Ezra 3–6

0:00 Good morning again. So there are many different events in life that we typically commemorate, right? Some of you just graduated this past weekend or these past few weeks. We just talked about births in our church. We have several of those often. We are a very fertile church in that regard. We have weddings, right? We had a wedding here. we'll have who knows how many weddings in this building over the summer. We do commemoration after commemoration after commemoration. We do this even for just major achievements in life, anniversaries. The list goes on and on and on. And it's right to do so, isn't it? Right? After all, if you've graduated, those of you who are recent graduates, you know it took a lot of work to get to that point. It's right to commemorate that. If you're getting married, it's right to celebrate.

0:52 It's a solemn, important thing. And in fact, it's something you want to be able to look back on, right, in the days coming. You want to be able to celebrate what the Lord has done. Well, in our passage today, the Jews are commemorating something important as well. They're commemorating the fact that the temple is finally being rebuilt. But it's not an easy path. It's not a smooth, clean journey for them. No, it's actually a long and winding journey to get to that point of being able to commemorate it. So that's what we're going to see today. We're back in the book of Ezra. You saw that in the middle of our scripture reading, in the middle of the service. We were back in Ezra there, chapter 3. You can find that on page 390. If you're new to Third Avenue or if you're a guest, you weren't here last week, we're going to be right back in the middle of a series that we started last week looking through the book of Ezra. So that's page 390. We'll be reading much of the text here in just a moment, but maybe just a little bit to catch us back up to speed. So you'll remember that Ezra was written many, many hundreds of years ago

1:53 by a man named Ezra, and it separates into two chunks. That's actually going to be important for us as we get into the middle of the sermon. So chapters 1 through 6, that happens before Ezra. And then chapters 7 through 10 cover events that Ezra himself lived through and witnessed. And that would actually be the time he's writing looking back on the section we're reading today. But overall, the book is showing us simply a few different things. What it means to trust God, right? What it means to trust him and his word, and then to live in accordance. with his word. It's very straightforward. That's what this whole story about this temple being rebuilt and about the people of God being reestablished in the land, that's what it's teaching us, that we should trust God's word and we should live in accordance with God's word.

2:39 Well, last week in those very first few chapters, we saw a people coming out of exile. We saw people coming back into their land. For centuries, that people had been promised, they'd been given a promised by God that they would be a people in a land with a blessing. And yet they found themselves in exile in a foreign country under a pagan king with no hope, so it seemed. And yet here they were, right? By the end of chapter 2, they'd come back. The Lord had fulfilled his promise to redeem his people and to bring them back. He did this by stirring up the heart of a pagan king named Cyrus, right? This man was not a good guy, but the Lord stirred up his heart to send the Jewish exiles back into their land to rebuild the temple. And by the end of chapter 2, where we left off last week, there's really a feeling of hope and anticipation, maybe even of triumph and success.

3:34 Things are going right for these returned exiles. They're back home. Well, between chapters 2 and 3, some amount of time passes. How much? Well, kind of depends on when you start counting, actually. So chapter 3, verse 1, right there from the very beginning of our passage today, it says, it was the seventh month. Well, is that the seventh month after they left Babylon to come back? Is that seven months after they got back to Jerusalem? We really don't know. But what's important is that it was a relatively short amount of time after they got there that this next part of the story begins, right? Just keep that in mind. It's a relatively short amount of time.

4:12 So what's going to happen? How does the story unfold? Remember, we left them off last time at the very end of chapter 2. The Lord has brought them back. He's been faithful to redeem his people. But why did he do that? What's he brought them back for? What are they going to do in the land? Well, that's what we're going to find out today. That's the big question looming in front of us. So I'm going to read almost all of Ezra chapters 4 through 6. So last week, I read a really long set of names, and you all clapped, and it threw me off.

4:48 I'm going to read much longer, right? I don't think there's many names, so I don't expect any strange clapping for me for that. But please do stick with me. So this is a much longer reading than what we would normally do, but we're doing this all together. In fact, this whole sermon is from this whole chunk because it's kind of one story. It's really presenting one thing to us. So to break it up would just feel like we've broken up a story pointlessly. It'd be like stopping in the middle of a chapter of your favorite book. So we're going to read these chapters, four through six.

5:20 Brittany already read chapter three, fours this morning. And I'm going to skip just a little bit of chapter four. I'll highlight that when we get there. We'll actually talk about it in the sermon. But I'm giving you a heads up now. It's not because I lost my place like last week. So here we go, chapter four. Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the returned exiles were building a temple to the Lord, the God of Israel, they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of fathers' houses and said to them, Let us build with you, for we worship your God as you do, and we have been sacrificing him ever since the days of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, who brought us here.

5:57 But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of fathers' houses in Israel said to them, You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God. But we alone will build to the Lord, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the king of Persia, has commanded us. Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah and made them afraid to build and bribed counselors against them to frustrate their purpose. All the days of Cyrus, king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius, king of Persia.

6:28 We'll skip there all the way to the end of chapter 4. Pick back up in verse 24. then the work on the house of God that is in Jerusalem stopped and it ceased until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia now the prophets Haggai and Zechariah the son of Ido prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel who was over them then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Josedach arose and began to rebuild the house of God that is in Jerusalem. And the prophets of God were with them, supporting them. At the same time, Tat and I, the governor of the province beyond the river, and Shethar Bozani and their associates came to them and spoke to them thus, who gave you a decree to build this house and to finish this structure? They also asked them this, what are the names of the men who are building this building? But the eye of their God was on the elders of the Jews, and they did not stop them until the report should reach Darius, and then an answer be returned by letter concerning

7:30 it. This is a copy of the letter that Tat and I, the governor of the province beyond the river, and Shethar Bozani and his associates, the governors who were in the province beyond the river, sent to Darius the king. They sent him a report in which was written as follows, to Darius the king, all peace, be it known to the king that we went to the province of Judah, to the house of the great God. It is being built with huge stones and timber is laid in the walls. This work goes on diligently and prospers in their hands.

8:02 Then we asked those elders and spoke to them thus, who gave you a decree to build this house and to finish this structure? We also asked them their names for your information that we might write down the names of their leaders. And this was their reply to us. We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth and we are rebuilding the house that was built many years ago, which a great king of Israel built and finished. But because our fathers had angered the God of heaven, he gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this house and carried away the people to Babylonia. However, in the first year of Cyrus, king of Babylon, Cyrus the king made a decree that this house of God should be rebuilt.

8:43 The gold and silver vessels of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple that was in Jerusalem and brought into the temple of Babylon, these Cyrus the king took out of the temple I lost my place again, here we go these Cyrus the king took out of the temple of Babylon and they were delivered to one whose name was Sheshbazar whom he had made governor and he said to him, take these vessels go and put them in the temple that is in Jerusalem and let the house of God be rebuilt on its site then this Sheshbazar came and laid the foundations of the house of God that is in Jerusalem and from that time until now it has been in building and it is not yet finished.

9:24 Therefore, if it seems good to the king, let search be made in the royal archives there in Babylon to see whether a decree was issued by Cyrus the king for the rebuilding of this house of God in Jerusalem and let the king send us his pleasure in this matter. Then Darius the king made a decree and search was made in Babylonia in the house of the archives where the documents were stored. In Ecbatana, the citadel that is in the province of Media, a scroll was found on which this was written, a record. In the first year of Cyrus the king, Cyrus the king issued a decree concerning the house of God at Jerusalem. Let the house be rebuilt, the place where sacrifices were offered, and let its foundations be retained. Its height shall be 60 cubits and its breadth 60 cubits with three layers of great stones and one layer of timber.

10:15 Let the cost be paid from the royal treasury and also let the gold and silver vessels of the house of God which Nebuchadnezzar took out of the temple that is in Jerusalem and brought to Babylon be restored and brought back to the temple that is in Jerusalem, each to its place. You shall put them in the house of God. Now therefore, Tatnai, governor of the province beyond the river, Shethar Bozani and your associates, the governors who are in the province beyond the river, keep away. Let the work on this house of God alone. Let the governor of the Jews and the elders of the Jews rebuild this house of God on its site. Moreover, I make a decree regarding what you shall do for these elders of the Jews for the rebuilding of this house of God. The cost is to be paid to these men in full and without delay from the royal revenue, the tribute of the province from beyond the river. And whatever is needed, bulls, rams, or sheep for burnt offerings to the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, or oil, as the priests at Jerusalem require, let that be given

11:15 to them day by day without fail, that they may offer pleasing sacrifices to the God of heaven and pray for the life of the king and his sons. Also, I make a decree that if anyone alters this edict, a beam shall be pulled out of his house, and he shall be impaled on it, and his house shall be made a dunghill. May the God who has caused his name to dwell there overthrow any king or people who shall put out a hand to alter this or to destroy this house of God that is in Jerusalem.

11:46 I, Darius, make a decree. Let it be done with all diligence. Then, according to the words sent by Darius the king, Tatani, the governor of the province beyond the river, Shetharbozani and their associates, did with all diligence what Darius the king had ordered. And the elders of the Jews built and prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Ido. They finished their building by decree of the God of Israel and by decree of Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes king of Persia. And this house was finished on the third day of the month of Adar in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king. And the people of Israel, the priests and the Levites and the rest of the returned exiles, celebrated the dedication of this house of God with joy. They offered at the dedication of this house of God 100 bulls, 200 rams, 400 lambs, and as a sin offering for all Israel, 12 male goats, according to the number of the tribes of Israel. And they set the priests in their divisions and the Levites in their divisions

12:47 for the service of God at Jerusalem, as it is written in the book of Moses. On the 14th day of the first month, the returned exiles kept the Passover, for the priests and the Levites had purified themselves together. All of them were clean. So they slaughtered the Passover lamb for all the returned exiles, for their fellow priests, and for themselves. It was eaten by the people of Israel who had returned from exile and also by everyone who had joined them and separated himself from the uncleanness of the peoples of the land to worship the Lord, the God of Israel. And they kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with joy, for the Lord had made them joyful and had Turned the heart of the king of Assyria to them so that he aided them in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel.

13:37 Incredible story, right? Miraculous, wonderful story of the temple being rebuilt at the hands of a foreign king even. So there's a few major movements within this story that we've just read, right? They begin working on the altar and on the foundation. Things seem to be going really, really well. But there are hints dropped along the way that things are not quite as they seem. And those problems become apparent from many different angles all of a sudden.

14:07 They find opposition at nearly every turn. And then in the midst of that opposition, God's word breaks through. And their response to it causes them to pick back up and to start the temple construction again. And in all of this, I think the main idea that's being communicated through that whole story and through those three major movements is this. It's worth it to worship God in the way he wants. Friends, it's worth it to worship God in the way he wants.

14:40 And we'll see that in three different points for the sermon. It's basically those three different movements within the story itself. So number one is a work begun. A work begun. Number two is worship opposed. And number three, the word obeyed. So if you're really into alliteration, you could have gone with a work originated, right? You would have gotten work originated, worship opposed, word obeyed. But maybe that's not me, but maybe you can write that down as an alternate first point as well.

15:13 Maybe it'll stick a little bit better. So a work begun slash originated, worship opposed, and word obeyed. Point number one, a work begun. You can see right from the very beginning that this is a people determined to do this work, right? They've not even been there that long, a few months to seven months, again, however we start that counting. And now they're already gathering together to make this happen. They have a focus from the very beginning, and it's to worship their God. That's what this entire story is about.

15:46 Don't lose that. So in all of the different things that seem foreign to us, right, altars and temples and all these different names that we can't even pronounce, don't lose sight of the fact that what they're doing right here, they're setting their sights on worshiping God like he's told them, right? The way the passage reads, that's all very straightforward. You go back to the beginning of chapter 3. They build an altar, they set it in its place, and they start offering sacrifices. It's just very straightforward. There are no problems, there's no question in their mind what they're going to do. They're aimed at worshiping the Lord. Then they even observe the Feast of Booths, which was a reminder of the Lord's provision and protection for the people in the wilderness on the way out of Egypt so many years ago. How fitting that must have felt for them, right? That they relived just recently so many of those same experiences of coming out of bondage and back into the land. It would have felt very appropriate for them. But that's not the final step, right? There's still no temple. They have

16:48 no temple yet. So they commission others to bring all the materials they need. That's the first several verses of chapter 3. Well, already in just those few verses, we're seeing all of that take place. And eventually, some months later, the foundation, and yet only the foundation of the temple, is complete. And it's a huge cause for celebration. They begin singing to the Lord and praising Him for His goodness, just like David and the Israelites did when the Ark of the Covenant came back and was set in its place. It's the exact same words used there.

17:20 The people are doing everything they can to sort of replicate this joy of worshiping the Lord. But not all is well. Not all is well. Notice what those old men did, those who'd first seen or who'd seen the first temple. Look at verse 12. What are they doing? They're weeping, right? So in the midst of excitement and celebration and praise, there are tears, and these are not tears of joy. Well, they probably did this for a few different reasons, right?

17:53 The prophet Haggai tells us in his book, in Haggai 2, verse 3, that all of those who'd seen the first temple could look at this temple and just clearly tell, this is not nearly as glorious as this one was, right? It'd be like a small little house compared to a mansion, and yet way worse than that. It's not nearly as glorious. But there's a mixture of joy and sorrow for other reasons as well. Remember their circumstances, right? Remember the circumstances of these returned exiles.

18:23 They're still under a foreign king and not a Jewish king ruling from Jerusalem. So not only would the temple have not been as glorious, the second one, as the first one was, but more so their circumstances were not what they should have been, were not what they were. I think that's what they were recognizing. They were recognizing what should have been and yet what wasn't. The nation's sin had cost them dearly. Instead of being in their land with their king, with their temple, with their God, it was all just a shadow and a dim one at that.

19:02 This wasn't like coming back to a place that you haven't been to in a while and things have sort of changed, right? People have moved on. Maybe there are new restaurants, new shops. Maybe the road has been altered just a little bit. No, this is something far more fundamental. I think the prophet Ezekiel actually brings this into a little bit of clearer light for us. So he was prophesying to the nation of Israel several years before this moment that we were just reading about here in Ezra. While they were actually still in captivity in Babylon. Ezekiel's prophesying to them. And he sees in a vision the glory of the Lord departing from the temple.

19:34 Going away from the temple. And that vision was a sign of God's judgment on his people for the rebellion. God's presence was leaving his people. That's what's at stake here. That's what they're seeing. Whether these men actually knew it or not, their cry of despair, their cry of sadness that the temple wouldn't be as it should, is really pointing to the reality of the judgment that the people have experienced because of their sins. Look, because they rebelled against the Lord, because they refused to obey him time and time and time again, over centuries, the Lord finally punished them and sends them into exile.

20:13 And even though now they've been brought back, things were different. Sin and its effects had left a scar on them, on the land, on their people, on their lives. We shouldn't lose sight of that. Here at this point in the story, what looks like should be a monumental occasion, a joyous occasion, sin's consequences sort of sit side by side with that joy.

20:45 I imagine that describes many of you in this room. You can look at your present circumstances in your life, and right alongside the joy and happiness that should be there, and maybe is there, you see the ever-present stain of your sins and its consequences on your life. You feel like these men, seeing others around you rejoicing, but in your heart, you're feeling saddened by the effects of your sin. Your present joy is in some way tainted by your past sins.

21:20 You understand it should be different. Something's off, and you know what it is. Well, the warning for all of us in that stark picture, whether or not that's actually you, is to flee sin. You should flee your sin, right? We tend to think of sin having immediate effects that can be dealt with rather immediately. So we respond in anger to someone, and so we ask for forgiveness. We lust, so we put up filters on all of our devices.

21:52 We grow lazy in our pursuit of holiness, so we start meeting with several different people to encourage us in our faithfulness. Those are great, even correct things to do. When we sin, we should repent. We should do things that help us to not sin. But I wonder if we thought of sin as having long-lasting consequences in this age, if we thought of it as having longer-lasting consequences than we normally do, if that would help us in our battle against sin.

22:24 You see, when we respond in anger and we ask for forgiveness, we sort of think it's done, there are no more consequences. When we lust and we put up filters on our devices, we sort of think it's done and we think there are no more consequences. Friend, that's not always the case in this age. Brothers and sisters, flee sin. Run from it everywhere you see in your life. The Lord is kind to restore his people and to keep them forever, But we are not those who say we can continue in sin because the Lord's grace covers us. We have died to sin, so we should no longer live in sin.

22:59 Sin almost always has further reaching and longer lasting consequences in our lives than we're willing to admit. Flee from it now. It must have been a really strange scene here in chapter 3 to see so much joy mingled with so much sadness. And yet even here, even in this chapter, we see that the Lord is merciful to his people. There are glimpses, little shadows, little glimpses on the horizon of something much better, of something much larger, of something deeper.

23:39 I remember a year or so ago when construction began out on Brownsboro in the Watterson. so it used to be just a big open field if you know that that part of town I drive by there all the time and one day there are crews out there they're ripping up the trees and you know doing some groundwork and I thought what what are they doing to the you know this kind of big beautiful open area what those poor people who live right behind there what are they doing well you start to see large equipment bringing in steel beams and you see a foundation being poured and over time a structure starting to go up, and little by little, it starts to make sense that's what's happening there. You see something coming into shape there. Well, that's sort of what we're seeing here, right? There's a building of sorts that's taking shape, and it's not just a physical one only.

24:29 So yes, the altar is rebuilt. Yes, the foundation is built. Yes, finally, here soon we'll see the temple being rebuilt, but as those physical structures come into view, it's actually the spiritual realities that they represent that are slowly taking shape behind them God is going to forgive the sins of his people through a sacrifice and dwell with them forever but we're not there yet right in fact this story is about to get way more difficult for the returned exiles so number two, worship opposed. Worship opposed. Almost predictably, it reads like a story that, you know, like a novel. Almost predictably, things take a turn for the worse here. So chapter four opens up by saying that they have adversaries in the land, right? They've got enemies. There are bad people, right? As my kids, when they were little, we used to talk about bad guys. There are bad guys in the land, and they oppose them and do what bad guys try to do. They try to disrupt and cause fear. They they try to stop them. But it's interesting how they're trying to do that here, right? They actually

25:34 claim they want to help. You see that? It's like, hey, please let us build with you. After all, we worship the same God as you. But the leaders knew better. They knew that wasn't the case. They knew they weren't worshiping the Lord alone, but they were trying to add the Lord to their pantheon of gods. And so they resisted them. You can imagine how hard that would have been for them to resist, right? They're a relatively small group of people who have just come back and have several month long journey back to this land to do this really difficult thing, and these folks want to come alongside and help. What could it hurt? Well, apparently quite a bit, and that's why they said no. Worshiping God, they understood, was to be done in certain ways by his people and only his people.

26:15 You can't just add him to your list of gods and worship him how you want to, and that'd be okay. No, you had to worship him in certain ways. So in return, these enemies kind of show their true colors, and they work to frustrate the efforts of the Jews. That's what verse 4 tells us, chapter 4. They work to frustrate their efforts. And here, the work on the temple faces a critical kind of obstacle. Is it going to continue, or is it going to stop? Is it going to continue or not? They've started the work. Is it going to continue or not? And that's where verse 5 leaves off. And this is where we then stopped in our reading earlier, Because Ezra here actually steps out of chronology a little bit.

26:50 So he's offering a few other instances of when people in the land opposed the work to rebuild in different ways. And that's not easy to notice if you're just reading through it unless you're paying really careful attention to the names of the kings. Because Ezra starts naming different kings like we would just know who they are. So very quickly, just so that you'll know who they are and what they're doing, let's walk through the names of kings in Persian history. It's important. Trust me. I know some of you were just like, what are we about to do? Number one, Cyrus. He's the bad guy. He's the king from chapter one that sends the exiles back.

27:25 After him was a king named Cambyses. Cambyses is not even mentioned in Ezra. So you're skipping one king already. You're going to the next one named Darius. That's one we've just read about, right, talked about. He was ruling when the temple was rebuilt. Cyrus sends back, then Cambyses, then Darius. He's ruling when the temple's rebuilt. Then, after him, it's Ahasuerus, or Xerxes. Xerxes was the one who tried to kill the Jews in the book of Esther. After him is Artaxerxes. And he was ruling when the walls of Jerusalem were being rebuilt.

27:58 All right, so there's several different guys in that order. Well, what does Ezra do there in chapter 4? Well, he just skips ahead, right? We're talking about Cyrus, then Darius. Then, all of a sudden, we're talking about Xerxes and Artaxerxes. What is he doing, right? You see that? Verse 6, Ahasuerus, he mentions him just in one verse, kind of a throwaway thing. Verse 7, Artaxerxes, he actually is going to play a little bit of a bigger role in Ezra and Nehemiah as the walls of the city are being rebuilt. And here, he says something really interesting. To summarize that whole story from verse 7 down to 23, he says, we've got some officials who write to Artaxerxes saying, hey, look, if you let them rebuild, they're not going to pay you taxes.

28:38 They're going to rise up against you. So Artaxerxes looks through the records, goes, yep, they're bad. I'm not going to let them rebuild. They won't pay me taxes. This is not going to go well. We don't really know what he's referring to in the sense of the Jews being bad. Maybe just the fact that they resisted going into exile, which anyone would do. But whatever the case, he orders them to stop building the wall. And the men stop, and they're actually stopped by force. That's verse 23. So that's that big interlude. Well, why does Ezra do that? Why does he sort of jump into the future, as it were, as you're moving through the story? Well, think of the people he's writing to. Think of when he's writing. Ezra's out here about 80 years or so after chapter 3, right? So he's, remember there's two big chunks of the book of Ezra, so he's writing this history, and he gets to chapter 3, and he's retelling the story. Chapter 4, retelling the story, and he goes, hey guys, today remember how this has also happened in the meantime? These other stories, how Xerxes and Artaxerxes have continued to oppose all the way? Yeah, they were doing it a century ago as well,

29:39 So his point is that for nearly a century, God's people had been opposed. His first audience would have understood that jumping forward and then jumping right back into the narrative saying, yep, this is what they've been doing to us from the beginning. So verse 24, that jumps back into the narrative. Chapter 4, verse 24. If you do the math here, the temple construction had stopped for something like 20 years. So it takes them a few months to get back to the land. they start up immediately and then for 20 years it's stopped but this isn't even the only opposition they face so chapter 5 opens up now we're into the reign of darius and they're they're back at the temple project when this dude tatani shows up right he's the governor of this uh this province and he shows up and he's like hey who told you you could do this who are you and who gave you permission to do this. Well, he writes to Darius explaining what's happening, and he actually

30:39 captures what the Jews tell him. The opposition finally and only stops when Darius looks through his records, finds something that Cyrus has written. Remember how last week we said it was really important that Cyrus wrote it down? So he finds this record that Cyrus had written that they could go back and rebuild this temple. And Darius kind of then stands on top of that and says, I say the same thing. I say they can go back and do this temple. Well, what are we to make of all this, right? That just sounds like a really bad kind of story for the Jews to this point. Like, what are we to make of these multiple layers of opposition happening here? Well, I think there's a few different things for us. Number one, for the people already in the land, their desire that right there at the beginning of chapter four, remember that they had this desire to help?

31:24 Well, that seemed to stem more from a desire to have power and control than anything else, right? That's why when they were told no by the Jews that they couldn't help, that they didn't just say, okay, well, you guys go knock yourselves out. No, they actually turned against them. The whole project was about them in the first place and not about the Lord or his people. They were only in it for themselves and not for the glory of God. I wonder if that's you in any way.

31:57 Do you have some of those same tendencies, if you're being honest with yourself, in your own heart? So let's take a really common one, one that the pastors hear about all the time here at 3rd Avenue. What about when another guy gets a preaching or a teaching opportunity that you didn't get? What's your heart's response? Right? And I think that that's fair, not just for the men in the room, but perhaps for the women. My friend, my husband should have gotten that opportunity, and he didn't. Does your heart respond with tearing that other guy down and rehearsing why you deserved it or why your friend or husband deserved it? Or does your heart respond in gratitude that the word is going forth and that it's bearing fruit here in the life of our congregation? You can see how that same thing would play itself out in so many different arenas of the life of our church, right? So leadership within different ministries, diaconates, eldership, Bible studies, just general respect within the

33:03 church. Why is that person getting that and I'm not? The question is the same. Brothers and sisters, are you in it for yourself? Or are you in it for the glory of the Lord as you seek to obey him and as you seek to help others worship him. You know, another way to think of this opposition and how it applies to us is this. Do you envision that following after the Lord, that being a Christian today, will come with comfort and ease or with opposition?

33:38 When you read a story like Ezra's, is it your instinct to sort of say, yeah, that's a bunch of old stuff from a long time ago. That's what the people of God then faced. That's not like what I face. I don't have enemies like that. Friend, don't be fooled. You have an enemy. You have an enemy who hates you and hates it when you worship God. It's why it's difficult to gather at times, right?

34:09 Yeah, maybe perhaps it's because you foolishly woke up late and that's why it's hard to get here. But there's certainly spiritual undertones to the fact that your enemy does not want you to be here. It's certainly why our hearts often want something flashier. Either up here, right? You want more music, you want more from this pulpit, you want more of something, something flashier. Or even just in your own day-to-day worship of the Lord as an individual Christian. It's because you have an enemy who hates it when you worship God.

34:41 Look, friends, when we gather here, like what we're doing right now, when we gather here, we're announcing that the Lord has won. That final day hasn't yet come, but our enemy knows who has won. He knows it's not him, and in the meantime, he wants to weaken your faith. He wants to prevent you from proclaiming that faith to others, and he certainly wants to cause you to be frustrated and confused in your efforts to rightly worship God. Opposition to worship still comes our way.

35:15 It's our job to know how to resist it and to fight with the Spirit's help against it. So by the end of this story, these exiles, these returned exiles, are focused now on worshiping God, but it's costing them, right? It's costing them a lot, and that opposition is heavy. So what is it that's sort of pushing them through it? What's sort of pushing them along the way? We'll get to our third point now, the word obeyed. So I read an article recently that the new sort of hip, cool thing to do, dare I say, is to run marathons. I have no clue how that's hip or cool. I know several of you, thanks to social media have indulged in that recently. Kudos to you. Great. That's great. I don't know what sort of social cachet you get out of running a really, really long way, but good for you.

36:14 There has to be something, though, for those of you who feel like that's a fun thing to do, that keeps you going, that keeps you running. That's a long way. I've never done a marathon. I've done one half marathon, and that was enough for me to know I'll never do a marathon. There's something that has to keep you going, right? You don't go that far without something pushing you. Or otherwise, when it's difficult, you'll just simply stop. It's just not worth it at all. Well, I think that there's the same thing going here, right?

36:44 This is difficult, in fact, very, very difficult for the Jews. But there's something that's propelling them along the whole time. You can see this from the very beginning of the passage that we read this morning in chapter 3. There's been a consistent driver to their actions. They're not just making stuff up as they go, right? They're not just aimlessly trying to figure out, should we do this first? I don't know. What's next? What do we do now? When this happens, what do we do? No, of course, they're following something. Do you see that?

37:15 Look back at chapter 3, the very beginning of the chapter, verse 2. As it is written in the law of Moses, the man of God, verse 4, as it is written, and then according to the rule. Verse 5, at all the appointed feasts of the Lord. Verse 10, according to the directions of David, king of Israel. Well, from the very beginning, all they're trying to do is look at God's Word and then trying to do what it says. It's very straightforward. But then they're oppressed. Then opposition comes their way. And in varying levels of severity, honestly, it's here what we see as we read through the chapters is that it's a years-long type of sustained and long opposition that comes at them. It's not some simple loss of social capital, let's say, where you can just turn off your notifications and there, that opposition, if we can call it that, is gone. No, it's not that kind of opposition. But eventually, something changes that for them.

38:19 What is it? What happens that takes them out of their oppression, out of their opposition? We'll look at the beginning of chapter 5. Skip ahead to chapter 5. So as the Lord's word goes forth, right there at the very beginning of chapter 5, his people respond how? In obedience. That's what happens when the prophets Haggai and Zechariah prophesying there in chapter 5. They speak, and then very immediately, it seems from the text, the people get up, and they start building again, even in the face of opposition.

38:53 This parallels so much of what our life is like, right? We face opposition from an enemy who doesn't want us to obey our God and hates it when we worship our God. We've already said this. Now, that opposition looks different. It looks different from this, I'd imagine, and certainly different kind of individually throughout the congregation, but it comes at us all the time. And yet, when we hear the word of God go forth, we should be like the Jews here. We should respond in obedience and worship. it's very simple, very straightforward. But this is all deeper than just hearing something and then going out and doing, right? It's like when you're a kid and you have to give, or a parent, and you give your young, very young kids a very simple instruction. I need you to do this. You don't expect them to go do this and then three or four other things kind of that would logically follow after that. You've got to be very, very clear about what you want. That's not exactly what's going on here. It's not just the Jews heard something, they went and did it. No, it's way deeper than that. This is settled into their identity, who they are. Look again at chapter 5.

40:00 So Tat and I, this governor of that area within the Persian government, the province called Beyond the River, he writes a letter to Darius, and in it he shows that the Jews are recalling their history. Right? His response, or his letter to Darius, he's actually captured the Jews' response in it, And he says this about the Jews, that they were a people, that they say this about themselves, that they were a people meant to worship the Lord, but that their sin had caused their exile and that God had brought them back from exile. What do you think they learned about that?

40:32 Yes, of course, from their own experience, but what did they learn about this is who we were meant to be and this is how this is all unfolding? They knew about that because God had told them through the prophets and through his word. See, it's one thing to be told to do something explicitly and to go do it like a little kid would. But they had internalized the Word of God to the point where it now defined their existence, who they were, their reality, why they did what they did. We are a people who need to recall the gospel and do that same type of thing in our own lives.

41:07 We need to recall God's Word and to remember what our sin has caused, right? just like these exiles that had caused us to go into exile and be banished away from God's presence as well. And then we need to recall his grace in bringing us back to himself again. Well, okay, Brandon, great. But how do we do that? What are we supposed to do with that? Well, of course, it includes knowing God's Word. That's a given, right? You don't know that story if you don't know that story, and you only know that story from God's Word. So, of course, you have to know it, and you have to submit yourself under that teaching consistently but more so more so friends maybe you need to see the word of God like they did see for them it wasn't simply an instruction manual for how to perform offerings right how to how to keep certain feasts yes it had that but it wasn't just that no it was now identity giving it was a defense for them against their enemies it had

42:08 become their only hope, the thing that they would actually use to fight back against their enemies was God's word itself. Is that how you view the word of God? Is it a manual of morality for you? Don't do this, don't do this, do this, do this, do this, or something more? Is it something that shapes your identity in the face of opposition? Friends, the way we know God and what he says about who we are is through his word.

42:41 We have to cling to his words as though they're the very words of life. We have to know his word, not as a way to show off how much raw data we can sort of store in our mind, but because knowing his word and hiding it in our heart is our only defense in a world that's set against us in our worship of the Lord. But the story keeps moving forward with one final, incredible, surprising bit here. About how God's word played out in the life of these exiles.

43:13 Chapter 6. So chapter 6, this is Darius ordering the temple to be rebuilt. And as he's sort of summarizing all of that, the text says that the Jews prospered through prophesying. Through the prophesying, rather. In other words, through God's word going forth. They were prospering because of that. That's verse 14. And then once the temple is dedicated near the very end of the chapter, right? So near the very end of this whole passage for today, what did they do? They kept the Passover.

43:45 And what's the Passover? It's the meal marking off people as God's people, right? It's the meal reserved for God's people. If you're not God's people out here, you don't get to take this. This is the meal that shows we are God's people. But it wasn't just the Jewish returned exiles who ate it. Who else eats it with them? What does it say? Verse 21. Chapter 6, verse 21. All those who separated themselves from the uncleanness of the peoples of the land to worship the Lord also kept the Passover.

44:25 Others, non-Jews, being added into the people of God. Friends, there's always, from the very beginning, been a clear line of who's in and who's out in the people of God. In that day, in Ezra 6, it's those who chose holiness, who turned away from the sinfulness of falling after other gods and worshiping other gods. It's those who could be united with Israel and who could feast on the meal that was marked out for them and only those who were God's people.

45:00 But that was just a shadow of what was yet to come, a mere shadow, a simple glimpse of the future. One day, the Messiah would come, King Jesus himself, and people who were once not a part of the people of God, those who were excluded, could now by faith be counted as the people of God. For some of you, perhaps maybe many of you in this room, today's the first day you're hearing something like that. It's been evident from the beginning of our worship service that we serve a Messiah, a King who's come, so that by faith in Him we can be counted as a part of His people.

45:38 Maybe that's the first time you're hearing it. For others, and maybe more likely, several of you have heard it. You simply need to submit to it. You know this to be the case. You know this is what the Bible teaches. You know this is what the gospel is. this feast and all it represents though, this Passover feast, it's not just for a certain demographic. That's what we're learning here. It's not just for a certain background. That's very evident here. It's for all those who would separate themselves from the sinful ways of this world. And here's what's important in this age especially. It's not just those who would separate themselves by, you know, kind of picking themselves up by their own bootstraps. That's not what the text says, and that's certainly not what's unfolded for us in the gospel. No, friend, it's much better.

46:23 It's you turning in faith to Jesus, saying, I have nothing, but you've done everything for me, and clinging to him. Being united to him in faith brings you into the people of God. Friend, do that today. Turn from your sins, just like the people in this chapter. Turn from your sins and be counted among God's people today. It's the good news that's still being offered all these many years later, even to you. So what's the close of this story? What's the close of all of this kind of rebuilding of the temple and their focus on worship? What do you see there? It's a joyful people celebrating together, gathered together, celebrating what the Lord has done. Friends, that's what our aim is. That's what our goal is. Our focus is to be a people who seek to obey God's word and who seek to worship him. But don't be mistaken. That path will probably be filled with

47:24 opposition just like Ezra's path was. But it's worth it. It's worth it to keep pursuing to worship the Lord in the ways that he's told us. And one day, one day the same Lord who made them joyful and brought them to himself will make us joyful as he gathers us to himself forever. Friends, press on to that day. Let's pray. Lord, we praise you for the hope that one day you will bring all your people to yourself.

48:01 God, in the meantime, as we seek to worship you, as we seek to obey your word, You know and you've told us that we should expect that there will be opposition. God, we pray that you would strengthen us to face that opposition with faithfulness. We pray that you would help us to remember your word and your promises. And we pray at the end of the day that as we stand strong in that opposition, that many others would see your goodness and your glory and that you would continue to bring people into your kingdom. God, we give you praise for this word this morning. We pray all of this in the name of Jesus and to his honor and glory.

48:35 Amen. Thank you.