Ezra 2 - A Called People

We are in Ezra chapter 2 this morning.

Ezra 2 · chapter mention

I apologize, I'm gonna adjust this, it's gonna be loud probably.

Ezra chapter 2.

Ezra 2 · chapter mention

I'm just gonna read a few verses, the first couple verses in Ezra, chapter 2.

Ezra 2 · chapter mention

This is God's holy, precious word.

Ezra chapter 2, verse 1.

Ezra 2:1

Now these were the people of the province who came up out of captivity of those exiles, whom Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had carried captive to Babylonia.

They returned to Jerusalem and Judea or Judah, each to his own town.

They came with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Saraiah, Reliah, Mordecai, Belshann, Mispar, Bigvey, Rehum, Mahanan.

This is the word of the Lord.

There's a lot happening in Ezra chapter 2.

Ezra 2 · chapter mention

There's a lot going on here.

It's almost all numbers and names.

And Candace, she's in the nursery this morning, but she was saying to me yesterday, she said, Hey, I read Ezra 2, you know, for tomorrow.

Um, what are you gonna say?

It's just names and numbers.

Like, what are you what are you gonna say?

And which I was very grateful for that vote of confidence, and I was feeling really good about this.

Um, but obviously, this is a unique chapter, right?

And from in the Old Testament, we come across these.

There's a couple spaces in the New Testament as well, but these kind of just lists of people.

And there's lists and lists, and this person and this person, and and here it's all these numbers of people, and then kind of numbers of the things they took, and the gold, and and all these things.

But as we zoom out on chapter two, what we're seeing here is God bringing his people.

Thousands of people, right?

They're packing up their life, and they're they've been there for 70 years.

Most of them, that's all that's all they know.

They're they're gonna travel nine months' journey back to their homeland.

A place few remember, most have never seen.

Because God has called his people to a specific place.

He's called his people to a specific people, and he's called his people to a specific lifestyle.

So these people, they're packing up, and this is kind of the list.

This is a this is a major road trip, right?

This is the road trip of all road trips.

Now, have you guys ever um gone on vacation with children?

Right?

Think about that.

Like, if you haven't gone on vacation with children, I just encourage you after the meal, just kind of pick a family that has they have a few kids, and just watch them just try to leave the building.

Just watch them just try to leave, just to go home.

And then you can begin to understand when you go on vacation with your children, it is or with anyone, it's a task, right?

So you have lists, here's the packing list, we gotta, we gotta check all these things off.

And here's the to-do list, we gotta get all that done, and then we gotta get everyone in the car, and we're we're leaving, we're leaving the driveway at 5 a.m.

Everyone you better be there, you know, so we can get somewhere on time.

Whatever on time means, right?

And so it's this this adventure, if you will, of chaos.

And it's not fun, it's not joyful, it's not exciting.

But you're doing all this preparatory work so that you can then get on the road.

Get on the road, because then you're going somewhere.

And so many times we just get frustrated with the element of like getting ready for something.

We didn't just want to get ready.

We just want to be on vacation.

Now, vacations are good because we're hopeful when we go on vacation.

We're hopeful that we'll we'll have a good time, we're gonna spend a lot of time together as a family, we're gonna do a lot of fun things, we're hopeful that we'll have a great conversation and we're gonna make some sweet memories.

It's a hopeful thing, and so that's why we push through and we do it.

And we're hopeful that we're gonna go somewhere wherever we occupy for a few days or a week or two, it's gonna be a great time.

So vacations are great.

They really are.

Um, as long as you have the right expectation.

You have the right expectation.

And that there's no doubt, all these thousands of people, they have expectations for what the journey ahead is gonna be and what it means to get back to this promised land, back to Jerusalem, to the city, that place that God has called them to.

They have high expectations.

But the thing about expectations is they can kill you if you're not careful.

You have wrong expectations, you will be disappointed.

Now I just want to go for a minute on this, okay?

About this element of expectation.

Because so often we error on one side or the other with this in life.

We will either have no expectations, right, which is not a good thing.

You should have good expectations.

Good expectations for your spouse, for your children, for what work looks like for you, um, what church is, of your church leaders.

You should have good expectations.

But you can't have unrealistic expectations.

Your expectations can't be way out there because you're just setting yourself up for disappointment.

And we know because we have the rest of Scripture that when these people set out to the Promised Land, they were expecting good, great things.

And the Lord did wonderful things, but many, many hard things and sad things for years and decades to come.

If their expectation was we're gonna finally go back and we're finally gonna figure it out, we're finally gonna be the people and just obey God's word, and it's gonna be good, it's gonna be kind of paradise, we're going back to the garden, it's gonna be great.

If that was their expectation, they were sorely disappointed, greatly disappointed, because that's not the reality.

And sometimes in our own walk with the Lord, we have these expectations, like if I could just, if I could just have my spiritual disciplines, and I could just be disciplined in them every day, then finally I would be the kind of Christian I want to be, or I think I know I should be.

If I could just do that, I would say it's great to have expectations.

You should have expectations and you should have robust spiritual disciplines in the word and in prayer and fellowship with the body.

But we often have unhealthy expectations about those things, or unhealthy expectations about the church.

Most people here have been here.

You're a part of this church, but you've been a part of other churches, and you're not anymore.

You're here.

There's all kinds of reasons for that.

All kinds of reasons.

Good, some good, some maybe not good.

I don't know.

But the reality is we're here, and we should have good expectations of what it means to be a part of a church.

You have to be expecting something.

You should be expecting something.

As God's people, what does it mean to be God's people?

What does it mean to follow Him and to be who He has called us to be?

Likewise, we can get into a church situation and we're just it's just not working out the way I want it to work out.

And maybe that's for uh maybe it's a genuine thing that needs to be addressed.

But a lot of times we have to work through, and what was I expecting?

Was I expecting this?

Did I communicate that?

Did I share that with them?

So many times, and this is a little token of wisdom that was passed on to me, and you need it if you don't have it, okay?

Much of your con the conflict in your life, so much of the conflict in your life, not all of it, but so much of it, comes down to miscommunication and unmet expectation.

What was what was what you thought was being said was not what they were saying.

There was a miscommunication, or there wasn't communication.

Things were not being communicated.

And then either you had expectations.

I thought this is what we said, I thought this is what we were gonna do, and and I thought this is where this was going.

Why isn't this panning out?

Unmet expectation, miscommunication.

So much conflict there for us.

And so we need to have good expectations as God's people are leaving a place of um captivity 70 years.

They have some good expectations.

We're gonna take 50,000 people and we're gonna traverse all the way back to our land, and we're gonna start living there, and we're gonna start trying to rebuild the temple and rebuild the city and rebuild the wall, and we're gonna do these things.

But as we get into this story through Ezra and Nehemiah, so much opposition comes against them.

So much opposition.

People discouraging them, people fighting them, squabbles within the group.

It's difficult.

And so if they had the wrong expectations setting out, then they were just going to be frustrated.

Frustrated because they've spent all this time, all these years.

They've waited, they've packed everything up, and they're heading out.

Now again, as we go through Ezra and Nehemiah, there's this picture that we keep seeing of God's faithfulness.

God is faithful to renew and restore his people.

God is faithful to renew and restore his people.

And that he calls his people to a place.

Look in the beginning right here, verse 1.

Now these were the people of the province whom came out of the captivity, those of the exile whom Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had carried captive to Babylonia.

They returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his own town.

So remember, as we said before, these people were carried off captive by Nebuchadnezzar.

That was God's judgment on them.

This didn't just happen by mistake.

God wasn't kind of overwhelmed, like, all right, people, I'm sorry.

We'll figure it out.

Just go to captivity.

I'll kind of come up with a plan to come get you in a few years.

His plan was they would be carried off to captivity, and then after 70 years, he would bring them back.

He took them from a place that he provided, to a place that he provided, and he's bringing them back to a place that he provided.

God calls his people to a specific place.

We see this in what God calls Abraham in Genesis 12.

Now the Lord said to Abraham, or Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.

God called the Hebrews slaves to a promised land in Exodus 6.

I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

I will give it to you for a possession.

I am the Lord.

God called his people back from captivity.

We see this even in the New Testament.

God calls his people no longer to a specific kingdom, a specific geographical territory on the earth, but he calls them into an eternal, an eternal kingdom.

He calls us into his kingdom, into an eternal covenant with him, to live a life of faithfulness to him.

Right where we are.

Acts 17 says that God sets the boundaries of the nation.

So he sets literally this sets the boundaries of the nation.

This is what God does.

He doesn't do those things and then say, well, my people, they're out there.

Hopefully they can kind of figure out what to do and how to live and how to be.

Ephesians 2.10 says that God created us to do good works that He prepared for us to do.

So I want to say something that's really insightful.

I said this a couple weeks ago, I think, but in case you don't know, you guys are here.

You're right here.

You're right here.

This is where God has you.

Maybe tomorrow he'll move you somewhere else.

Maybe in a year you'll be somewhere else.

But right now, he has you here.

Where he has you is where he has you.

Where you are, following the Lord and you're being obedient to him is where he has you.

God has placed us here.

He has called us to a specific place to be his faithful ambassadors to the world around us and to belong to his church, his people.

So just as God guided his people through the Old Testament, I mean there's so much journeying in the Old Testament.

So he's guiding his church in this church age, in the new covenant.

He's guiding his people along.

And again, we talked about how we don't have this, of our life, we don't have this huge lens to see what God's doing.

Whereas we can look in the Old Testament and see what God was doing.

Right now, for us, we don't have a huge lens about what God's doing in the world, what he's doing in our life.

But we know that we can trust him because he has proven himself faithful again and again and again.

So he's called his people to a place to do life, to do ministry, to have meaning and purpose, not just to kind of hang out and occupy.

The people were called to return to the dwell where God had provided for them and their inheritance.

God calls his people.

The second thing is that God calls his people to a people.

Again, really obvious statement here.

But just hang with me for a second.

So many times we this is part of our culture.

We can we can be a part of something, but then just kind of do it on our own.

Right?

You can be a fan of this team and just kind of do it by yourself.

You can you can be a part of this, sometimes a company, and you just kind of work by yourself.

You're by yourself.

And so we have this idea that we can belong to the church because I'm a Christian, I can be God's people, that's cool, but I don't need to be around God's people.

I just want to challenge you if you think that.

Where do you find that in the Bible?

Where in Scripture do you ever read about God's people being alone by themselves?

You don't.

Quick little answer for you, so you don't have to do the research, but you can.

You don't find it.

Actually, what you find is God's people doing life together.

They're called to one another.

They're called to have relationships with one another, to bear one another's burdens, to love one another.

This is why, as a church, we have, as members, we have a confession and we have a church covenant.

Our covenant says, this is how we agree to live together.

We're gonna pray for the needs of one another.

We're gonna pray for the for one another to grow in godliness.

We're gonna be accountable for one another in our walk with the Lord.

Because God calls his people to his people to be together.

So we see this in the Old Testament clearly, right?

They're heading back from Judea and Jerusalem, all through verses 2 through 67, lists of people.

Now, if you just kind of scan over this list, first of all, if you could read these names without making a mistake, that would be pretty impressive.

But you just see all these people, hundreds of people, thousands of people, priests, Levites, servants, they all matter to God.

Every one of these people is in God's word.

And so as we're going through our like our scripture reading, and if you do a Bible reading plan where you read through the Bible, and that kind of makes you read some of these hard places that you might usually just skip around.

And you're looking at these names, these lists of names, and you're like, okay, why are these like in the Bible?

Like, you know, we have limited space here.

Why why did they make the cut?

When there's all these questions I have that aren't answered in the Bible, that would have been helpful.

And it's just a reminder that God has put together his word and he's highlighted these things.

They're here.

These names, these numbers, these people, they matter to the Lord.

He does not miss them.

Think about the Lamb's Book of Life, has the names written of God's people.

It's not like he has a desk and there's just kind of piles of papers everywhere.

And the Lord's like, yeah, I think there are names here somewhere.

Let me find that list.

God is absolutely precise.

He is not wondering.

Man, you know, it's an ish.

God doesn't work with ish.

You know, there, my people, I don't know, there are this many people, ish, give or take.

We're not sure.

They haven't showed up for a while.

That's not how it works for the Lord.

We see that he's diligent to record.

These are the things that matter.

These people, they matter.

They really don't matter to us, it doesn't seem like.

I mean, I can't even pronounce their names.

But they matter to the Lord because we know from chapter one, he stirred in their spirit to bring them from the promised from captivity into the promised land, back to Jerusalem, Judah.

So it's an interesting thing for us as we see this.

Another thing we need to take note of, here in verse 62, there's this kind of question about the lineage or the kind of the hereditary or the are these people of a priestly lineage.

They say these sought their registration among those enrolled in the genealogies, but they were not found there.

And so they were excluded from the priesthood as unclean.

The governor told them that they were not to partake of the most holy food until there should be a priest to consult Urm and Thuman, which is a fascinating thing.

They weren't saying, you sorry, we can't keep the record, so you can't serve as priests.

They were saying until we can affirm that you are of God's people, you're not of from from Babylon, you're not Assyrian or Babylonian, until we can prove you're of the right pedigree, so to speak.

Not out of a sense of kind of just looking down on others, but out of God's covenant, out of the Levitical law, they were intentional to be obedient to God's law.

So we have all these names, information, information kind of feels pointless.

Then we come to this point where it's like, listen, there were these guys who wanted to be priests.

They felt like they were of the lineage to be priests, but they couldn't find the records anywhere.

And the priest didn't say, well, you know, I like you.

You seem like you're a good person.

I think you know enough of the Bible.

They're like, we need to make sure that you are qualified to do this.

They were serious, they were not careless or haphazard with their worship.

They were so serious about how they were going to worship God.

Here they've been in captivity for 70 years, and they're coming back to rebuild the temple and rebuild the altar and start practicing their faith again, obediently to the Levitical law, and they wanted to do it the right way.

They weren't just winging it.

They weren't like, well, God's gracious, he'll forgive us.

Let's just kind of do what feels good to us.

Let's just conduct our worship in a way that kind of reaches outsiders and that people kind of find attractive.

Or let's just kind of do whatever is kind of comfortable for us.

Like, no, let's do this the right way.

Let's make sure that we're being obedient to what God has told us to do.

And so many times, as God's people, even gather with God's people, we we act as if God doesn't speak to these things.

We act as if, well, as long as it's not prohibited in Scripture, I think we're free to do it.

As long as it's not a sin, I think it's acceptable.

And that is not the wisdom of God.

That's not what He has given us.

He's given us His revealed word on how we are to worship Him.

How we're to follow him, how we're to be obedient, how we're to live together, how we're to worship together.

This is what God has given us.

And so you can see they're very careful with who they're going to allow to serve as priests.

It says they're going to consult this.

It sounds like a person at first.

Uram and thuman.

Thumin.

And it's not a person.

It's kind of this weird, um, I shouldn't say weird.

It's this odd thing that we don't know a lot about in scripture, but for we understand that these were these were stones that were that were held in the priestly garment on the chest of the priest.

And somehow, we don't know how, they were used to determine God's will on things.

So you'd bring a question to the Lord, and somehow the Lord would speak to the priest through those stones.

This was a very significant thing.

This is how one of the ways the Lord was speaking to his people.

And so they were like, we're not saying you cannot be a priest or you're outside, and we're just being exclusive.

They're saying we're just going to consult the Lord because we're not going to blow this.

We're not going to screw this up.

We're going to be intentional with this.

This is too serious to be cavalier with.

So God's people, as a gather people, were intentional with how they honored and served the Lord.

We, as God's people, we know we're similar to those in captivity in that we are also in a foreign land.

We're strangers.

Ephesians 2, 19 says, so then you are strangers.

We are no longer strangers and aliens, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.

To the world, to those who are going about their life in this world who are not following Christ, who don't want God, and although they might say they do, they're not following God.

To them, we're strangers and aliens.

But as God's people, we don't not have a kingdom.

We are fellow citizens, saints, as the members of the household of God.

So as a people, feeling this tension of the already and the not yet.

Already Christ has come and he's shared the gospel and he's gathering his church, the bride, together.

Already he's beginning to do these things, but not yet has he brought them to their completion.

Not yet are all things restored and has he made all things perfect.

So we feel the tension as God's people, even called together as a church, a local church.

I am a broken person.

The elders are we're broken people.

The church members, broken.

We have problems, we have sin.

We're trying to follow the Lord, but we're still contending against the flesh.

And so there's this tension, this struggle in us.

And so then that's gonna be in the church.

That's gonna be with us as we gather together.

That's gonna be with us as we seek to do life together, the tension of, man, I'm trying to follow the Lord, but I'm still selfish.

I'm trying to follow the Lord, but I still want things my way.

I'm still trying to follow the Lord, but I'm still prideful and arrogant, and I can't tame my tongue.

So we're called as a people, to a people, to hold this tension, faithfulness to God, obedience to God, even in the midst of being aliens and foreigners in this land.

And even at times, you know when you're fighting sin and you just feel like that sin nature is like, when's it gonna die?

Like, this is a beautiful thing, a beautiful thing about being a Christian and you maturing in your faith, is you can see the old nature, and you see yourself contending against the old man.

And the more you mature, Lord willing, you you continue to mature and and you begin to feel more aligned with the man of God, with the godliness.

And that sin nature feels foreign.

It's like when something kind of begins to like a shadow, like, I don't want that.

That's not me anymore.

Those aren't the things I love.

I don't do those things anymore.

And so as we're becoming more like Christ, we again we feel this tension of being God's people.

We're still contending against our flesh.

We're contending to not be comfortable here in this world, but to know our citizenship is in heaven.

We are also called to a lifestyle of worship.

This is God's calling to his people, a lifestyle of worship.

As we get to the end of chapter 2, we see that an offering is taken up.

Now, keep in mind, at the end of chapter 2, they've made it.

Right?

This one chapter that traverses all this land.

They've made it, they've arrived.

Verse 68.

Some of the heads of the families, when they came to the house of the Lord, that is in Jerusalem, made free will offerings for the house of God to erect it on its site.

They want to rebuild the temple.

According to their ability, they gave to the treasury the work of the work, 61,000 dericks of gold, and 5,000 meaners of silver, and 100 priestly garments.

So this is after King Cyrus gave them so much stuff.

I mean, we notice in chapter one, King Cyrus just got gave them everything.

Give them whatever they need, whatever these people need, give it to them.

And then the people of God who are leaving were told to go and ask for people to give offerings as well.

So they kind of pilged the Babylonians.

They take all this gold and all this stuff with them.

So these people have plenty of resources, and they get back to Jerusalem and they see the temple destroyed.

This place where God communes with them, and they're compelled to give more, to give even more to the rebuilding of the temple.

This shows us again that God's people are called to be a people who worship Him, or called to a lifestyle that honors Him, that worships Him.

Revelation chapter 4, verse 11 says, Worthy are you, O Lord, and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they exist and were created.

Revelation 4:11

We are to be worshipers of God.

God is to be worshipped, and he is to be worshipped by his people.

Philippians 2 10 says that every that the name of Jesus Christ, that the name of Jesus Christ, every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

We will worship Him.

All people will worship Him.

He was created to be worshipped and He will be worshipped.

We were made to worship Him.

To worship God and God alone, not other things.

We need to ask ourselves: what are we prone to worship?

What are we prone to give our heart to in worship?

Now, if you're a Christian, this should be a pretty easy question for you to answer.

You should be aware of the things that tempt you.

You should be aware of the things that tempt you to call for you to worship them.

You should know them because you should be actively fighting against them.

If you don't follow Jesus, maybe this is a new thought.

You are worshiping something.

Everyone's worshiping something.

Your time and your energy, your passion is going to something.

That's the question.

What are we prone to worship?

What are we prone to worship, church?

Think about that for a moment.

In your own heart.

See, God, he created the universe.

He created the universe to reveal his majesty and for our enjoyment.

For our enjoyment, for his majesty.

We were created to worship him and to enjoy him forever.

And just like Adam in the garden, we chose sin.

Our nature is sin.

Our desires initially is to reject God's ways.

We go after and we worship broken things.

Things that cannot save.

Things that cannot love us.

Things that cannot deliver us.

And not only that, but by ourselves, left to our own devices, we're slaves to that.

We can acknowledge, without Christ, we can acknowledge all day long that we're prone to be a slave to something, to broken things that don't save.

But we are powerless to do anything about it.

You are powerless to save yourself from the things you're enslaved to apart from Christ.

Without Christ, you're a slave to worshiping empty things, pointless things.

But all through the Bible, all through the scriptures, we see the same thing again and again and again and again and again and again and again.

That God rescues his people.

Jesus Christ came for us.

He was crucified.

He died.

He was buried.

He rose from the dead to rescue his people so that we could be free.

We're no longer slaves to sin, as Romans 7, 6 says, but we are slaves to Christ.

We are brought from death to life.

No longer are we chasing empty, pointless things.

As God's people, worshiping him.

We worship him by acknowledging who he is, God.

We worship him by obeying his word, the Bible.

We worship him by enjoying him.

Finding our delight in him by being satisfied in him.

Church, we are called to a lifestyle of worship.

The place where you're at in life, where you live, the people around you, the place you're at, the people that you belong to, the lifestyle that you are pursuing.

Do these things, point you to Christ, and to grow in godliness.

We're away from God and towards selfishness.

See, God is bringing his people from Babylon back to their land to worship and to follow Him.

The days ahead are not easy.

Life is not just fun and good.

They're called to do this faithfully.

And they do so with the hope that their God will sustain them, and that their God will continue to restore and renew them.

So we, as God's people, seeking to be faithful, seeking to honor Him, trusting that God will be faithful to renew and to restore His people.

Let's pray.