Ezra 5:1-2 -Adversity and Ease

We are in Ezra chapter 5 this morning.

Ezra 5 · chapter mention

Excuse me.

We're talking about adversity.

Chapter 4 was about adversity, and we're talking about ease, a life of ease.

Now, most people in this room have experienced both things: adversity, difficulty, and some ease.

Things going well.

Some more adversity and some more ease.

As we work through a few texts this morning, my prayer is that they weigh heavy on us.

That we wouldn't find our identity in our adversity, that we wouldn't cling to a life of ease, but that we would trust the Lord in all things.

So again, as we work through Ezra and Nehemiah, we see this theme recurring again and again that God is faithful to renew and restore his people.

God is faithful to renew and restore his people.

Chapter 4, all this opposition about rebuilding the temple.

The exiles have returned, and they start, they lay the cornerstone, and there's opposition.

People are discouraging them, opposing them, sending out bribes to rulers to discourage them.

Verses 1 through 5 of chapter 4 is about, man, they get back and there's opposition right away.

And then we know the rest of chapter 4 of these letters throughout different times, different kind of decades.

There's just getting a picture of the opposition they face.

And then they pause the work.

They lay the cornerstone, they've returned from Babylon, they're excited, they built the altar, they're going to build a temple, and then the work ceases for about 16 years.

They stop.

They just stop working on the temple.

And then chapter 5 picks up right here.

Now the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, the son of Ido, prophesied to the Jews who were in Judea and Jerusalem, in the name of the God of Israel who was over them.

Then Zerubbabel the son of Sheelteel and Jeshua the son of Josedak arose and began to rebuild the house of God that is in Jerusalem.

And the prophets of God were with them, supporting them.

So we're just going to focus, believe it or not, this morning, on these two verses of Ezra.

We're going to cover the rest of chapter 5 and chapter 6 in a couple weeks, Lord willing.

But we're going to we're going to kind of talk about why did they pause and then why did they begin to rebuild.

Now we we are going to turn to Haggai, we're going to turn to Zechariah in a moment.

But we learned from Haggai that the people said, it's not time to rebuild the temple.

It's not time to rebuild the temple.

God had brought them out of exile.

King Cyrus gives them everything they need.

They have all the resources, all the people, the tradesmen, everything they need to rebuild the temple.

And the people say, well, it's just not time.

We don't think it's time to rebuild the temple.

And the thing that they, that they, this idea that kind of weaved its way into the people of Israel was the same lie that came to Eve.

Did God really say?

Did God really say that we're supposed to rebuild the temple now?

Is now the time to kind of reinstate the Mosaic law and get back into this covenant with the Lord?

Maybe it's down the road.

Did God really say this?

This kind of thinking seeps into the cracks and crevices of our soul.

We don't have to go looking for it.

We don't have to go be listening to heretical preachers.

We don't have to listen and read heretical devotions like Jesus calling to realize the reality that this seeps into our heart.

Did God really say that?

Did God really mean that?

Just begins to accumulate on our hearts.

Now, if you doubt that, I want to test that with you this morning.

This idea that we can hear God's word, we can have God's word and still treat it like it's optional.

Did God command us to do that?

Ephesians 5, 22 through 25 says, wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.

For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its savior.

Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

Is that a command or is that a suggestion?

Wives, are you obeying your husbands?

If you're married, are you submitting to them?

Are you showing them respect?

Is your heart for them?

The Bible doesn't say, submit to your husband when he's awesome and he's doing everything wonderfully, and he's just being the perfect role model like Christ.

It's a call to submit.

To submission, to die to yourself.

Are you trusting God's word?

To be obedient to him.

Or does this feel more like an option to you?

Husbands.

I'm saying all these things, and you need to know that I'm saying them to myself as well, not just to you.

Husbands, are you obeying this?

Are you obeying the command to love your wife as Christ loved the church?

Are you dying to yourself?

Do you know what this means to die to yourself?

That this is not about you.

It's not about your comfort, it's not about your ease, it's not about you getting what you want or getting enough sleep or having enough energy or being able to watch the football game that you want to watch.

This is about you dying to yourself to serve your bride.

Are you doing this?

Are you more consumed about getting your kind of time on the weekend to watch football or to do whatever you want to do?

Sick and tired of men who watch football or whatever for six hours a week, and then they can't find ten minutes a day to read and pray, to sit with their wives and talk about their hearts, to lift the burden of the family.

We are called to obey God's commands.

These are not options for us.

We're obeying them or we're disobeying them.

Lay down your life.

This is what we're here for.

We're not here to self-indulge and take care of ourselves, gratify ourselves, but to lay down our lives.

Philippians 4 8.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

What are you watching on TV?

On your phone, on your computer?

Are they honorable?

Are they pure?

Are they lovely?

Are they commendable?

What kind of conversations are you having with your friends or your coworkers or people around you?

Are they true?

Is it lovely?

Is it worthy of praise?

What kind of thoughts are you entertaining when you're laying in your bed at night or in the morning or when you're driving in your car, or when you're kind of going through the day?

Not what thoughts are coming in, but what thoughts are you entertaining?

Are they lovely?

Are they honorable?

Are they pure?

Are they worthy of praise?

Titus 3, 1 and 2.

Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle and show perfect courtesy toward all people.

Humble obedience, gentle and kind.

Is this your natural reaction to the things around you?

Is the impulse of your mind and of your tongue humble, courteous?

When God's words say this, do we act like it's a command or a suggestion?

And there's no doubt that every one of us stands guilty in some regard to this, because we can't fulfill God's commands perfectly because we still have part of our sin nature.

When God returns or when we die or with Him, we will be perfect.

And so there's this tension of obedience in all of us.

You fail, I fail at these things.

But the question is not, are we just nailing it every day?

Are we doing a great job?

The question is, are we treating God's word as a command or a suggestion?

Did God really say?

Did he really say, Yes, he really did?

Because his ways are the ways of life.

His ways are the ways of truth and joy and eternal life through salvation.

So we see again this adversity coming to the people of God.

There's this long pause.

Hard things come.

Long pause of just kind of disobedience.

It's not that these are like reprobate, they're not rebelling, saying we don't want to be God's people, we're forsaking God, we're doing our own thing, we're going our own direction.

But rather, hey, I think it's easier if we just kind of let that command slide.

It's easier if we just kind of let that thing go.

I don't need to obey all of that.

I'll just try to obey most of it.

I'll keep kind of the spirit of it.

I'll try to obey God's law in my heart.

Don't need to really rebuild the temple.

I don't really need to do the commands of the scriptures.

I just need to kind of keep the spirit of it, right?

This is not what God has called his people to do.

He's called them to obedience in the midst of adversity.

To not choose a life of ease.

We're going to turn to the book of Haggai.

It's easier if you actually go to Matthew, if you're not familiar with the minor prophets, go to Matthew and then turn back Malachi, Zechariah, Haggai.

If you've gone to Zephaniah, you've gone too far.

And Haggai, this is a prophet.

You just learned in Israel that he's prophesying and he's telling the people what they're to do.

And whatever he says, it gets the people moving.

Okay, we'll find it here.

This is this is what he says.

This is a two-chapter book.

I can't even find it.

In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixteenth month, sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, to Zerubel the son of Sheelteel and governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehosadakh the high priest.

Thus says the Lord of hosts.

Again, this is what the people are saying.

These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the temple of the Lord.

So Haggai's showing up to address their disobedience.

Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet.

Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in paneled houses while this house lies in ruins?

Now therefore, says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways.

You have sown much and harvested little.

You eat, but you never have enough.

You drink, but you never have your fill.

Your clothes, you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm.

He who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways.

Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it, and that I may be glorified, says the Lord.

You looked for much, and beheld it came to little.

And when you brought it home, it I blew it away.

Why?

declares the Lord of hosts.

Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house.

Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce, and I have called for a drought on the land, in the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast and all their labors.

The people are more concerned with their own welfare than they are about completing the temple.

And this is about the hollowness of wrongly ordered affections.

It's empty, the emptiness of wrongly ordered affections.

Again, these people, they weren't just rebelling against God completely.

But where they had prioritized their obedience to God came under their own ease.

They're living in paneled houses.

These aren't tents, these aren't like their priority was their own house.

They do all this work, they're doing all these things, and it's empty.

It's as nothing, it does not satisfy.

Why?

Because the Lord loves them enough to prioritize their obedience.

Adversity had come to them.

Hard things, things we haven't faced.

And they just chose to kind of relax a little bit, let everything kind of calm down, and we're just gonna kind of do our thing.

Surely God's okay with that.

We'll get around to the temple eventually.

Read again in verse 9.

You looked for much and behold it came to little.

When you brought it home, I blew it away.

Why?

Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house.

Now don't miss the point here.

The Lord's not thinking, man, I just really wish I had a house.

I'm up here over the expanse of the universe, and I just wish I had a house.

That'd be great.

Can you get me a house somewhere?

It's not about the house, it's about obedience to the Lord.

He loves them so much that all the things they're putting their hopes in, all their labors and their money and other things, it's being blown away so that God can reveal to them their need to obey him and to walk with him.

Because God loves them.

Because God loves us.

He will not let us worship little stupid things like our own comfort or our own safety.

Listen, don't be reckless with your life.

But nowhere in the Bible does God promise safety.

We're gonna be safe all the time.

We don't we don't don't be careless with your life.

But nowhere in the Bible does God call you to a life of just accumulating stuff and piling up stuff.

Don't be legalistic here, okay?

But nowhere in the Bible does God call you to just seek comfort, to seek out comfort and just make sure that you just kind of take care of yourself.

Make sure you're taken care of.

He doesn't call us to those things.

All these things, all that chasing, it comes to little.

So little, so empty, meaningless, meaningless.

All the little things you chase after, money, people lose it.

They lose it all.

Relationships, broken relationships after broken relationships, broken marriages after broken marriages, a spouse, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, they cannot hold up.

They were not designed to be worshipped.

Does not work.

Sometimes we're chasing after some kind of acceptance or belonging or affirmation outside of Christ.

It will always, always leave you empty.

And this is what God's telling them in these verses.

Your affections are wrongly ordered.

And I love you enough to say, prioritize God.

That's his plea to the people.

Prioritize me.

Make me number one in your life, your money, your time, your abilities, what you're thinking about, what you're watching, how you treat your spouse, how you treat your neighbors.

It is all because of the way that God has treated us with grace and mercy.

Anytime we try to find fulfillment or to prioritize something above God, even though it's not maybe intentional, we just allow those things to kind of seep in and take priority.

It leaves us empty.

It leaves us hungry, it leaves us angry and frustrated, and it leaves us blaming God.

We blame God.

Lord, why isn't this going this way?

Lord, this isn't fair.

What's going on?

Your affections are wrongly prioritized.

So what do we do?

What should we do?

We've chased after the things of the world.

It's empty, it's meaningless, it's vain.

I mean, you've walked with God almost all of your life, and to be honest, it feels it feels kind of empty, feels rather shallow.

What are we to do?

Turn to the Lord.

Turn to the Lord.

He'll turn a page over to Zechariah, just a couple pages over, from Haggai.

This is a summary of what God does with his people, Israel, sending them to exile and back.

In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, it's a few months after Haggai, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah, the son of Baratiah, son of Ido, saying, The Lord was very angry with your fathers.

Therefore say to them, Thus declares the Lord of hosts, return to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts.

Do not be like your fathers.

To whom the former prophets cried out, Thus says the Lord of hosts, return from your evil ways and from your evil deeds.

But they did not hear or pay attention to me, declares the Lord.

Your fathers, where are they?

And the prophets, do they live forever?

But my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants, the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers?

Did I not do what I said I was going to do?

So how did the people respond?

They repented.

They repented and said, As the Lord of hosts proposed to deal with us for our us for our Our ways and deeds, so he has dealt with us.

As the Lord proposed, so he has dealt with us.

The Lord has kept his word.

Now turn back to Haggai, the second part of chapter 1, verse 12.

This is the response.

This is them showing their obedience, their repentance.

Then Zerubbabel the son of Sheotil and Joshua, the son of Jehosadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God in the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him.

And the people feared the Lord.

Then Haggai, the messenger of the Lord, spoke to the people with the Lord's message.

I am with you, declares the Lord.

The Lord stirred up the spirit of the people, and they rebuilt the temple, came and worked on the house of the Lord.

They feared the Lord, they obeyed the Lord.

Listen to me.

Listen, you and me were commanded to obey God.

Adversity and ease so quickly and quietly can creep into our lives.

Then we just stop being obedient.

We stopped that.

Surely God didn't mean that.

Did he know what was going on?

Surely he didn't mean to love my spouse that way when they're acting that way or to treat my kids this way when they're being terrible.

Surely God wasn't literally commanding us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us?

When God said that I will stand before him and give an account for every word I speak and every action I take.

Surely he didn't literally mean that.

But they've called, they're being called to return to the Lord, to be humble, to fear him, and to obey him.

The Lord promise, I am with you.

So often we still hear the lies of the enemy, of our own flesh.

And one of the biggest lies is I deserve.

I deserve.

I worked hard, I deserve a day off with some peace and quiet.

I've been going and giving to others all week long.

I deserve to sit kind of undisturbed by myself to have some time.

My marriage is a wreck, so I deserve some gratification somewhere, somehow.

I deserve to be healthy.

I work hard.

I deserve to keep my money.

Others can give it away.

I deserve, I've been obedient to the Lord.

I deserve for my kids to walk in the ways of the Lord.

I deserve to be blessed.

I deserve.

I deserve.

This creeps up in our hearts.

This is what God is graciously teaching the people of Israel.

That what they deserve, what you and I deserve, is hell for eternity.

That's what we deserve.

And without Christ Jesus as our Lord, our master, and our Savior, that's where we are going.

But the people respond.

So they feel this conviction.

Yeah, we've kind of been disobeying God's word for 16 years.

We've been wrongly ordering our affections.

Let us fear the Lord.

Let us fear Him.

Let us worship Him.

Let us rebuild the temple.

Let us be serious about our obedience.

Because the Lord declares, I am with you.

It's true for the nation of Israel then.

It's true for us today.

As you go through your week this week ahead, all the adversity, the temptation to choose ease.

I don't need to deal with that.

I don't want to step into that conversation with those people.

I don't want to touch that thing.

God is with you and He's commanded you to obey Him.

He's with you through adversity.

He's with you in the mundaness of life.

God is faithful to renew and restore his people.

And he's faithful to save those who cry out to him.

That's what Jesus said in John 6.37.

All that the Father gives me will come to me.

And whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.

I want to pray for us this morning.

I want to pray that our hearts are just, that we would just be willing to examine, Lord, where is it that we're disobedient?

What's the sin we're holding on to?

What's the thing in our life where we're just not being obedient?

Where are our affections off?

We're worshiping the wrong things.

We're giving too much attention to the wrong things.

And Lord, that we would return to you.

So I'm just gonna have a moment of silence.

You think about these things, and then we'll pray.