very simple verse.

It's very easy to interpret. It's not a difficult thing You don't need to take a class in hermeneutics and know what that means

But there's a lot to draw from so let's just dive right into it The first thing that I that struck me when

I read that verse is that it shows us that for Ezra To know the law of God to be able to do it to be able to teach it.

He had to study it It takes effort. It takes work

Now that might seem obvious But I wonder how obvious it is You know a lot of times

I will get into conversations about Scripture and not just the law of the Lord but but all kinds of passages in Scripture and and I'll talk about you know, what's justice?

What is sin? What is good? What is righteous? And how the Bible is the standard that we should judge what what's good and what's bad

And a lot of times depending on who I'm talking to you Well, the response I'll get is usually a bunch of questions like I'll get questions about how a passage applies to our modern context

Right. So this was written thousands of years ago. How does it apply to today? Or sometimes

I'll get questions, you know, especially with the law We're so out of the context of the law, right like we don't deal in bulls and rams and axe heads around here anymore

And so they'll say well, how does that apply today like I don't plow my field with an ox I plow it with the tractor

Right. So how do you how do you make the application and the reality is I don't know all the answers.

I Don't know all the answers. I don't understand everything fully. I Think that you remember how

I opened the sermon series about what it would how awesome it would be if President Trump said, okay We're gonna we're gonna start to implement righteous laws according to the

Bible. That would be awesome, but it wouldn't be something we could do overnight we would have to convene a

Conference we would have to talk to people that are much smarter than I am They'd have to debate it.

They'd have to apply sound interpretation and figure out What are the scriptures actually saying and how can we correctly apply it?

This would take a lot of work and Ezra According to verse 10 had dedicated his life to this work

Even though he was closer to the context, right? So he would probably understand Deuteronomy a lot better than we could

But even though he was right there. He was he was right next to the context He still had to dedicate his life to understanding it and so The question we ought to ask is why would somebody do this?

Why would somebody dedicate their whole lives to? Understanding the law of God That's the question

Now you see Ezra in this chapter He credits this dedication to the study and to the application of God's law

He credits that with the blessings that God gave He says that the good hand of God was on him because he had

Dedicated himself to this task to learn and to do and to teach the law of God So to him to Ezra, this was a necessary task

That's why he dedicated his life to it. If if Israel would was to move forward and in God's blessing

He needed to do this And so that's one reason why he thought it was necessary Now the thing is the reason so so studying, you know,

God's Word and his statutes and his rules It's not necessary just for knowledge sake like like we read scripture when we read the

Bible not just to get the knowledge But it prepares us for action It prepares us for action

So when we hear the Word of God and we hear what God is like We see his law it reveals justice to us.

It reveals righteousness to us So you learn and you study theology and it's and it's not just for information sake it prepares you to act righteously it prepares you to act with justice and This is not magic.

Well, you know Not not all of its magic. I don't know if you've ever noticed this

But if you've ever read a certain author a lot You've read a lot of his books or maybe even listen to a preacher preach a lot and he pre you know

You listen to every sermon. He's ever preached or you listen to every lecture. He's ever made ever given.

I Don't know about you, but sometimes I'll start to talk like that person And I don't even intend to do it.

It's not like I'm trying to emulate them It's just when you think when you see when you hear how someone thinks enough

Sometimes their thoughts become your thoughts and so I'll emulate a preacher without even trying.

I'll use the same mannerisms I'll use the same examples And I'll start to explain things the way that they would explain and it just happens

Well, the law of God is sort of like that. The scripture is sort of like that Except even more so when the

Holy Spirit is actually doing that to you It's actually working to make you more holy as you read the scripture

So the more you understand God's justice the more you study it it's not just that you want it for the knowledge sake

It's because you want the Holy Spirit to change you and apply Its principles to your everyday life

Christian theologian court Cornelius van Til who's an awesome guy if you've never read him,

I recommend you do He says this he says Systematic theology cannot be simply an exercise in thinking and a system systematization systematization of biblical thought

But rather it must be thinking for action in terms of knowing obeying and honoring

God by fulfilling his mandate to us It can't be an abstraction It is related to what happens in church state school family the arts sciences the vocations and everything else

My favorite theologian applies van Til's ideas R .J. Rush Dooney He goes further he says theology must assert the crown rights of Christ the

King over every area of life and thought It must set forth and clarify

God's command the Bible in order for to arm men for action The Bible is not just a devotional or manual or an inspirational book

But rather a command word for the army of God To reduce theology to an academic or an ecclesiastical matter is to deny the

God of Scripture man's being requires a systematic and he will either live or die in terms of it his faith will lead him to action or inaction

The systematics can't be avoided. The only question is which system He's talking about the law the law that Ezra dedicated his life to studying and the reason

Ezra did that Was not just to be as smart as anyone's ever been not just to be the best lawyer that he could be

But rather to lead and to act in Israel Now that was the

Old Testament, of course, right Ezra is an Old Testament saint, but how about today? The question is is this kind of thing necessary today?

But do modern Christians need to study the law of God order the scriptures to the same degree

I mean, we're under grace now and that is true. We are under grace But we all know that grace does not replace the need for righteousness

The existence of grace does not mean that justice is unimportant The existence of grace does not remove the need for God's people to be ready for action

So absolutely, I think we need a house full of Ezra's these days

We need a legion of Ezra's to teach the people of God to Understand God to study to do the law of God To teach it to others

But you don't have to take my word for it for that. There are plenty of New Testament authors that agree These are members of the

Church of God. These are in New Testament context much closer to us Listen to what they have to say about this topic

Paul the Apostle and in the book of Corinthians, he talks about the Corinthians being like children

He says they're not ready for solid food, but they rather they need to be fed with milk He doesn't really explain it as much as the author of Hebrews explains what he means by that Here's what

Hebrews chapter 5 says we read this together earlier It says this again it says about this

We have much to say and it's hard to explain since you've become dull of hearing That's not very nice author of Hebrews He says for this for though though by this time you ought to be teachers

You need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God You need milk and not solid food and what's the solid food?

We'll get a little explanation here. He says everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness

Since he is a child but solid food is for the mature for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil

The author of Hebrews whoever it is a lot of people say it's Luke which I think is super interesting But the author of Hebrews says very plainly

That you're like a baby if you're unskilled in the word of righteousness That's how you know, you're like a baby if you're not skilled in the word of righteousness

Righteousness by the way, it's just another word for justice And I think if we look at this contextually the word of righteousness

This is an explicit reference to the scriptures the Hebrew scriptures. Actually, I Don't think that's hard to to see

I'm not gonna make that case right now, but I Think contextually that's what he's talking about Paul says the same thing.

He says he says all scripture is God is breathed out by God and Profitable for teaching for reproof for correction and for training in righteousness

So what's the word of righteousness according to Paul according to the author of Hebrews? It's the

Hebrew scriptures. It's the Bible The law and the prophets that's what they're talking about And they're talking about solid food

That's the good stuff. That's for the mature and Notice this is not about knowledge.

This is not about just filling up your head with with Trivia, right? This is about action.

This is what Hebrew says It says the mature and he explains who are the mature it is It is those who have the powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil

It's not just constant reading. It's constant practice The author of Hebrews even goes on he gets even further he goes even further on this one

He says therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity

Not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God and of instruction about washing the laying out of hands the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment now

That verse has made a lot of gospel centered people very uncomfortable in the past Because it seems to say something that they don't believe

But I would say that this verse is not a threat to gospel centeredness at all But it is if you think that the gospel is only about personal salvation

Repentance faith eternal life eternal judgment if that's all the gospel is then this verse is not good for gospel centered people

But that's not all the gospel is Not by a long shot See, that's a that's a that's a very limited view of what the gospel is

Ezra knew this The question is do we know this? See these things repentance and faith eternal life eternal salvation

Resurrection eternal death. These are foundational elements of the Christian faith

So our salvation by grace through faith in Christ through his sacrifice. These are fundamental beliefs

But we need to build on that foundation See nobody sets up a foundation just to have the foundation to hang out on a slab of rock

The foundation hat is there to be built upon it's it's there to be added to The foundation is never an end in itself, but it has a purpose.

It has a goal. That's what the solid food is Keep in mind this is we talked about this last week with the

Exodus, right how that's a picture of our own salvation, right? It parallels our own salvation. God saves the people he brings it out of bondage

The bondage in Egypt represents our own bondage to sin and death He saves the people and then he tells them and teaches them what to do

You see God does the same for us He loves us and he takes care of us and he tells us that our performance is not what made us his children

But rather we are his children because he chose us He wanted us and he adopted us

And so we didn't earn our salvation we can't unearn it But our adoption has a goal in mind.

It's not just for the sake of it He didn't choose people just for the fun of it Rather he has a goal in mind

He wants to teach us how to love one another. He wants to teach us how to love our neighbor how to love him

He wants to show us what that looks like and he wants to give us the power to do it You see

God saves us he saves the church because he's creating a new humanity in Christ that accurately reflects his image and We'll have a righteousness that will shine like the

Sun That's what the solid food is for it's for the mature It's for the mature.

It's not it's not that you move past the gospel. It's not that you you say, okay the Gospels It's over now now we're gonna move to stage two

You don't move past it But you build upon it. It's a foundation So you keep the foundation intact and yes, that's true.

But you don't just hang out on the foundation you build a house upon it God's building a new humanity on the foundation of Christ's work the gospel and We should apply that gospel in every area of life.

And that's why Ezra dedicated his whole life to this This is a lifetime of work God will sanctify you every step of the way all the way to your death and then he will complete the work

This takes a lifetime So that's why Ezra dedicated his life to studying the law to doing the law into teaching the law and That's the same thing we ought to do today, but you don't have to take my word for this either because Jesus Christ Directly says this

We read together the Great Commission. It's a two -part Commission and it's so awesome God says go therefore and make disciples of all nations

Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. That's part one

You see baptizing with repentance and faith. That's the milk and that's the foundation. It's fundamental.

That's where you start You can't do anything until God regenerates you So it's essential

Just like the foundation is essential. You don't build a house without the foundation And it's not like once the house is built you discard the foundation you keep it

But you don't stop there. You've got to go on to the next part of this verse

Part two of the mission teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you see that's the solid food

It doesn't save you Part one is what saves you But it's the goal of salvation

It's the goal of salvation. It's for the mature This is necessary.

This is what Ezra busied himself his whole life He busied himself doing this because it was necessary.

He saw why it was helpful And he was right So we should remember to apply this to our own lives as well all room all while remembering the first and final part of this verse

This is the great comfort of this whole thing because teaching people to observe all that Christ has committed.

That's hard And we can't do it on our own, but Christ doesn't leave us hanging He finishes the verse and he says behold.

I am with you always to the end of the age Let's pray Lord God, I I thank you so much for the book of Ezra and just the amazing encouragement we get when we see how

Effective your will is how you can work through every person We read the words of art of Xerxes and I can't even imagine any political leader of our time saying things like that Thank you for working through political leaders.

Thank you for blessing your people so often through them And we pray

God that you would continue to do so Lord. I pray that we would Never forget the second piece of that Great Commission Lord We want to see souls saved absolutely we want to see tons of souls saved

Lord But we also want everyone to move on to maturity And luckily

God we have a promise from you that that's what exactly what you will do You will not start a work that you will not finish

You Will sanctify us God, I know some days it seems further away than it than it does others

But God you have promised that you will fix hearts and our souls that you will help us to be like Christ and then in the last day

Lord that you will Complete the work God And we'll have a society it will have a kingdom that we love each other

And we love you Wow, that's quite a thought You don't even have any way to conceive of what that would be like God we thank you for it.

And so we pray that you would continue to do that work in us and that You'd help us to be more like Christ every day.