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A sermon by Mark Evans
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A sermon by Mark Evans
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The passage is from the book of Ezra in the Bible, and it discusses the return of the Israelites from captivity in Babylon to Jerusalem. The people have a purpose to rebuild the temple and worship God. They are ordinary individuals, but their ordinary work has an extraordinary impact. The passage emphasizes the importance of worshiping and glorifying God, as well as the role of priests, Levites, and temple servants. The passage also highlights the need to seek God's guidance and honor each member's contribution in the body of Christ. If you have your Bibles, you can make your way to the book of Ezra, to come now to our second sermon in our series on the book of Ezra. And so, our text to consider this morning is Ezra chapter 2, Ezra chapter 2. And to get us going, I will read the first 35 verses of Ezra chapter 2. These are the words of the one and only God. Now these were the people of the province who came up out of the captivity of those exiles whom Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had carried captive to Babylonia. They returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his own town. They came with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Zariah, Reliah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mishpar, Sigphi, Rehum, and Banah. The number of the men of the people of Israel, the sons of Parosh, 2,172, the sons of Shephtiah, 372, the sons of Harah, 775, the sons of Pahath-Moab, namely the sons of Jeshua and Joab, 2,812, the sons of Elam, 1,254, the sons of Zatu, 945, the sons of Zechai, 760, the sons of Bani, 642, the sons of Babi, 623, the sons of Asgad, 1,222, the sons of Adonikam, 666, the sons of Bigvi, 2,056, the sons of Adim, 454, the sons of Atir, namely of Hezekiah, 98, the sons of Bezi, 323, the sons of Jorah, 112, the sons of Hashim, 223, the sons of Gebar, 95, the sons of Bethlehem, 123, the men of Notapha, 56, the men of Anathoth, 128, the sons of Asmabeth, 42, the sons of Kiriath-Arim, Shapira and Beroth, 743, the sons of Ramah and Geba, 621, the men of Mikmash, 122, the men of Bethel and Ai, 223, the sons of Nebo, 52, the sons of Magbish, 156, the sons of the other Elam, 1,254, the sons of Harim, 720, the sons of Lod, Hadid and Ono, 725, the sons of Jericho, 345, the sons of Sanah, 3,630. And the grass withers and the flower fades, let us pray. Our gracious God and Heavenly Father, we praise You for Your Word, every word breathed out by You, profitable for our teaching, for our correction, our proof, our training in righteousness. And so we do pray exactly that, that You would train us to be more and more like the Lord Jesus Christ, that You would give us eyes to see, You would give us ears to hear, unto the great end that we would be more and more like Him and that we would redound Your glory as the one true and living God. We pray this in Christ's name, amen. You may be seated. Well, like many of you, I'm sure, I have a few moments from my childhood that stick out more than others. For whatever reason, those memories do not fade with time. And one such memory was my grandfather's funeral, probably because as a youth, that was my first real encounter with death in any kind of meaningful way. But what I remember most is actually the funeral itself, particularly when my father got up to give the eulogy about his father, that is, my grandfather. And I can still remember my father's words today. He said of his father, that is, my grandfather, that his father would never go down in the church history books to be a famous saint. He would never be lauded in history as a so-called great man. He was not a Luther. He was not a Calvin. There would be no biographies written about him, for he was just a regular, ordinary man. However, my dad went on to say and testify that what mattered most was that he lived his Christian life in front of us every day. He lived out his faith in a sincere way every day for his children to see, that he left our family this heritage of sincere faith. And that, my father said, is what matters far more than fame or historical accolades. And in many ways, that is what we have set before us in Ezra chapter 2. We have this very long list that you just heard of these very ordinary Christians. Now, in this case, their names actually are recorded for all of history. But even still, I have yet to meet someone who says, my hero of the faith. It's not Abraham. It's not Paul. No, it's Parosh, from verse 3. Or someone say, no one has impacted my life more than Bigvi, from verse 14. Or, I draw all my spiritual inspiration from Magvish, verse 30. So even as their names are recorded, we don't know much about these saints at all. But we'll see today in Ezra chapter 2, it's the ordinary work of ordinary Christians that amounts to an extraordinary difference. Now, before we dive back into Ezra, just a brief word as to why we are now switching to the Old Testament after spending months in the New Testament. What is the rationale there? Well, firstly, of course, because it is the briefed out revelation of God. And so therefore, it is worthy of all of our devotion, all of our attention. But secondly, let's add to that the reality that if you have a poor understanding of the Old Testament, then you will likewise have an impoverished understanding of the New Testament. And just to make a sweeping generalization, we tend to stay where we are most comfortable, where we are most familiar. And that tends to be the New Testament for most people. But again, you simply cannot understand the New Testament rightly if you do not understand the Old Testament correctly. It was the great Augustine who said that what is concealed in the Old Testament is revealed in the New Testament. And so if we don't know our Old Testament well, we will miss those rich revelations in the New Testament. And indeed, this morning's passage is one of those passages of the Old Testament that you may come across in a Bible reading plan and think, I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to do with this. Right? Other than some great ideas for some baby names, what do I do with this passage? But we'll see here as we walk through Ezra, such things are, of course, an example for us and absolutely do point us forward to the fulfillment found in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so this morning, we'll walk through this roll call of ordinary Christians in three parts. We'll look at firstly, a people with a purpose. Secondly, a people of purity. And thirdly, a people of great generosity. All with the main point, again, of God's ordinary people doing extraordinary work. That God uses ordinary Christians to accomplish extraordinary work. So firstly, a people with purpose. Verse 1 begins saying this, that these are the people who came up out of the captivity of those exiles whom Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, carried away captive. So verse 1, if you weren't here, just kind of helps remind us, where are we in this story? We saw last week that God stirred up this Persian ruler named Cyrus to declare the unbelievable good news that Israel's exile is over. Their captivity has ended and that God's people can return home to Jerusalem. And of even greater importance, they can return home in order to worship the true and living God. Namely, they return home to build the temple specifically, that God is taking away the reproach of Israel. And he says, you can return home and build the temple. And so here in chapter 2, it's as if the church is hearing that call and they are responding and mobilizing to God's call to them. We could think of it through the lens of this question. What is the highest priority of the people of God? Is it service? Is it running a soup kitchen? Is it doing good works? Is it evangelizing? Is it helping the community? While not diminishing those things, what you see in Ezra, what you see in Scripture of highest priority is worshiping and magnifying the Lord God. It was often the case in colonial America that when the settlers were founding a city, the very first building to be constructed, it wasn't the bank, wasn't the grocery, it wasn't the jail. The very first building to come up was the church. Because they had the conviction. Our top priority is to worship and glorify God. And that is what you have in Ezra. The people are returning home with that singular goal in mind. Let's build the house of the Lord. Just as God covenanted with David, build a house for my name. And even more amazing, verse 1, you see those, quote, returning to Jerusalem and Judah are coming out of what? They're coming out of captivity. That God has set the captives free to himself. They're not just going away from Babylon. That's not enough. They're going away from Babylon and returning to Jerusalem. And we see how all of this points forward and summed up in the Lord Jesus Christ. That he comes to set free the captives, not just once, but once and for all. That he not simply builds the house of God. He is the very house of God. He is the true temple of which we are living stones. Engrafted into him. And that is very much the call that we see here. Remember the call of Cyrus in chapter 1. Cyrus gave that decree. He said, all authority has been given to me. I have all the kingdoms of the earth. Therefore you can go. And how much more does the Lord Jesus Christ come and say, I have all authority on heaven and on earth. Therefore go, not just to Jerusalem, but go to Jerusalem, to Samaria, to the very ends of the earth and build up my kingdom across this globe. So that is the call that the church responds to. And your first clue that God is doing something big, because it's no accident that if you include Shesh Bazar's name from chapter 1, what you have in verse 2 is a total of 12 leaders. 12 leaders, of course, representing the 12 tribes of Israel. And so God is on the move, you could say. He is reconstituting, regathering his scattered sheep from their long exile. Just as he will soon reconstitute Israel around the true Israel, who is the Lord Jesus Christ and his 12 disciples. And commission them, go and build my house across this globe. And what follows next is simply a very long list of very ordinary people. As verse 2 says, the number of the men of the people of Israel. And I won't read it all again, but you can skim through and you see the many families and names that are listed there. And by ordinary, I certainly don't mean complacent, when I say these are ordinary people. Because it is good and right to consider the courage that would have been required of these ordinary Christians. Because remember where they currently are, so it would have been the Babylonian Empire, then absorbed into the Persian Empire, and Cyrus gave that generic call, whoever wants to go home, you can go home. It wasn't a mandate, it was this open invitation. And this journey from Babylon to Jerusalem is some nearly 1,000 mile journey. Obviously, you can't just hop in your Tesla and make that drive, right? It would be a very perilous, dangerous journey that would take roughly four to six months to complete. And even more daunting, you are leaving the life that you know for the life that you do not know. And so as the head of the house, you have to turn to your wife, you have to turn to your kids and say, honey, I know we've built a life here in Babylon. I know we've put our roots down here. I know our friends are here. But I believe God has called us to go back to Jerusalem. I don't have all the details. I don't have a roadmap as to what this is going to look like. But I believe that God is taking away the reproach of Israel we have been called, and therefore we must obey. The very opening words of the Mayflower Compact, written in 1620, reads as follows. In the name of God, Amen. Having undertaken, for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia. And then you read on through the Mayflower Compact, and you find at the end this list of 41 names. That was, of course, a voyage that was full of peril, of danger, of risk, of sacrifice. And if you asked any one of those 41 men, why are you doing this? Why such risk? They would have said, it's for the advancement of the kingdom of God and for His glory. And same here, if you would have asked Parosh, if you would have asked Bigvi, if you would have asked Magbish, why are you doing this? Why are you going from Babylon to Jerusalem? Why are you doing this? Why are you going from Babylon to Jerusalem? To leave all that you know? It's not here for them to say. It's for no other reason than the glory of God and the advancement of His kingdom. And this is why Hebrews tells us to consider the faith of your fathers and of your mothers. To follow in their footsteps. That apart from us, they are not made perfect. That we are to look backwards to help us look forwards. And that is, of course, something we have almost entirely lost how to do in our day. That not only do we not honor those who have come before us, not only do we fail to do that, we often castigate them, denigrate them, we cancel them, spitting on their graves, tearing down their statues. But Ezra knows better. I just imagine being a Jew, a century after this in Jerusalem, hearing that name and going, that's great-grandfather, that's great-grandmother that came here and put you in the promised land and it would spur you on to look backwards and then to look forwards for the consolation of Israel, for the coming Messiah. And that is their purpose and their intent in making this trek from Babylon to Jerusalem. A people with a purpose. So now let's look at this people of purity in verses 36 and following. And I say purity because officiating at the temple was a duty not open to every Israelite. The work of the temple had very defined limits, very defined positions. And you can see that here in these demarcations of firstly priests, verse 36, the Levites, verse 40, the temple servants or assistants in verse 43. So firstly you can think of the priests. Their job is to guard and keep the temple. They determine what is clean and unclean, what is holy, what is common. Making sure that right sacrifices are offered. The only ones permitted into the holy place. They were absolutely necessary to commune with God rightly. And you see all of that comes to a head in verse 62. You see there these sons of Barzillai, these others applying for priesthood. But verse 62 says this. They sought for the registration among those enrolled in the genealogies, but they were not found there. So they were excluded from the priesthood as unclean. Because among other things to qualify as a priest meant you had to have the right pedigree. If you were to officiate at the altar, you had to prove that pedigree with your genealogical record. And so they can't find these genealogical records. And so they say to these men, you are excluded. Not from the coveted community, you're just excluded from the priesthood. Which begs the question, is that not a little harsh? Is that not a little too exclusive? Is that not a little overly meticulous? Just to give one example. You might remember the rebellion of the sons of Korah from the book of Numbers. Sons of Korah were the first modern egalitarians of their time. Because they stood up and said, look, everyone is holy. Everyone is equally holy. No one person is more holy than another person. And so we get to be priests also. So Moses says, okay, fine. Come and bring your offering to the tabernacle and let's see what happens. And God tells Moses, you might want to step back for a minute. Because here's what's going to happen. As they start to give an offering, what happens? The earth opens up and swallows up the sons of Korah in their rebellion. And God says, let this be a sign for you. If you are not a descendant of Aaron, do not draw near to me. I will be worshipped rightly and reverently. And that story is not all that far off in the memory of Ezra. And so he tells these men, no, you cannot be priests because we cannot find your records. And of course, in a sense, the very same thing applies today. You think of elders, you think of deacons. That's not a genealogical pedigree, but it is a spiritual pedigree. That they must meet the qualifications of 1 Timothy 3, of Titus 1. That it is good and right to exclude those who do not meet that qualification. Of course, above all, it points us to the Lord Jesus Christ, the forever pure priest. Having no genealogy, as Hebrews 7 says. That he stands always to officiate on our behalf. But you see something more as the story continues. Because it's not hard to imagine why those records would be missing, right? You have to flee your homeland, you're running away from your enemies. Then your filing system is not going to be immaculate, right? It's not like you can just go to Ancestry.com, pull up, hey, here are my genealogical records to prove this. So they can't find them, but they have this great instinct on what to do. This great instinct of what does the Lord say about this? And you see exactly that in verse 63. The governor tells them that they cannot partake of the most holy food, which is only for the priest, until there should be a priest to consult Urim and Thummim. So they decide, okay, for now you are excluded. But we will seek the Lord in this matter through Urim and Thummim. Which we don't know much about what that was or what that is. But you can think of it as a kind of casting lots. A crass way to put it, a kind of throwing dice in our vernacular. As a way to seek an answer for the Lord and to get His guidance on this very important matter. And oh, how we must recover that in our day. It seems like every single major Christian denomination is facing down the question, who can be a pastor? Can you have a female pastor? Could you have a gay elder? Who can be a pastor? We cannot update our requirements to reflect our modern age. But you see this great instinct here. It's always, what does God say about this? What does Christ say? Not what does culture say? What does the Spirit say? Not what do our sensitivities say? Let us seek the Lord for His answer in these things. So there are the priests. Next come the Levites in verse 40. The Levites, you might remember, they have no inheritance. Their job is to carry the ark. They live off of the tithe of the people, something that will become very important in a minute. And then lastly, you see these temple servants in verse 43. Verse 58 says there's about 400 temple servants who would have been performing what would be considered a very menial, very mundane task. This is a thankless job. This is an inglorious duty. You are the assistant to the assistant. So you have this hierarchy here of priest, Levite, servant. And again, that role of servant, it's not the role that gets any kind of glory, any kind of recognition, but absolutely vital for the temple to function properly. And so it is for the body of Christ. How many jobs there are to be done? How many different gifts are there to be used? How many ministries to be performed? How many things to be organized? How many mercies to be shown? There are so often roles that are unglamorous, that go unrecognized, that are thankless tasks. And yet, how vital, how needed for the body, in order for the body to be a full, complete, strong body. And so one of the things that we are to do is to show honor to each member of the body of Christ. And Paul makes that exact point in Romans and in 1 Corinthians. And Paul says, you know, it'd be really weird if your foot started to lament and say, you know what, because I'm not a hand, I'm not needed here. I'm horrible at picking up objects. I have no opposable thumbs. I smell when you put socks on me. And because I'm a foot, I'm just not needed here. Or if your ear said, you know what, I have horrible eyesight. You put glasses over me and you can't see anything. I must not be needed here. Paul says, no, every part, every member is needed. Paul says, don't dare question the wisdom of God in making the human body. And how much more, don't dare question the wisdom of God in making a church body. With many members, many functions, but they all unite in this one goal of building up the body of Jesus Christ, of edifying and serving one another. And to you, Cornerstone, all I can say to you as your pastor is well done and keep it up. And what I mean is, my wife was having a casual conversation with someone recently, just giving a kind of progress report, how things are going. This person was shocked. How is it that you, as such a small church plant, have you been able to do so many things, so many ministries, help so many people? Of course, humanly speaking, you are that answer. You as members are that answer. That as Ephesians says, when each part is working properly, it makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. And one further way we, of course, build each other up every Lord's Day is by singing. Colossians 3 says we are teaching and admonishing one another singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Because where God's Spirit goes, so goes singing. And you see exactly that in verse 41. These singers, these sons of Asaph, 128. Or you can even skip to verse 65 and see that they appointed 200 male and female singers. And so you can see how important this is. They said, oh, we must have singing. Make sure we have singers. It is no accident that as the temple is restored, so too is singing and making melody to the Lord. You see this all throughout Scripture. That when David set up song, that when Hezekiah restored the temple, he set up singers. That when Josiah restored the temple, he set up singers. That when Paul and Silas are in prison, what are they doing? They are singing hymns. That as the ancient church is being persecuted, what are they doing? Writing hymns. That at the time of the Reformation, what do you see but this flurry of song and praise to God? From Babylon to Jerusalem, that they didn't sing one single song. I have no doubt that they were singing on this trek. Indeed, I do hope that is you every Lord's Day. Kids, the best things you can do right now, one of the easiest things you can do to encourage your brother and sister is to sing to the Lord every Lord's Day. That God loves to hear the next generation lifting up their voices to Him and encouraging your brother and your sister next to you. There are people of purpose, a people of purity. Lastly, let's look at the people of generosity. Here we zoom out and you see the entire assembly and nearly 50,000 people. You see that in verse 64 with this Hebrew word, kahal, for assembly, an Old Testament way of just saying the church. Here you get to see God's people because this section closes with another astounding outpouring of generosity. Verse 68 reads this. Some of the heads of the families, when they came to the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem, made freewill offerings to erect the house on its site. It's this amazing reaction. Hey, even though we just got here, they say, let's get this thing off the ground and they give freely, voluntarily. This would be giving above and beyond the ordinary tithes. We don't know. Perhaps this is money from plundering the Babylonians that we saw last week. Maybe it's out of their own treasure. Either way, Israel is given this great increase. The Lord has stirred their hearts to sow abundantly and soon reap abundantly. You see there, each man giving according to his ability. Verse 69 gives us an amazing record of what that treasure is. If you were to convert it, the gold listed there would be a half metric ton of gold. Three tons of silver. I don't know what it'd be in bitcoin, but presumably a fair amount of money. You see in verse 69 though, how is this done? They're giving according to their ability. The famous Scottish minister, William Still, pastored for almost 50 years in Scotland, who is about the furthest thing from a prosperity gospel guy once preached a sermon and said this, something you don't often hear, not even in Reformed pulpits. And he said this, Wherever men have sought to honor God's holy word, or if you go to the lands that God has blessed, you will always find two things there, men and money. Men and money. And when he was challenged, William, where is that money coming from? He said, you know perfectly well where that money is coming from. It is the Lord's increase. And of course he would have equally said, Beware of the love of money. It's the root of all kinds of evil. We want to say certainly you can have wealth and not have God's blessing. But you see he was just plainly proposing what Proverbs says. The blessing of the Lord makes rich and he adds no sorrow with it. And we see that here. That the heart of all giving that God first gave to them. What has God given them? He's given them passage back to Jerusalem. He's given them this treasure. He's given them the end of exile and above all I trust you see he is giving them himself. Saying come back to me and commune with me. A generosity that points us forward to the time when God will give them the Lord Jesus Christ and give us the Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed that is the heart of all giving isn't it? That God has first given to me the Lord Jesus Christ. Will he not also with him graciously give us all things? And our response is to give not just simply treasure but our time, our talents, our hospitality, our sacrifice and this overflow of generosity. And so as we begin to close let us lay upon our hearts three great uses from this section of Ezra chapter 2. Firstly the smallness of God. The smallness of God. I always make it my aim to preach the bigness of God and how grand he is but we're also wise to remember how small our God is in the sense that remember where we are in the grand Bible story at this point. God promised Abraham descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. As numerous as the sands of the sea. But that is not this. There are only 42,000 people here in Ezra. At one time Israel was populated to at least a million people probably more than that. And here we have just a fraction of that. This is the day of small things. I hope you see it is very precious in God's eyes. Our God loves small beginnings. It is the mustard seed that grows the largest tree. And so we must train ourselves as moderns. As Texans perhaps also. This modern instinct which is to despise the day of small things. Now you see here our great God delights in small things because it magnifies his greatness. Secondly a call for ordinary faithfulness. Ordinary faithfulness. You can go to any number of war memorials today in our nation's capital and you'll see many names listed of ordinary soldiers who did their ordinary service and gave their lives. And this list in Ezra too is a kind of war memorial of ordinary service. Ordinary men and women for the kingdom of God. Because let's ask, what have they done to have their names recorded in holy scripture? They did not kill a giant. They did not part a red sea. They did not call down fire from heaven. They have not performed a single miracle. No, they've just responded to the call of God with a long obedience in one direction. And it calls for us the very same thing. A long obedience in one direction. As we look at what God did for them and through them we are right to consider, what would he do through us? But here we are. The small church plant. We are the smallest blip in all of Christendom. But we are here for the very same reason that they were there. To worship the Lord. To exalt the Lord Jesus Christ. To show to a lost world, here is the fullness of life found in the living and true God. And that leads to the third point. The great love of the Lord Jesus Christ. The great love of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a reasonable question that perhaps you asked, maybe even as I was reading all those names. Why all these names? There are over 100 names listed here. Do we really need all these names? Shouldn't the Bible be more concerned with spiritual matters? Isn't it quite interesting that God cares about these names? In fact, you may know this exact list appears in Nehemiah 7 word for word. Isn't it interesting that God cares more than we care? So much so that through the Spirit he has written down their names in his word not once, but twice. And friends, maybe the same is for you. Have you forgotten how much the Lord cares for you? How much more the Good Shepherd knows you by name? That as Isaiah says, I have redeemed you, I have called you by name. So great is the love of the Lord Jesus Christ for his sheep that not one name will be forgotten. Not one sheep will he fail to bring home. Not one name will be left out of the Lamb's book of life. That is how highly the Lord Jesus Christ esteems the bride of Christ. That he stands up before God the Father and he says, Father, here I am. Here and all the children you have given me, I have not lost a single one. I have not forgotten a single name. Let us pray. Our gracious God and heavenly Father, we do praise you that you are the God of small beginnings. That you started with one man, one woman in a garden. That through them and through your covenant of grace you would bring forth the seed of righteousness, the Lord Jesus Christ himself. That you would give unto him a people of your own possession. A people that he would purchase by his own blood. That you would fill the heavens with a multitude that could not be numbered. Of every tribe, every tongue, every nation. And here we are, but one part of your grand kingdom. And so we do pray that we would be awed if we marvel in your glory. The God of small beginnings who is making all things new. A people that redounds to your glory. The true and the living God. In Christ's name we pray, and amen.
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