Brian Maloy

Okay, I think we’re good now. All right, Ezra chapter one. In the first year of King Darius of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken through Jeremiah, the Lord roused the spirit of King Cyrus to issue a proclamation throughout his entire kingdom and to put it in writing. This is what King Cyrus of Persia says. The Lord, the God of the heavens, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and has appointed me to build him a house at Jerusalem and Judah. Any of his people among you, may his God be with him. And may he go to Jerusalem in Judea and build the house of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem. Let every survivor, wherever he resides, be assisted by the men of that region with silver, gold, goods, and livestock, along with a freewill offering for the house of God in Jerusalem. So the family heads of Judah and Benjamin, along with the priests and Levites, everyone whose spirit God had roused, prepared to go up and rebuild the Lord’s house in Jerusalem. All their neighbors supported them with silver articles, gold, goods, livestock, and valuables, in addition to all that was given as a freewill offering. King Cyrus also brought out the articles of the Lord’s house that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from Jerusalem and placed in the house of his gods. King Cyrus of Persia had them brought out under the supervision of Mithridel, the treasurer, who counted them out to Shezbar, the prince of Judah. This was the inventory. 30 gold basins, 1,000 silver basins, 29 silver knives, 30 gold bowls, 410 various silver bowls, and 1,000 other articles. The gold and silver articles totaled 5,400. Shezabar brought all of them when the exiles went up from Babylon to Jerusalem. So we’ll look at chapter 2 as well, but we have to dig into this scenes. I mean, I don’t know about you, but at first read, it’s just a narrative. It’s just this happened. The decree went out. Some gold and things came out of the treasury. And that was so. It’s pretty point blank. But we have to look deeper and actually kind of understand context of what’s happening. So Ezra is in the first year of King Darius. So there are four kings. I did not put this in the notes because I figured if I really put everything in the notes, you’d get a packet from me each week, and nobody wants that. So there are a few kings that we’ll encounter over the course of this time frame. We’ll have Cyrus, who was – in rule for about 30 years, Cambyses II, I believe is his name, and then Darius, and then Xerxes, and then Artaxerxes. So some of those are familiar names. They come up at other times, but those are the kings that we’ll encounter. In this case, at the very beginning, we are looking at Darius. Darius, I’m sorry, Cyrus. Wow, Brian can’t talk tonight. King Cyrus is the first one that we see come up. And the first verse, I just, we have to read it again because it’s so good. In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken through Jeremiah, the Lord roused the spirit of King Cyrus to order a proclamation throughout his entire kingdom and put it in writing. The Hebrews did nothing. Cyrus really did nothing. Who is acting in this moment? God. It’s beautiful. Not only is it fulfilling the prophecies before, but it’s also God is working out the details before and above anything that the people can do for themselves. It’s an incredible moment. We see that happening. And then verses two through four are just crazy. You have to assume Babylon is huge. Babylon has absorbed kingdoms across the known world at this point in time. And in Babylon, surely this is somewhat speculatory. There’s almost like you can imagine there’s like an office of like Jewish relations. Because Babylon was pretty good at letting the people groups get absorbed. As long as they could meld and gel well, they could kind of keep some cultural identity. They could still worship how they wanted. It was very much a, I don’t know, a cosmopolitan society. And as a result… You can kind of assume Darius is probably not writing this. He shortly sent this off to someone who worked for him, likely in the Jewish relations office. And it’s like, write a proclamation because we need to do this. God has said to do these things. It’s a little bit of speculatory, but it’s amazing when you think whoever wrote this probably is almost giddy because they know what it actually means. Cyrus doesn’t believe this, guys. This is what King Cyrus of Persia says. The Lord, the God of heavens, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and appointed me to build him a house at Jerusalem and Judah. He doesn’t care about Judah. He doesn’t care about Jerusalem. That’s not his kingdom. Like those are the people that they actually brought to Babylon were the more important people. But the people that are left there matter even less. And I don’t think I put it in the notes for you guys, but I wrote down. Maybe I did. Yeah, I did. It says here, the very top on the second page, flip it over, a conquered deported people, a conquered deported people is declared free to go home and rebuild Yahweh’s temple, funded by the empire that conquered them. Why would a pagan king do that? He doesn’t love the God of the Hebrews. He doesn’t know Yahweh. He doesn’t believe in this God. Why would he do that? Yeah, Terry. Yep. Yes. Yes. I mean, we tend to think, and I speak for myself as much as anybody, like, We think in human terms of the world we can see and experience, and we forget how easy it is for God to do incredible things behind the scenes and move kings and rulers. I mean, providence is the word that this is. God’s providence is bringing about Cyrus decreeing that this should happen. Almost everything that is written, Cyrus probably would not have said. But because God moved the chess pieces into place, we get to see it unfold. It’s very neat. I make it a habit. You’ll learn this about me because I’m just quirky. My Sunday school class knows this, but I’m quirky. But one of my yearly habits is I like to reread through the Bible, and I usually pick a different translation because it keeps it interesting. But I say that. I’ve read Ezra at least 12 times. And that little chunk right there at the beginning of Ezra has never caught my attention before. It just hasn’t because I hadn’t slowed down. You know, you’re just reading. You get the whole narrative. The story is still great. I mean, God’s bringing his people back and restoring them after they were sent into exile. Good things. But to read just those first four verses, God’s doing something incredible with a pagan king who doesn’t care about them. So there’s a few questions here. And I tried to… Okay, we will find the right balance. Initially, when I made the handout, it was five pages long. And then some of you know my mom. She saw it and said… Really? So I skimmed it down. I took out a lot of the notes sections between different stuff. There’s notes on one side, but most of the questions are in the back. We’ll see if it works. If you hate it, don’t be shy. Tell me because I will make it different next time. I made it on word. You can change anything on word. So there’s a couple of questions, though. At the very top of this, and they’re just maybe great questions to discuss, maybe questions just to ponder in your heart. But the first one is, where in your life do you feel like you’re living in a mini exile? They were living in exile. You know, I am my Bible reading right now. is Ezekiel. And Ezekiel is writing before Ezra happens. Even though Ezekiel is back after Jeremiah, it’s because the prophets are lumped together. But Ezekiel is in Babylon writing about all of the horrible sin and evil that Israelites have done, how they have betrayed their God. They have… If you want to read a really dark passage, Ezekiel 16, I mean, oof. They are sitting in the results of Ezekiel 16. Ezekiel 16 unfolds this idea that… you know, the writer, Ezekiel is saying this on behalf of God. It’s as though, you know, you were a babe that was unwanted and just thrown into the field in its blood and mess. And I watched you grow and I took you and I cared for you and made you my bride and I gave you every treasure and blessing and anything you could possibly need more than you’d ever want, I gave you. And then you continue to whore yourself out with any country nearby. I mean, it is a very depressing chapter of Bible. I had to go back and read it a couple times because it was like, did I really just read that? That’s what they’re sitting in. They have completely betrayed and walked away from their God. They have not just walked away. They have shamed themselves and in a sense shamed God. So it’s heartbreaking. So they’re living in this exile. They’re living removed from the place they know they belong, their promised land. Do you ever feel like sometimes you have these moments of mini-exile? I think we all do. And it’s probably not as dramatic as being sent to Babylon. But, you know, I do think we all have these spiritual moments. Yeah, Terry. I feel exiled from my children, Heather and Colin. Yeah. And I think that’s… The best example. I mean, we all live these separations. And I think that’s a good way of helping us understand. It’s not like I got moved away from the place I wanted to live and now I have to go live over here. It’s that things are not as they ought to have been. That the world is not how we thought it should be. That there’s brokenness and there’s evil and there’s hurt and there’s sadness in the world. And as a result, we do have that little separation between us and God and the way that his kingdom was meant to be. So it could take a lot of different thoughts or different views. The second part, and this does not apply to every single mini exile situation, but it says, what does returning to God look like for you right now? So I teach high school. That’s my day job. And working at a Christian high school, I get to have different conversations with kids than I normally would, which is great. And it’s like being back in youth ministry, but you’re tethered to your desk all day. And with kids, it’s interesting the things… Like if I asked them that question, what does returning to God look like for you right now? It would be that they have put distance between God because of sin, because of pride, because of ego, because of fear, because of self-consciousness. And they put these walls between them and God. That question means different things to everyone. But we have sinned too. We build walls. We put separation between us and God. So they’re just questions to kind of get us into this idea as we start digging into God’s providence in this. So if you notice, let’s see. Oh, I had a second way of asking that question. I’m glad it was in my notes. What part of your spiritual life feels like it needs rebuilding? Maybe that’s another way of thinking about that. It’s not that you’re living in mini exile, but there’s something in my life that needs to be rebuilt. There’s something in my life that needs restoration. There’s something in my life that is not the way that I want it to be, not the way that God would want it to be. But when we look at this, we’re going to reread that little section in a minute. We see God’s providence. We see a pagan decree. And we also see that God is moving history to give his people a future and a hope. God is rearranging history in favor of his people. That’s a really neat thought. So let’s reread. We’re going to read the two through four again. This is what King Cyrus of Persia says. The Lord, the God of the heavens, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and has appointed me to build him a house at Jerusalem and Judah. any of his people among you, may his God be with him. And may he go to Jerusalem and Judah and build the house of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem. Let every survivor, wherever he resides, be assisted by the men of that region with silver and gold and goods and livestock, along with a freewill offering for the house of God in Jerusalem. So they were conquered and They were brought into exile. And if you remember your old Bible stories, they left the poorest of the poor in Jerusalem. And they brought the wealthy, the nobility, the skilled, the educated into Babylon. And for all intents and purposes, from what we have gathered historically, their life in Babylon wasn’t actually bad from a worldly view. Like, was it Jerusalem? No. Were they dwelling in God’s presence in the foothills of the temple? No. For all intents, what we’ve learned is they had food. They were probably wealthy. They had nice homes. This was not – they were not living in squalor. They were living comfortable lives, not unlike us. They were living comfortable lives just outside of where they knew they belonged, outside of where God had originally placed them. So when we read this, it’s so neat because – I like to assume this is an assumption and we know that can be dangerous. But when we read this, God is saying in this decree, any of his people among you, may his God be with him and may he go to Jerusalem and Judah and build the house of the Lord, the God of Israel. And then verse four goes on to the money part. But verse three, if you have a pretty comfortable life in Babylon. which at that point, one of the greatest empires on the face of the earth, you have what you need, you have security, you have job, safety, finances, food, all the above. Would you really want to go back to Jerusalem? Jerusalem is in bad shape. I mean, they burned the temple, they destroyed the walls, the gates. I mean, from what we know, and archaeology is always unraveling, Jerusalem was barely left. I mean, it was destroyed. So you know if you’re leaving Babylon and you’re going back to Jerusalem, you’re not just going back to the place God had for you. You’re going back, and it’s going to be really hard. And it’s not a fast journey. I looked it up, and I don’t know if I put it in my notes, but it’s not close. I mean, we’re talking weeks, if not months, to get back to Jerusalem. So long, dangerous journey. And you get to live in a place that there’s nowhere to live and there’s not any food and there’s not any stability. There’s no infrastructure. It’s totally destroyed. That’s not a great feeling. I have lived through multiple weird circumstances, but you can relate this to a lot of life. Job losses, untimely deaths, house fires, car crashes, like unravel. And those are frustrating. This is frustrating. catastrophic this is devastating this is beyond and they’re not only told to go back but now and this is where it gets neat god provides in this way they’re told to go back but let every survivor wherever he resides in the babylonian kingdom assisted by the men of that region with silver and gold and goods and livestock along with a freewill offering for the house of god in jerusalem humanly it doesn’t make sense It doesn’t. Only God could do something like this, which is really neat. I like passages in scripture where you kind of lean into the idea of it’s either the but God or the only God. Because in that sense, like have you heard that before? Like but God and then everything changes or only God and then it unravels beautifully because God was in control. This is one of those situations and I love this. So There’s a few questions. There’s a lot of historical context, but there’s a few questions to kind of help shape some of this thinking. So where’s the one I wanted to pick? Let’s actually look at this one before I move on to that. I had two thoughts at once. Sorry. Second question there on Ezra 1 says, where have you seen God work through the unexpected, even secular means to keep a promise? Where have you seen God work? work and do the unexpected. Surely we’ve all seen something cool. You know, it’s interesting. So my wife and I both work in Christian schools. And because we work in Christian schools, we naturally love Christian schools. And we originally wanted our kids with us at school. Like, why work at a Christian school making less money than public when your kids, you want them there with you? Well, it is a long story. And it is a story we don’t have time for. But I, Jack is my oldest. Jack is 10. His kindergarten year was… Terrible. And more awkwardly, Clara was the boss. My wife was the boss of the kindergarten teacher who was terrible, which then makes dynamics even harder. Even more difficult, that kindergarten teacher, her husband was one of the associate pastors at the church that the school’s based. Just not great. And when push came to shove, the right move was not for Jack to be there. Like Jack didn’t need to be at Covenant anymore, which was heartbreaking. I mean, that’s we had been excited for years of foster care and years of like needing to be in daycare. And you’re like, finally, he’s going to be at school with mom. This is like this is this is great. And he was there for a year and a half. Pre-K was great. Kindergarten was not. And we moved to Lindbergh. We live in a great school district. We are thankful. Like, Lindbergh is great. The schools are great. I went to Lindbergh. My dad went to Lindbergh. My grandma might have gone to Lindbergh. I don’t know. But it’s great. But that just wasn’t the plan. And that was a hard pill to swallow. It also logistically was a nightmare. A lot of you know my mom. Grandma stepped in really quick because Clara still had to be at work. Risa had to go to school with mom still because that’s where she was. Bear, our youngest, was still at kindercare and he had to go to kindercare because half days he went to SSD for speech therapy and OT. So we were in five different schools every day. There’s five of us. And it was just, I mean, you’re kind of like a little bit of a stress ball all the time just waiting for the shoe to drop. Meanwhile, poor Jack was wound up so tight from the stress of kindergarten that it took Really until last school year, his third grade year before we finally had a good year of school. The sheer number of times I got phone calls or FaceTime calls from a principal, like, hey, can you talk to Jack again? And I would just tell my class, like, guys, I love you. If Mr. Malloy steps out in the hallway, just talk amongst yourselves. You’re fine. You’re juniors and seniors. You’re okay. And it was exhausting. But God is very cool. When I jotted that question down, when have you seen God work through the unexpected, the secular means to keep a promise? I can look now. We’ve become really good friends with the assistant principal at the kids’ school, and we’ve hiked with them and a couple teachers a few times, like very good friends. They went to the Grand Canyon. Our kids wanted to write notes for them that they could open along the hike along the Grand Canyon. And after they got home, they came by the house because they wanted to show us pictures and stuff. And that vice principal or assistant principal, now they call them, she – at the end of the night, like the kids were getting ready for bed and they were getting ready to leave. And she like kind of looks at us very like we’re standing at the kitchen counter and looks at us kind of this like teary-eyed look. She goes, I just need to tell you guys while we’re here and not at school how much – watching you guys meet to us, like the teachers and staff, like, she’s like, we know your old story. And this was somewhat post-fire, like somewhat, but also like three kids with very different needs and educational struggles. Um, and I can’t go into the whole thing because I don’t, I’ll probably get choked up too, but it was one of those moments that you realize, oh, wow, this was exactly where God wanted us. We did not realize it. And I knew big picture, like I’ve I get the idea of God’s providence and God’s sovereignty. I knew, like, if this is where we are, then this is where God wants us. But in the moment, you don’t always feel it because feelings aren’t always truth. Now I can look at it on the other side and go, look at the beautiful impact we’ve had. But also, look how much that school has helped my kids. Look how God has used people that may or may not love Jesus to raise and train up and shepherd my kids. And who knows what dominoes could have fallen. And it’s incredible. So I know that’s a pretty extreme example. And I know no one said anything. So I had to give a story. If you don’t want stories, you have to give me some, too. But that’s a beautiful. I mean, that was what I was thinking about when I wrote that question was God does incredible things and not always the way that we anticipate that he will. But God is good. You know, it’s. We see and there’s other questions here that we’re not going to be able to go through all of them. When we look at this, there’s a few notes I don’t want to forget. So the scripture side, you know, the Lord stirs up the spirit of Cyrus. You know, God uses in his sovereignty. God turned Cyrus’s heart to to obey. You know, in verse five. We didn’t double read this yet. He uses the same word. I don’t know what the Hebrew word is, but the same word is used that God roused their spirits. God stirred up their spirits. It’s the same because those people – I don’t know about you. I don’t think I would have wanted to go back. I just don’t – maybe, but I got comfortable. And furthermore, I don’t think I put it in the notes for you guys or me. These were not folks who – they have not been to Jerusalem. It’s not like when our house burned down and we moved to the, we called it the tower house. That was the tall house we lived in. We lived in one of those across the street. It wasn’t like we hadn’t been there. We knew our neighborhood. We knew our street. We knew we wanted to go back. These folks, they’ve never been. They’re multiple generations removed because they’ve been there for 70 years in exile. So there might be a handful who were tiny when they went, but it’s unlikely. So God had to stir their hearts. In verse 5, he says that. So the family heads of Judah and Benjamin, along with the priests and Levites, everyone whose spirit God had r

oused, prepared to go up and rebuild the Lord’s house in Jerusalem. And that’s amazing. Because I wouldn’t have wanted to do that. It’s scary. It’s unknown. I mean, we always say we like adventure, but who really likes change? I get the same thing when I go to the same restaurant every single time. I’m only 40, and I’ve been that way since I was in my 20s, where I’m like, if I try something new, I might waste $15, and I don’t really want to. I’ll just get the thing I know I like. And I mean, we’re just that way. It’s our comfort zone is funny because it’s comfortable. Of course, we don’t like leaving it. So God rouses their spirits because God needs to do what he said he was going to do. And he said he was going to bring his people back. So he roused them and moved them back. I love it. So I know I beat that dead horse, but it’s such a good horse. Why do you think, though? I don’t think I put this in the notes. I’m sorry. Why do you think God is so insistent on restoring his people? They have been evil. They have sinned. They have prostituted themselves. They have worshipped as many idols as they could. Why is God so bent on restoring his people? Because he loved them. He loved them. He keeps all of his promises. He made a covenant with Abraham. Yep. He’s sticking to it. He has to stick to his covenant. He loves these people no matter how stubborn and foolish and evil and broken they are. And he made a promise to them. And he is going to fulfill his promise no matter what. I can’t remember. Messiah is coming through these people. Yep. I mean, I’m glad you went there. The end of every lesson in Ezra and Nehemiah, we’re going to try to point to where do we see the gospel in this because it points straight to what Jesus is eventually going to do, which is just the best. It makes anything more important. I think about Israel sometimes in this state. They’re a conquered nation. They’re not important. they’re even in even when they were a you know non-conquered state they weren’t in the most important part of the empire like they were kind of backwoods people to an extent it would be like hanging out with like i have some really hillbilly cousins who live in oklahoma it’d be like the hillbilly they don’t even live in a town like that you can’t even like give them a town name they just live like somewhere outside of locust grove like that it’s it’s i love them but that’s These are the hillbilly cousins. Like they’re not the like, although I think my hillbilly cousins probably are worth way more than I am because they’re all farmers, but it’s not important. That’s my, I just unraveled my analogy right there. That’s ruined it. But God, it’s beautiful. He’s not phased and he’s still loyal to his people. And really like this is, if you’re a note taker, this is the thought to write down. That’s the kind of God that we want to trust because he really doesn’t give up. They don’t deserve it. They don’t deserve it. But yet he doesn’t give up. I just love it. It’s such a such a cool thing. Let’s go in and reread five to 11 before we run out. Well, knowing me, we’ll we’ll get to the end and have to rush five to 11. So that family heads of Judah and Benjamin, along with the priests and Levites, everyone whose spirit God had roused, prepared to go up and rebuild the Lord’s house in Jerusalem. All their neighbors supported them with silver articles, gold, goods, livestock, and valuables, in addition to all that was given as a freewill offering. King Cyrus also brought all the articles of the Lord’s house that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from Jerusalem and placed in the house of his gods. King Cyrus of Persia had them brought out under the supervision of Mithridath, the treasurer who counted them out to Shezbazar, the prince of Judah. This was the inventory. 30 gold basins, 1,000 silver basins, 23 silver knives, 30 gold bowls, 410 various silver bowls, and 1,000 other articles. The gold and silver articles totaled 5,400. Sheshavar brought all of them out when the exiles went up from Babylon to Jerusalem. Does anything about that strike anybody as strange? It’s a little like if you’re an accountant, like you get really excited about this part. My mom was not here to be excited. She’s an accountant. But what else is weird about that passage? Terry, you have a thought. Just the variety of items that they brought. Why would he give what Nebuchadnezzar had conquered? Yes. Why would he give it away? Well, God’s influence. Yep. I mean, God, they should have been destroyed. Like, why does Babylon need them to still be in the same form they were in when they were in Jerusalem? They typically conquered kingdoms. They didn’t, like, put it in storage and wait for later. But here it all is. We don’t know exactly how it all came to be. But the things that were taken from the Lord’s house, from the temple in Jerusalem, are now exactly being restored. And that, you also have Mithridath, the treasurer, who counted them all out and knows exactly. I mean, it’s… It’s interesting. I was talking to a friend about this yesterday. He’s a pastor at a different church. And ironically, he’s also teaching through Ezra on Wednesday nights. So maybe I’ll steal his notes. But I’m just kidding. He’s on the same schedule we are. He made a comment about… all of the numbers and how, you know, we tend to think about with priests with like the Levites going back in the priestly line, we tend to think about them as, you know, they were, they were performing the sacrifices. Some of them were, but there were also, and he listed off a few cause he had gone this direction with his notes. Um, but one of the priestly duties was really this accounting, which is so interesting. Like, I don’t know. I haven’t told my accounting teacher yet. So my, um, The teacher I have that teaches accounting is also my school CFO, but he helps out in my department and teaches accounting. So I can’t, Todd will be so excited that really one of the priestly roles is the order and numbering of these things. And it’s very cool because it shows God’s providence isn’t just this whack-a-mole idea. It’s precise in this way. It’s very cool. We have a few questions here. We’re okay on time. We’re doing okay. Okay. So when we look at this and we look at how Ezra 5 through 11 is unfolding this, I think it’s really neat and noteworthy. I don’t know if anyone else noticed this. He mentions it twice. So not only are they giving back gold, silver, but then they take up a freewill offering. He says it in verse 4 and in verse 6. Can you imagine? Like they’re not just going back. They’re not just being restored to the Holy Land, but they’re going back with more abundance than they even had before. I mean, it’s an incredible thing. But I think that’s the God that we serve. Not only is he fulfilling his promises, but he’s also unfailingly good. And it’s an incredible thing. That he does because God doesn’t just stir the hearts of kings and Hebrews. He stirs the heart of all these others who obey. So before we go on, there’s a couple of questions. And I think we’ll see if I can get you guys to answer some. How do you discern? I don’t think I wrote this one down either. Next time I’ll pick better or pick the questions I’m for sure going to ask. How do you discern when God is prompting you? versus your pushing or i’ll say like how do you how do you discern because discernment’s very hard teaching discernment to high school kids is like pulling cat teeth um but how do you discern the difference in god is is prompting versus you’re trying to force something maybe that’s another way of thinking how do we do that Because if I try to force it, that’s Maria’s way. That’s not God’s way. So usually God prompts me. I know it’s not Maria’s way. That’s true. It’s interesting because… So my professor this summer, my class was evangelism, which I thought would be a piece of cake. I was like evangelism class. That’s a great summer class. Nobody. Oh, my goodness, guys. It was like 40 hours a week of work. I mean, it was I did not like systematic theology was an easier class than summer evangelism. I’m glad it was summer. I would have really panicked. But he told this great story. And so he was in a grumpy mood. His wife, she had been a piano teacher for years, and her teacher was retiring and giving a recital somewhere far away. So they were driving to this recital, and he didn’t want to go, and he was grumpy about it. And so he was giving her the silent treatment and just grumpy all day. On the drive back, they needed gas, and they pulled over. And he just had this incredible prompting of go and talk to the girl at the front counter in the gas station and tell her the gospel. Just tell her the gospel. Like, this is your job. You know how to do it. You’ve run ministries of evangelism. Just go. And he was like, I don’t want to do it. And so he stomped in and went to the bathroom and got a drink. And he still, I mean, it was just painful that he wouldn’t. He said he’s finally going up to the counter to pay and he’s still grumpy about it. And this big truck driver runs in and just, I mean, bull in a china shop is like, do you know Jesus? And she’s like, no, but I’ve been wanting to talk to someone about Jesus. And he’s like, oh, and he goes back to it. So he’s and mind you, God still had some work to do in his heart because he pays and he’s like, I would have done it way better than him. He didn’t even do it the right way. No, no tact at all. He gets in the car and his wife’s like, you know what? She’s kind of expecting maybe he’s come to his senses and he’s going to apologize for being grumpy. And he she tells him or he unfolds the story. She’s like, that’s it. You aren’t even ready to apologize after that. Like it was just this. But it was a great story. Promptings are hard. That one was not, apparently. But I think it’s hard. Sometimes we don’t see it until after the fact. When we see that we’ve kind of forced our own way, and then we look back and go, huh, that didn’t work. So maybe that wasn’t actually a prompting, which slowly trains us to listen. One thing I’ve learned is to get myself out of the way and pray, Lord, if this is of you, keep the pressure on me. And never fail. Yeah. I’ve gotten in the habit when I’m working on projects at school, like new initiatives or whatever, and I’ll put at the top. I read this years ago in a paper. A lot of people have seen this, where Bach, at the end of his compositions, he would write Soli Deo Gloria, which in Latin means all glory to God, which is beautiful. I mean, what a lovely thing to write. You composed a masterpiece, and then you give all the glory to God. Most people don’t know at the top of his composers, he wrote Gesu Juva, which meant Jesus’ help. And I love that even more. So I tend to write it on when I’m working on new projects at school. And usually you get someone who’s like, did you misspell something? And you’re like, I did not misspell something. It’s Latin, which I don’t know. But I do know it means Jesus help. And I think that’s a big part of this learning discernment of am I am I being prompted or am I forcing my will? takes learning to listen, and it takes continually asking for help. I found out that the promptings that I normally experience is he’ll bring somebody on my mind, and I don’t get any rest until I just get out of bed. and start praying. And then, of course, you have to wait to see what happens. That’s where you get the answer or not to that. That’s such a good thought. I hope you guys, does everybody hear that? Like that, because I think that’s my promptings mostly are people’s names come to mind and you can’t quite get it out of your mind. And sometimes the only way to rest is to just either go pray or to call them because you don’t know. And it’s, it’s amazing how many times there has been somebody. And this happened this week. I was thinking about my friend who lives in Germany and came to mind was praying for him and i was like i’ll just text him really quick like it’s late there but maybe and he was like i’m literally sitting on the bus right now wondering why i’m here like what am i doing and it’s one of those moments you’re like god is really cool like i didn’t know it was a prompting it’s just you know but it we have to train ourselves to really when those things come lean into it and listen which is an amazing amazing gift of the lord and Even though we’re not being prompted to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild, we are prompted to do things to build the kingdom. So we’re going to read. We’re going to look at chapter two, chapter two. So I I think that I wrote this down somewhere. I read this great commentary this summer on Ezra and Nehemiah, and he made a comment about all the numbers because I don’t know if you’re like me. I mean, it’s a lot of numbers. Like, I mean, do you ever wonder about these passages? Like, why is this here? Like, why? This professor made the comment, he goes, it’s actually kind of a gift that he consolidated it because he could have listed every single person by name. And I think it’s something like 20, was it 24,000, Terry? Terry did the math. I mean, that’s he could have listed out every single name. He could have listed out every single family, but he didn’t. He kept them in groups because when we start to look at this and we understand it is it is purposeful and special and neat. It talks about and we’ll read the first little bit verse. If you have a Bible, I’m going to read verses one and two. These now are the people of the province who came from those captives, those captive exiles the king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had deported to Babylon. They returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his own town. They came with Zerubbabel, Yeshua, Nehemiah, Saraiah, Relaiah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispar, Bigvi, Rahum, and Banna. And then he he goes and breaks it down. And and I believe I’m going to double check my notes. Oh, you have in this list the identity of their families. You have where some of them are from locations. You have even different roles. If you have a Bible and you skim through it, list out the number of Israelite men. And then it has descendants and then it has numbers for each of those. Then it goes on to the priest included some of Jedidiah’s descendants in the house of Yeshua. And then it continues on with numbers of the priestly line. And then it has the Levitical line. And the singers included the descendants of Aspha and the gatekeepers’ descendants and the temple servants. So you start to see it’s not just families, but there’s roles that are also coming back to Jerusalem. And it’s easy to skip over. We just have to own it. I don’t know about you. Those are the passages when I do my annual Bible read through. Sometimes I skim and I feel a little guilty every time. But you just do halfway because it’s really long and the other half because you can’t pronounce their names. And it’s it’s really like I don’t know. Does anyone listen to audio Bibles ever? I am so impressed by the people who read audio Bibles. When you get to those passages, you’re like, how many takes did that take you? I can’t even pronounce them after I listen to you say it. That’s amazing. But then he also, in verse 59, talks through the towns. Like they came from Telmela and Telhashara and Cherub. So you have these towns. You have different descendants. It is a really, really neat thing to see the details. Even if it’s easy to skip over, it’s really cool to see the detail. So this is a fun twist on this little passage. This is not a Brian thought. This was from the book that I read. What can we learn from all those people? Like when you look at that big list of people. And you look at the descendants. I mean, there’s a lot of unnamed people in here. I probably would have been an unnamed person. So what can we learn from all these, these folks that are just buried in chapter two? Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people. They wanted to go home. Yeah. The people that wanted to go home. I think I’m on the verge of a science infection. I think that too. Um, I think in our world, this has probably always been the case, but especially now in the age of technology and YouTube and social media, the big and important and flashy are the things that tend to get the most attention, right? I mean, it’s just the way it is. Like they’re the things that get clicks on, you know, I always, I make fun of my kids at school and I refuse to call social media by its name. So I’ll call TikTok, TikTok, or I’ll call Instagram, InstaSnap or FacePages, Facebook. I’ve done it so long now I don’t even notice it, but every time they look at you like, ugh, because they can’t imagine someone not being cool and hip. I actively pursue not being cool and hip. On those things, though, the stuff that gets the most likes and follows and reshares, they’re the big impressive things. There’s a guy I worked with my last year. So the youth ministry I worked for is called K-Life, which is part of Kanakuk, and I was over in Kirkwood. And my last year on staff, his name was Ryan, good guy, but very, very – I mean, he was right out of college when he came in. And I remember when he first moved up here and he was, I think he was hired, but not officially started yet. We were riding in my truck and he said, you know, I just can’t wait to be the next Matt Chandler. And Matt Chandler at the time was the big, I don’t know if he still is, but he was like big pastor in the village church down in North Dallas. Big, big, I mean, books and podcasts and everything. I mean, a big deal for better or worse. And I and it was funny. This was not a Brian moment. This was a very Holy Spirit moment. And Ryan’s telling me this. And I’m like, you know, Ryan, I was like, that is very impressive. Like, I get it. Like, that’s a big deal. I was like, but I think I’m kind of equally impressed with the pastor of that little country church that has the same 50 people every Sunday that he, you know, baptizes and marries and buries and just faithfully goes about his job. And no one repost him on Instagram. And he looked at me like, are you crazy? And I probably, I mean, it was very much, I had never had that thought before. It was a Holy Spirit, but I’ve never forgot that story because I still think it’s true. Like it’s, I teach a Sunday school class and now a Wednesday night class. Like I’m not going to be on Instagram. No one’s going to reshare my, I don’t know, I think they’re called reels. You know on Facebook, all those videos. Is that reels? I really should learn by now. I make fun of it enough at school. Someone should have corrected me. But like all the short form, I’m never going to be on one of those. And that’s fine because that’s who these people were too. That’s so again, not an original thought. That was from the commentary I read. But looking at all those names of people that I don’t know them, I’ll never under like maybe in eternity someday. But they’re not people that I have any awareness of what they did or why they were important or why they weren’t. And we are not much unlike them. But they went back and they did it anyway. And that matters, which is really cool. That’s right. One amazing thing here is almost 25,000 people going back. And one of the things they donated was livestock. So they didn’t have to go out and forage. I mean, they had, where was it? It was 736 horses, 245 mules, 435 camels, 6,270 donkeys. It’s amazing, but it was enough because a city is moving back. A city of people is moving home. There’s a lot of cool stuff, and I know we’re at the point where I can’t go too deep on some of these. That’s true. Yep. Yeah. They are important. And they’re the people that God stirred their hearts. We read that in the beginning. He roused their hearts to send them back. They matter. It’s incredible. I’m thankful to slow down on those parts sometimes because, like I said, they’re really easy. When you’re just reading through a long lineage of people, it’s kind of easy to speed up a little bit. Yeah? This kind of brings to mind, to me, Today we don’t slow down and share with our families. We’re going different directions. These people knew why they were going back because the families had talked about it generation after generation after generation. They didn’t have Tic Tac. It’s spreading. Their families were sharing and spreading the stories until they were going back to their history. They knew their history. I love that. And I think that that’s there was something I read. My poor Sunday school class has heard the story before, but it’s a good story. And it was an article and they were talking about how young people today. So I think when they said young people, they meant like college age and younger. So assume like 20 and younger. they genuinely don’t know, very few of them actually know what their parents do. They know their parents work for that company, but they don’t actually know what they do. So then those same kids have absolutely no idea what their grandparents did. They have no idea who their people were. They don’t know when they immigrated from somewhere else and then lived over there. And then they don’t know their family story, which is crazy because Obviously, either I’m a nerd or there’s a big divide between because I love knowing those things. I have an aunt on the – I guess she’s on the Malloy-Meyer side who knows like all the – she knows when they moved over from – it wasn’t Germany. It was Prussia, I think, and then Austria, but they weren’t technically those countries in the 1800s. Like 18, 19, they left there and then showed up here by the

1830s. We don’t exactly know like what happened to get to St. Louis, but we know they got here. That’s neat. Like, and I know that my mom’s side of the family, that’s the Cherokee half. I’m the tall white cousin. They all live around Oklahoma, still around Tahlequah, the capital of the Cherokee Nation. And we know they were on the Trail of Tears. Like we know that they were lucky enough they had a wagon. I mean, it’s silly. But I like knowing those things. It’s neat to know what’s happened before because then you get to know some of the people and the stories and you can look at the hardships, but you can see how God was still faithful. And that really matters. But it broke my heart reading that article. They’re like, kids really don’t know. They have no idea what their family stories are. And I’m like, how will kids ever know that God was faithful and good to the previous generations if they don’t tell them? Yeah, Terry. And women. Yeah. Well, and I don’t know if this is total or if this is just the men numbers. It says in verse 64, the whole combined assembly numbered 42,360 men. not including their 7,337 male and female servants and their 200 male and female singers. So I don’t know if that’s still just counting the family heads or if that’s everybody. But it’s not a small number. I know that much. Can you imagine even getting everybody at Concord on the same, like, road, walking, like – It’d be an act of God to get everybody like lined up. Same time. We’re all backpacks are ready. Like, let’s go. And that’s just like a few hundred people. And this is tens of thousands of people. Um, but I like it. I like dreaming about that and thinking about it, but we do need to, to think, um, gosh, there’s so many good things. We got to go to the kind of the, the now what, like the big picture, like how would, what do we do with all this? Um, they’re in Babylon. And they’re comfortable, they’re taken care of, they have what they need, and they’re called back. What do you think in your life, I don’t know, I’m rephrasing this on the go. Do you think sometimes comforts and habits and routine and patterns make life feel safe and harder to let go of things? This is very dramatic. I was just talking to… I had to sub for my econ teacher today. She was the chapel speaker, so I covered her class. And they were talking about stewardship, and she was showing them a video about minimalism. About what? About minimalism. And she was not saying this is a great thing. She was just trying to help them think beyond their normal scope. And… I was asking them questions at the end. I’m like, well guys, what do you think? Do you think that sounds nice to have less stuff? Or does that, I mean like trying to dig into this idea with them and they were like, no, that sounds terrible. And, but there were a few kids that were brave and were like, you know, I do feel like I have more stuff than I need. And it sometimes does weigh me down. Like, I just feel like I have stuff and it becomes a burden. And I was like, okay guys, I’m not trying to be dark and bleak. I can say this. It’s hard for you to ask about it. Like, When you lose everything in a house fire, it does really make you reevaluate what’s actually important and what’s not important. And then you start to realize, you’re like, I didn’t need, like, I don’t need eight shirts like this. I need four or five. Like, I don’t, I need more than one because the minimalism guys on this video were like, I have three shirts. And I’m like, that’s dumb. Like, I don’t need to do laundry every two nights. But It was fun talking to the kids because I was like, you do genuinely sometimes have to think, what are the things in life that do weigh me down? And it might not be stuff. Like that was just what we talked about in class in econ today. But it might be that there’s… habits that we formed or or um bad ways of thinking about the things of god that keep us from being a little more obedient or a little more devoted or a little more faithful because in our minds we have this it goes back to that idea of am i pushing my way forward or am i obeying the prompting that god’s putting in my life um so it’s it’s a hard question but i think it’s an important thing um I think, though, what we see in this moment, in the first and second, and we’re literally, this is the tip of the iceberg. Today was a lot of setup for what’s going to happen in the next few weeks. But we have to see that God is the one who initiates the renewal. God is the one who stirred in Cyrus’ heart, who stirred in the people’s heart. And we also have to walk away from lesser kingdoms, lesser loves, lesser gods. It’s important. I mean, but we’re very tempted. Like the world is more, I don’t know, more tempting. We are more connected than we’ve ever been before. We see that, you know, you think back 75 years, you knew the richest family on the street. You knew that they had the newer car and like, oh, they might’ve had the fancier toys or that’s the house you went to if you really wanted to, like, I don’t know, they got the fancy TV first or whatever. But now it’s everywhere. Every time we log onto a computer screen, it’s like, look at my fancy new thing and look at this vacation I went on. And before you know it, you start to feel a little, I don’t know, less than. Yeah. And it’s not healthy. And it is really easy for our hearts to worship the wrong things. And I mean, gosh, I’m a broken record, but it’s the idolatry of our hearts that will keep us captive versus actually obeying and following Jesus. And so when we look at this story, like we’re just looking at first and second Ezra. Nobody reads Ezra, but we just said first and second, and it’s pointing straight to letting go of the things in the world that hold us from being obedient to the things of God. And God, thank but God, he roused their hearts so that they would obey. He still rouses our hearts today. We have to still listen. um there’s a i’m a i i really love i’m sure if anyone knows this band i will be so proud of you um just what you wanted to have a 40 year old be proud of you tonight um i really love caedmon’s call they were a big deal back in like the 90s early 2000s okay we’ve got one any okay two anybody else we got three okay we have maybe five people this is the best day anytime i talk about caedmon’s call at school the kids are like what And I’m like, we’ll listen later. But I love Caban’s call. They used to joke that they were like the theologians band because their lyrics were phenomenal. And they were they were just so good. I still listen to them. It’s funny how like you don’t. And I think you guys probably the same. You listen to new music. You just keep listening to the same music. You get stuck in your ear and you’re like, that’s the music I want to keep listening to. Now, kids in high school are like they’re talking about oldies. That means 80s and 90s music. And I’m like, guys, I’m still listening to those same songs. I didn’t. This isn’t ironic for me to listen to that. I’m still listening. Anyway, Cademan’s Call has this really great song called The Kingdom. And it’s really beautiful because there’s the chorus gets into this idea where he says, like, I’m watching my kingdoms tumble and fall. And the idea is we all do it. We build these little kingdoms. And I know there’s no way the folks that were the Hebrews that were still in Babylon had not kind of built up like this is the new. Like we have gotten established. We have made a life here. But there’s something better. And we still do it. Like whether it’s… Success or status or even just comforts or our preferences, we’re so quick to hold on to those things versus seeking to be obedient. So we have to genuinely look at the story as surrender. Surrender is necessary in the kingdom of Jesus. There’s no other way to get to Jesus except through his sacrifice. um and in this case this is such a cool i think when we look at the hebrews and ezra and we look at us the weak are strong the poor rich the last or first the proud or humbled god’s kingdom is not the kingdom of the world it’s very different and and god again is bringing back being faithful to his promise these backwoods people to their kingdom again and restoring them to what they once were um So there’s a few questions at the very bottom of the last page. These questions really were on my notes and the paper. And we don’t have time to do all of them, but we can talk a little. One, why does the return begin with rebuilding the temple instead of the city walls? I meant that question to be last week. Pause that question. I’m rephrasing. That question was next week question. That was a copy and paste error. What’s a Babylon? You’d have to leave to answer God’s call to rebuild something according to God’s word. What is a Babylon you’re holding on to? We’ll put it that way. What’s a Babylon that you hold on to? You don’t have to answer out loud, but I do want it to be something we think about. What is a Babylon that we hold on to? We are all prone to those kingdoms. What makes that Babylon hard to leave? What makes it so hard to leave? Sometimes it’s habit. Sometimes we just don’t see it. Like I am genuinely thankful that, both at church and at school, I have multiple people that will call me on stuff right away. They’re not going to let me, not in a mean way, not because I’m constantly in error, but just simply, hey, I don’t know if you saw this. I don’t know if you knew this. I wanted to just bring it up just so that way. What a blessing it is. I literally had a phone call today with one of our kids’ teachers. And She was like, I just wanted to talk to you guys about this. I wasn’t sure if you knew. And I’m like, thank you for saying something. Because a lot of people won’t. They won’t tell you when something’s wrong. We also have to listen when someone tells us. And it doesn’t mean it’s easy to hear. But in the end, it should be a gratitude that someone was honest enough to tell us. Because we have a hard time seeing our Babylon, the things we hold on to. How does God’s faithfulness in Ezra 1 and 2 give you courage to take that step? Does it give you courage? I think the more we study scripture and the more we are confronted with God’s character, it does give us courage. But we still have to take that step. And this is the question I actually want people to answer. How does this section of Ezra point to Jesus? How does this point to the gospel? How does it point to renewal and restoration? What do you think? How does this little, short, small section of a small narrative in the grand, big Bible, how does it point toward Jesus and the ultimate renewal? We’re all fallen, man. I know. It’s unfathomable. It’s completely out of our ability. There’s absolutely nothing I could do, nothing that any of us could do to make any of this happen. And that’s, I just, man, that moment of God’s providence in just two short chapters of Ezra is enough to get me thinking about that’s the same God and the same providence that sent his son to earth as a little baby to then grow up to die. I mean, there’s an old Chris Rice song. Oh, man, I’m going to botch the lyrics because I didn’t think about this till right now. Something about tiny blood. Tiny heart, tiny heart whose blood would save us. Like the unfolding of providence is the very thing that redeemed us and saved us. And it’s the same providence in the story as in that story. That’s beautiful. That should give us a great deal of hope. No matter how much the world gets us down, no matter how hard things may be or how frustrating they may be. That’s the same God that we serve. The same God in Ezra chapter 1 and 2 is the same God of the Gospels and is the same God today. And that’s really cool. So the hope of all this, I wrote it down really big. Yes, here it is. This is our big idea for Ezra and Nehemiah. I didn’t want to say it until the end. Everything we’re going to see this semester flows from this one truth. that God himself initiates renewal by stirring his people to leave lesser kingdoms and return to wholehearted worship and rebuild their lives according to his word. Everything we’ll see in Ezra and Nehemiah. God does the initiating. God pulls their hearts. He rouses, it says. God is the one who helps them to leave. We can’t leave idols and lesser kingdoms on our own. Only Jesus can help us do that. They go back to Israel and they restore proper worship, wholehearted, not fake. They had had very fake worship before, wholehearted worship. And then they restore their lives. They continually are redeeming themselves and looking back to the word. So it’s very neat. It is a timely, good message because we will always be in similar situations this side of eternity. So any thoughts before we pray? I’m a little proud because I don’t usually end Sunday mornings on time. And we did tonight. So I’m a little happy. But any thoughts? Okay, let’s pray. Father God, thank you for our first night of chaos getting into Ezra chapter one and two. God, bless our time this semester. This is going to be exciting. You know, next week we dig into more and then we dig into more and we get to watch the story unfold and we get to see the hearts and minds of your people brought back to you and how they respond. So God, help us to see the Babylons in our lives. Help us to see the idols, the kingdoms that we hold on to, that we build ourselves. And give us the courage and strength to trust you to let go. God, let tonight, in all of the things that we looked at, all the notes and chaos and talking, God, let your truth ring true. Draw us back to your word and help us to worship you with whole hearts. God, I’m so thankful for our class and thankful for tonight. We ask all this in your name. Amen. Alright, thank you guys. Next week, if you are a read-ahead person, I printed this and then realized you couldn’t read it. Next week is Ezra 3-6. So, if you’re a read-ahead person, that’s next week. Thank you guys. And if you did fill out the sheet, I’m going to try and send out notes, recording, just so that way you’ve got it. Yeah. Oh. Stop. I know I’m a little weird, but… Me too.