Brian Maloy

Okay, now we’re recording. If you did not, and you don’t have to put your email on there, but did people get the email that I sent? Okay, good. I hoped it worked, but I think that’s a quick format where I can just take the audio file, put it online, so if you’re gone a week or sick or traveling, you can still listen in.

I guess close the door? I don’t know. I’m loud. It’s not that you’re not loud, it’s that everybody out there is. Also, I think sometimes at school, other teachers close their door because of it. But that’s fine. There’s worse problems.

And nevertheless, we will, so if you want to get that email every week, I’ll just make it a habit of replying, and I kept everybody blind carbon so it’s nice and private. But that way you can get the notes, any of the, I think it gives the transcript, the audio, and then a summary. So hopefully that is helpful. Been trying new things to speed up some of those processes. But tonight, tonight we’re gonna do a lot. My boss, who’s now listening, probably will tell me I did too much in one night, but that’s okay. He doesn’t know I’m talking about him. He’s fun to pick on.

Okay, so we’re going to cover Ezra 3 through 6. That said, this is my biggest, I love, in Sunday school, we use the quarterly. We walk through it. And I always complain. I’m like, man, they just picked this one section of chapter, you know, chapter 2 of Romans. They skipped part. But it’s also because you can only cover so many sections. So unfortunately, we did have to do some skipping around. This is my imploring of you. If you don’t bring Bibles, I need you to bring a Bible because I copied parts of each chapter tonight. But it’s just hard rather than printing 20 pages. So if you have a Bible on your phone, if you have a real Bible, either is fine. But next week, I’m going to we’ll find the right balance anyway.

But we’re going to go ahead and start. There’s a question on the back. It’s in bold and black, right there at the top. And it says, what do we tend to do in the face of opposition and fear? Think about that. Maybe people will be brave enough to say it. But what do we tend to do in the face of opposition, fear, uncertainty, frustration, doubt, you name it?

Fight. Sometimes we fight. It depends on the circumstance. That’s probably very true. It does depend on the circumstance. Sometimes we run. Everybody’s heard fight or flight, right? Terry?

9-11, just those firemen who went straight in. Straight in. What fortitude. I know. There was a picture. We actually spent some time since it’s 25 years at school. I mean, the kids that we teach now literally have no concept because they weren’t born. And I know I’m younger than a lot of you, but I remember exactly where I was in high school. I remember exactly the classroom I was in. I remember it was in the early days of, like, the old big glass TVs up in the corner of the room. And we just zombied from room to room as it unfolded. I mean, I know. We were fancy. 2001, we were fancy. Fancy. They were terrible TVs.

But we just, I mean, in hindsight, we would never let kids do that today at school, just watching it unfold. But we were all just in shock. So we were helping the kids unfold this. And there was one video, one of my co-teacher, she actually went to New York within 3 days of the World Trade Center collapse because she worked for an insurance company. And she was the only person in her office that wasn’t married. So they sent her to go and work with these clients who had lost everything in the towers.

And she showed a picture, and there were many things she showed, but one of the pictures was a fire truck going across the Brooklyn Bridge toward the disaster, knowing they’re not coming back. I mean, it was just… But again, that fortitude to charge forward is incredible. I definitely…

Fight or flight tends to be the things we think of. And fight looks a lot of different ways. Sometimes it’s the… Passive aggressive. Sometimes it’s the very confrontational. Sometimes it’s the just cutting things off. Like fight takes a lot of different looks. I, in my house, I haven’t figured out Bear yet. Bear’s the 8 year old. But Jack is my fleer. Like he is the flight. And Rissa is the fighter. You know, Jack was our runner. So like if he had got too upset at school, he was out. Which is really fun if you’re a parent and your kid runs out of the door at school. Many of you know. And then Rissa is the world’s most stubborn 90-year-old girl, which are both great. If you can channel those things, they can be really useful tools. But fight or flight tends to be the norm.

Any other thoughts, like what we do when we are faced with opposition or fear or we’re backed into a corner?

Pray. Pray is a great answer. Some breathe, you know. Yeah. And that’s an, I mean, fight or flight gets the most attention, but I think freeze is just as frequently experienced. I would probably put my 3rd born in that category of just the deer in headlights like, oh no, dad’s actually mad this time. You know, it’s that reaction. It happened after school today.

But I think that there’s something we really see that’s very, and that’s modern psychology trying to make sense of human brains and how we respond. What I think is really beautiful about tonight is we start to see a story unfold that gives us another option. That we don’t have to flee, we don’t have to run, we don’t have to be backed into a corner, we can remain steadfast. And that’s a really beautiful gift.

We’re going to read. I know this is a little wonky. So if you have a Bible or your phone Bible, go ahead and open a chapter three. As you can see on the back of this paper, like I’ve got chapter three, the parts we’re covering and then the discussion questions and then four. So we’re going to break it down chunk by chunk. Every week we will not cover this much. This was an exceptional week. Next week is just seven and eight. Most weeks are one or two chapters.

But we’re going to read verses 1 through 3 and then 8 through 13, which if you look at your paper, we’re looking at the altar being rebuilt. The work is beginning and there’s joy and weeping at the laying of the foundation of the temple. This is a cool moment. So verses 1 through 3.

“When the seventh month arrived and the Israelites were in their towns, the people gathered as one in Jerusalem. Joshua, son of Josedach, and his brothers, the priest, along with Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, and his brothers, began to build the altar of Israel’s God in order to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the law of Moses, the man of God. They set up the altar on its foundation and offered burnt offerings for the morning and evening on it to the Lord, even though they feared the surrounding peoples.”

So we talked about fight or flight, and we talked about kind of the freeze or fawn or perhaps remaining steadfast. These folks, that verse 3 is incredibly powerful. They built the altar of Israel’s God in order to offer burnt offerings on it. As it is written, I’m sorry, they set up the altar on the foundation, offered burnt offerings for the morning and evening, even though they feared the surrounding peoples.

They did not freeze. They did not lose their cool. They did not run. They did not fight. What did they do? They were worshiping. They were setting up the… They’ve moved back to a city, and there are some with them who had seen the old temple and watched it be destroyed, but many of them hadn’t. And in this moment, they’re back, and they’re doing as Moses, the law of Moses said, and they start the practice of worship right away.

That’s amazing. So in the face of fear, rather than hiding in the catacombs in the small parts of the city they could, they started building their altar again because they knew the right thing to do was to still worship. It’s beautiful. I love that part. We see that. We’re going to go ahead and read before we get into questions. Let’s read 8 through 9 as well. So I couldn’t fit that on the paper, but 8 through 9, if you have a Bible.

“In the second month of the second year, after they arrived at God’s house in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, Jeshua, son of Josedach, and the rest of their brothers, including the priests and Levites, and all who had returned to Jerusalem from captivity, began to build. They appointed the Levites, who were 20 years old or more, to supervise the work on the Lord’s house.”

“Yeshua with his sons and brothers, Kadmiel and his sons and the sons of Judah, and Ahenadad with their sons and brothers, the Levites, joined together to supervise the working on the house of God.”

Let’s go ahead and read 10 through 13 as well.

“… … … … … … Then all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord because of the foundation of the Lord’s house had been laid. But many of the older priests, Levites and family heads who had seen the first temple wept loudly when they saw the foundation of this temple. But many others shouted joyfully. The people could not distinguish the sound of joyful shouting from that of weeping because the people were shouting so loudly and the sound was heard far away.”

So there’s a lot to unpack. There’s a lot to try to understand how this all unfolds and fits together and why this is important and why these things happen. But the question that’s the very first one there, I want to start with. And I asked, what does it look like to obey God before you feel safe? When you think about that first little chunk we read that was the, they still wouldn’t build the altar regardless of being fearful. What does it look like to obey God before we feel safe?

I mean, how often do we really feel safe? Like every time a new car comes out every year, it has a thousand new safety features. Like what about the old car I’m driving? Is it a death trap? Probably. I’m driving 70 miles an hour on 270. It’s a death trap. But we live in this world that we’re just, everything’s coming at us. You know, there’s tragedy, there’s car wrecks, there’s illnesses, there’s political turmoil, the market’s gonna crash tomorrow. We live in this constant state of something bad’s going to happen, right? Do you feel that in the world? Okay, good. What does it look like? We still are called to obey God regardless of the fear. So what do you think? What’s it look like to still obey God even in the midst of fear?

He’ll take care of us. I think sometimes it’s as simple as just taking one more step forward. It’s not a big grandiose thing. Sometimes it’s simply just getting up and doing the next best thing. And that’s hard. But it’s also attainable because we see examples all throughout Scripture of people doing exactly that and God being faithful in those moments. It’s beautiful. It’s incredible.

So as we look at this, there’s a few things that I think are really kind of cool thoughts. I jotted this down, but I don’t want to forget. It says in verse 1, it makes this comment. I’m sorry, it’s verse 2. Yep. We’ll reread.

“When the seventh month arrived, the Israelites were in their towns. The people gathered as one in Jerusalem. It says in some translations, they gathered as one man. Sometimes, and this is where scripture can be, you know… Sometimes the nuance is hard because of the way that it’s being written and the poetic nature of it. It’s implying this idea that they were so united in purpose and mission and shared resolve that it was as though one man was working on this project. So I’m not a poet by any means at all. I teach business. I have an MBA. Not a poet.

But this is one of those moments where it’s like that poetic speaking of instead of just saying they were really united and they’re resolved. They were like one man. Instead, it uses the more poetic form like they were gathered as one in Jerusalem. We know what that feels like. We’ve had seasons of church and family and country and where we have felt more united than we are now.

And so when we read this, I love it because they’ve been through it. It’s not like they went back to the Ritz. I’ve never been to a Ritz, so I don’t actually know what it’s like. I assume it’s nice. The name is Ritz, and it’s in Clayton, and it’s very beautiful. What’s that? Isn’t that a crack? Also a cracker. You can buy them in bulk at Sam’s. The hotel form of Ritz. The only Ritz I’ve experienced is the cracker version, not the hotel. But they didn’t move back to luxury. They moved back to a very hard place.

And there are many who, the older folks, are seeing the destruction and the you know it’s out of sight out of mind and then you go back and you see it it’s just oof like i’ll stop using the house as an analogy but like after the fire claire never went back in the house like she went in the first day after because we had to with the insurance people and we had to do a walk through and some stuff and it was the first night of the night of the fire and the morning after she went in and never went back.

She had no desire to go back, and she shouldn’t. The kids never went in the house. I had to go in a bunch of times to sift for things, and that’s fine. But going back into it, it just brings back all the emotion, right? And it’s impossible for it not to. For them, same thing. All the emotion is there, but yet they were united as one because they knew what God had called them to, and they didn’t lose sight of that. It’s easy to lose sight of what God calls us to because we’re human. Sometimes we’re a little dumb.

But God has given them this special gift in this moment that they are united as one. And then, I just can’t get over verse 3. And then it goes down. “They set up the altar on its foundation and offered burnt offerings for the morning and evening on it to the Lord, even though they feared the surrounding peoples.” Their fear did not stop them from doing the right thing. But think how often, even in silly ways, fear stops us from doing the right thing.

Quite literally, this is a horrible example, and it made me sad, but God is good. At school, we have chapel, being in a Christian school. Wednesdays is chapel day. And as you would expect, not every high schooler is, like, really into chapel, unsurprisingly. But it still makes me sad every time. You know, you’re sitting here, someone’s trying to unfold the gospel and help kids understand it in a new way, and it’s what a gift to be in a school to do that.

And there were these girls that were, like, I don’t know, 30 feet away from me that direction that normally I wouldn’t have spotted, but they just kept talking. And it was just this constant, like, the giggle. And, like, you know they had a phone out, which they aren’t supposed to have out during school, especially chapel. Just body language. And it just irked me. But you know it’s more distracting to walk over in the middle of chapel and be like, stop it, than it is to just let it go. So I – but I –

Kids are dumb. God love them. I’m so happy I do what I do. But man, they just don’t think. So this girl, the one that was the main talker, had a very distinctive water bottle covered in strawberries. I don’t know who Strawberry Girl was. I still do not know her name. But I was in my hallway around 2 o’clock today and saw Strawberry come down the hallway. And of course, because it’s me, I just very bluntly was like, hey, I don’t know your name, but I recognize your water bottle.

“I really had a hard time focusing in chapel today because the whole time you just taught. I couldn’t get over it. It just really upset me. And this is where it gets really sad. Pray for kids. The kids are a mess.

She acted a little embarrassed in the moment because she didn’t know what to say because high school girls don’t have a tremendous amount of confidence, so they don’t know what to say. But she really didn’t care. Because in the end, her demeanor, even the way she acted in chapel, the way she, she didn’t care. But I say that story. I think often, that was a very long segue. I think often the reason high school kids act so dumb is because they’re afraid. They’re fearful.

We wouldn’t necessarily say fearful. We would say they worry about their grades, or they worry about what people think about them, or that friend who looked at them weird in that one class that they assume now is mad at them and doesn’t care at all. They are incredibly fearful, and the fear consumes them and makes them act dumb. So they really aren’t dumb. Their fear makes them act dumb. So that was a long story to make me not sound quite like a monster when I said kids are dumb. Yeah, Terry, stop me from this.

That’s right. That’s right. And that’s why some of you are in my Sunday school class. I say it way too often. Thank God we have the word because at least we have something that we can rest our – the authority of scripture can be our truth when feelings are out of control. Like feelings are not always truth. Sometimes they reflect truth. But they are not truth. And we live in a world where feelings have become our own truths. And that’s scary.

And these, man, again, pray for the high school kids. They are, I literally got home from school and told Clara, like, Clara, I just don’t know how long I can do it. Like, it just breaks your heart. Like, there were other things that happened today. And then those are the moments you remember, like, that’s why you’re there. Like, it’s, even though it crushes you, you have to keep at it and you keep doing the right thing even if you’re frustrated.

Or that’s where i don’t know if i put it in the notes it’s in my side i think i forgot it on the sheet fear is the question i wrote or i wrote down like despite fear feeling safe you could fill it in with a lot of words disappointment frustration misunderstandings setbacks um waiting all the above could fit into that spot. We’re still called to obey regardless of the circumstances, regardless of the feelings, regardless of the things, which is a great reminder. But we’ve got to keep moving so I don’t spend too much time on that one spot. Excuse me.

Okay. When we look, though, at 4 through 7, I’m sorry, we read, where was it? 8 through 9. Early 8 through 13, we see Zerubbabel and Jeshua show up, and they’re very much the ones that are leading the charge when it comes to this worship moment. They’re the ones that are preparing the altar. They and their sons are preparing and getting everyone ready to offer burnt offerings. And then they show up when we read in 8 through 9, and they’re now getting ready to start building the temple foundation. They’re restoring what was destroyed because when Babylon came through, they wiped out everything. So they’re acting as these primary leaders, and others are helping them.

But it says in here, or it was in my notes elsewhere, all of the men who were over 20 years old were all to help with the construction. So they were really like this was an all-encompassing, we are in this together to prepare. But then it’s so exciting. When you get to verse 10, and I know we just read it a minute ago, but we’re going to read the little bit 12 and 13 because it’s just so good.

“But many of the older priests, Levites and family heads who had seen the first temple wept loudly when they saw the foundation of this temple. But many others shouted joyfully. The people could not distinguish the sound of joyful shouting from that of weeping because the people were shouting so loudly and the sound was heard far away.”

It’s beautiful because in this moment, everyone knows this feeling. You’ve been waiting for something for so, so, so long and then finally it comes to fruition and it’s like all of the emotional just like release comes. This is a lot bigger than, I don’t know, when you’re really excited to go to the store and buy ice cream because they have a new flavor of Blue Bell and then you get home and you’re really excited and you can relax in your chair. That’s not quite the same, but it’s a teeny version. This is a big deal. They’ve waited for decades. People have come and gone, lived and more people have been born. And yet now they are so relieved this step has finally come. And they’ve been faithful. They’ve done the work that God called them to do, which is incredible.

And I skipped it when we reread because I wanted to go back to it. Verse 11 says, and this should remind you of some really beautiful psalms and other connections in scripture. But it says in verse 11, “They sang with praise and thanksgiving to the Lord, for he is good and his faithful love endures forever. His faithful love endures forever.” We see that as this repeated phrase throughout. There’s a lot of psalms. There’s some in Nehemiah. There’s some in, oh goodness, I want to say. Does my Bible have it? Yeah, 1 and 2 Chronicles. It’s a repeated phrase in Israel’s history of them – all over the Psalms.

Yeah, this idea of give praise to the Lord, his faith. I did not go look, so someone can check if – Terry, this might be – I didn’t bring my New American. The New American translation – It translates faithful love as loving kindness. It’s one of my favorite words in the Bible. It’s hesed. I don’t know Hebrew. I’m afraid to take Hebrew. But I do know that word. Is that what it is? Loving kindness. Okay. That word is just littered over scripture. I forgot to look that up last night. But I love that that’s what they’re praising. And they’re singing. They’re reminding themselves that is who God is.

Yeah. That’s a good question. Beautiful.

Solomon’s temple was legendary. Yeah. I would think yes, and both. That relief of finally we’re seeing us restored, but then grief of like, this is what we lost. I mean, this is, and now like this, I’m happy, but we know that this temple was not Solomon’s temple. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Focus on God’s present work. It is a warning to not let nostalgia or comparison rob us of celebrating what God is doing right now, even if it looks smaller or different than the past. And that really spoke to me, like, in our present situation. Yeah. Just being grateful for where we are tonight and what God is doing right now. It may look different than it did in the past or not as grand, but God uses the little things. Yeah. He can use anything. That’s a really, that’s a great word. Yeah.

And I think that also has so much truth because the reality is it’s not gonna be Solomon’s temple. It’s different. Like you can, I promise I’d stop using, the house is just too fresh for an example. The new house is obviously better. Like, it’s better. Like, it’s new. Like, I mean, the fact that HVAC, everything works the way it should, is a great thing. And, you know, there’s switches galore. We still don’t know what all the switches do. You know, we put a bathroom in the basement that we always hoped we had. I mean, obviously it’s better. But you still weirdly miss the old.

Because it’s not the house like, you know, our kids were adopted during COVID, so on our little TV in the living room, that’s where we had it plugged in for Zoom, because that’s where the, you know, judge did their thing. And like, that was special. And like, you know, where were the kids? I remember when they came home the very first day when like the social worker dropped them off. I mean, all of those, and again, they’re memories. You can still get to have the memory, but the house itself, it’ll never be the same. Like, even though the new one’s better, it’s still not your house.

A new house. It’ll get there. And I have to imagine on some level it’s like that connection, even though it’s radically different than a temple, that it’s, of course, they’re mourning. It’s the agonizing of, oh, this is not only the result of our sin, but we’re missing now and God’s doing something different. And it’s sometimes hard to see that the different is also good.

I had a friend in college who, she had this phrase, sometimes you have to give up what’s good for what’s great. And I don’t think that’s a flawlessly perfect phrase, but it’s an interesting thought in this case of sometimes what we assume is best or good enough might not actually be what God has for us. But we don’t see that, and so we can look back. There was a song I was going to quote, but I already quoted Caban’s Call last week, so we had to leave a couple weeks in between.

But it’s still, I love this. There’s a couple of questions before we need to move on to chapter 4. It says, where have you, the second one, where have you seen God use small, early steps of faithfulness to spark larger renewal? Think about times in life that you’ve seen just little acts of faithfulness that just compound and all of a sudden change things so quickly in ways that we just don’t expect. You don’t have to share, but hopefully you have a few in mind.

I can think back. This has been a long time. 2013-ish, when we were in the midst of pastor search for a long time, our church grew. It was incredible. We had… I don’t know if it, it wasn’t weekly, but it was at least like monthly little prayer gatherings. And like, we would come together and pray for our church, sing hymns and songs. Like it was, people were being baptized and were like, we don’t even have a pastor. I mean, it was, but it was just those that were, that were behind were like still plodding along and being faithful. It’s hard. But it changed things, and that was incredible.

I think we’ve seen that. I mean, Concord’s been through a lot over the last 70 years. 70 years, is that right? I think that’s right, 70, somewhere in there. There have been a lot of hard things, and the few who still are like, we’re still going to be faithful. We’re still going to keep moving forward. We’re going to do the next best thing. It’s made a difference, and it’s changed things. But I’ve seen that at school too.

I’ve seen that with teachers who don’t realize there’s a teacher who would be embarrassed if she knew I said this. She is probably the biggest encourager of kids, period. And not in like the rah-rah, like running down the hall high-fiving way, but like in the, she’ll make like, I mean, she’s so creative. She’ll make a giant wall on her hallway of like a tree at Thanksgiving and have kids write things they’re thankful for. It’s simple. But the number of kids who later are like, man, I went by Miss Gorline’s tree and there were so many things on there that I hadn’t even thought about being thankful for. It totally changed. I’m like, man, she has no idea. Like little acts of faithfulness like that that don’t seem like a big deal can change everything.

So hopefully we see those little things in life. Sometimes I think it takes slowing down enough and asking God to show us, hey, what are the little things? What are the little things that I can still be faithful in every single day? Because we live in a world that’s big, big, big, right? Everything has to be bigger and flashier and better. And we’re trying to compete with this and that. And they have a bigger, I mean, there used to be, I don’t like these cars, but there was a car commercial years ago.

And the ad was just different newscasters and people saying big, big. And it was like 20 seconds of people saying like big. And then all of a sudden like. I hope no one drives one of these. A smart car rolls by. Remember those? I mean, like, it could fit on this table. I mean, they were really little. Like, they look fun if you’re driving on, like, golf cart roads. Not, like, not with F-550s and stuff. Like, it just looks terrifying. And this guy in the commercial’s like, small. And that was their, you know, it was a clever ad.

But we live in a world that celebrates flashier and bigger and important and impressive. But, man. I love that God uses little faithfulness.

Yeah, Terry. Sometimes just being there for someone going through grief. Yeah. It means all the world. Yeah. It means all the world. I can think back so many times, and I wish I had time for more stories, but there are so many people who I can’t wait to thank someday because they did something that mattered. Like I had a – my first summer I worked at Canacuck out in Colorado, and 20 something years ago my co-counselor his dad was a pastor in Springfield and we were, we were partnered up didn’t know each other before and I don’t remember the conversation I just remember sitting on the porch of our cabin the last night before camp was over and whatever conversation we had kind of was a switch and just kind of changed trajectory and thinking about life and and I, I.

That was the first time I could remember my faith mattering versus just being the thing you did because you’d always done it. And so I ended up going to his dad’s church all the rest of college. I had to drive like 45 minutes to Ozark, Missouri from Bolivar. And it was great. But it was amazing. And I have since told him. He does not remember at all. But I’m like, Tim, I don’t remember what the conversation was. But that was a switch moment. That was a changing moment in life.

Those little things are the things that God loves to use, and they’re things that all of us can do, which should remind us all the more to not miss the opportunities, to not lean in when God puts someone on our heart or mind, that we do something with it, that we respond.

So the last question here, and any of you that love watching the clock can also remind me. Brian, got to keep it going. I won’t be offended, I promise. I work with high schoolers. You can’t be offended.

Why do you think God allows sorrow and joy to coexist in moments of spiritual renewal? It’s a great question, and it might just be one that you… What’s that? Can’t have one without the other. You can’t have one without the other. I mean, it’s…

There’s a prayer book we use as a family a lot. It’s called Every Moment Holy. Really beautiful, like prayers for all of life, like lovely. If you want the link, I’ll send it to you later. But there’s a prayer, and I think it’s called sorrow. In the prayer, it talks about sorrow being mingled with joy. And it’s this incredible reminder of how often that’s exactly the case.

You know, the most joyful things often come at the end of deep sorrow and hard seasons. And sometimes that’s what makes the joy all the more exciting and lovely is that the pain was so, so heavy. But so often, and that’s the beauty of being a believer in Jesus. So much of the world will say, like, everything is just junk. I’m angry. I’m frustrated. There’s too much fear and sadness and sorrow and all that. And it’s like, that’s all that my life is.

Christians know that I can have fear and sorrow and pain and hurt and still have joy from Jesus in the other hand. They’re not mutually exclusive. That’s a huge gift. And that’s the beauty of things being made new. You know, we know that where this is pointing to in Jesus.

Okay, before we… Okay, wow, that was 30 minutes. Okay. Um… Jesus, help us. Okay, so chapter 4. Chapter 4 has less verses, so maybe it’ll be better. Some of you are just discovering how quirky I am. Jim didn’t know what he was getting himself into. So, verse 1, chapter 4.

“When the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the returned exiles were building a temple for the Lord, the God of Israel, they approached Zerubbabel and the family heads and said to them, let us build with you for we also worship your God and have been sacrificing to him since the time of King Esherhaddon of Assyria brought us here.”

So, very quickly, and this is where there’s multiple things we could pull on threads here. Sadly, we don’t have as much time as I wish because I looked at the clock. But opposition comes quick. They’re doing God’s work. They’re being obedient to what they’ve been called to do. Yet, all of a sudden, the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the returned exiles were building a temple for the Lord, the God of Israel. Immediately, they get news, and they show up on scene.

And I think I missed this the first couple times I read through because they come in verse two and they approach Zerubbabel and his family and they ask them, let us build with you for we also worship your God and have been sacrificing to him since the time the king of Assyria brought us here. They did that a lot in those kingdoms. They would move people around to kind of keep control and and and also um assimilation is not the word but in culture doctrine and culture eight yep so they’ve been put here and they’re asking now let us come.

The first time i read that i mean what’s your reaction when they hearing them asked to help right that was my reaction too like what’s wrong with these guys like they just want to help build a temple too john i can tell you the thought. We worship your God. We don’t say your God is our God. There’s these like little clues. And we have the benefit of the beginning of verse 1 where it says the enemies of Judah came. So we can see too like they’re not who they say they are.

But the discernment had to have been up. Yeah, Terry. Is that the way it is today? Anytime you start doing something for God, Satan will hammer you. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Every single time. Because his goal is to steal and kill and destroy. Like, why would he allow great things to happen for God’s kingdom?

I like this part, and I’m glad you had the same reactions, because I read it and thought, man, rude? Like, that’s bizarre. But we have the benefit of seeing verse 1, but we also have the benefit of verse 5. I’m sorry, 4. Then the people who were already in the land discouraged them to make the move.

So they came and wanted to help. And then when they were like, no, we’re doing what Yahweh God has told us to do, and Cyrus gave us orders, then immediately it’s like the other face turns and it’s like, fine, we’re going to destroy everything you love. It’s so messed up, but it happens a lot.

Do you have a thought? I can tell. That’s why we have to be so tuned to God for the present. Amen. Amen. Because they probably weren’t really going to help. They were going to delay things and slow it down. So sometimes what really looks good, we have to depend on God for discernment. I think I have learned this lesson so many, and thankfully nothing is as catastrophic as this one.

Someone approaches you and has an offer, and it just seems like, wow, there’s really no downside here. And we all know the phrase, if it sounds too good to be true, it is. But also, there are times where you kind of wait, and you’re like, yeah, we could collaborate, we could work on it. And it happens at school, it happens with outside businesses who want to collaborate with us. I’ve seen it in churches, I’ve seen it in non-profits. And I’ve witnessed the results of us not pausing and praying about it before saying, yeah, okay, that sounds good. Because we just, we like to be nice. We live, whether you want to say Midwest or Upper South, whatever we are right here, we like to be nice. We don’t like to be mean. We don’t want to be rude to people. We.

It’s like, I don’t know if it’s a Midwest goodbye or like the Southern goodbye where like you stand up to say goodbye in like front door. And like you could have been sitting on the couch where it’s comfy for another hour. Instead, everyone stands by the door and keeps saying goodbye and talking forever. We just like being nice. So it’s hard to imagine this like this idea, but we have to be discerning. Even when it seems like it might be a good thing. We had to slow down. We had to listen. And we had to remember, what did God call me to do?

And that’s what they did. Thank God. They said in verse 3, “But Zerubbabel, Yeshua, and the other heads of Israel’s families answered them, You may have no part with us in building a house for our God, since we alone will build it for the Lord, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the king of Persia, has commanded us.” They stuck to what their orders were. One, from God, and two, because Cyrus had said, you guys go do this. So both of those two things were important in this.

There’s a question. We should go to the questions. It’s the first one. It says, why is discernment so important when help comes from people who don’t share God’s heart? Why is discernment so important when help comes from people who don’t share our faith, who are not brothers and sisters in this?

Because it’s easier to run bad things than good things. Yeah. I mean, this is the oversimplification of it. But we often will tell our kids at school, when we’re trying to build discernment, you are the sum of your five closest relationships. It’s very scarily true. Everyone’s seen the effect of having bad friendships and friend groups and neighborhood kids that you move away from. I grew up in a neighborhood with some of those kids. But my parents were really happy to move to Texas for a couple years.

Anyway, but discernment is so important because when we put ourselves around other people, they are going to impact us. I mean, it’s just inevitable. Like, they’re going to impact us, which is why choosing people who share the same faith and same passion and same direction matters enormously.

Yeah, Terry. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Pastors, you guys hear that? Like a guy that worked for Campus Crusade, he was shocked by the number of pastors who would accept Jesus in a crusade. Pastors, like work in churches, employed by the Lord, who didn’t really believe the gospel. It’s heartache.

I have not given this disclaimer, but I will give this disclaimer. And I should have done it last week, too. Anything I say, you should be checking with scripture. There should be nothing that you’re like, oh, Brian said this. No, don’t. You dare.

Okay. One of my all-time favorite movies. Well, I know at least one person has seen it. It’s called The Kingdom of Heaven. Anyone? We got two. The Kingdom of Heaven. It’s a very like, it’s a guy movie, but it’s, it’s.

The long story short is it’s during the Crusades in Jerusalem. The king of Jerusalem is actually a leper. And this young Frenchman finds out his father is a noble in the kingdom of Jerusalem. He goes and follows, and the dad ends up dying, so he takes over his father’s role. He goes to meet the king, and the king explains to him what his job is. And I’m not going to do a great job of this, so the two guys who have seen it can help you.

It’s amazing because the king tells Balian, who’s the main character, you know, a king may move a man, but he’s accountable before God. And he says, you cannot stand before God someday and say, oh, but I was told to do thus. He says thus, which is fancier. I was told to do thus. That doesn’t hold up before God. You must obey God and your conscience and stand before God on that, not because of what someone else said. So that’s my important disclaimer. Never forget that. I might say something that might actually be stupid. So it’s important that you check it with scripture because you’re accountable for that. I will be held accountable, which is another thing. It is a scary thought. Teaching means you will be held to a higher accountability, which is, ooh, Lord help us.

Second question there. Maybe third question. I know we can’t do them all. Let’s do third. What’s it reveal about our hearts when God’s work in our life hits a pause? Think about how you feel when those happen. Boom. Patience 101. It is so hard. We can know in our heads that God is working in the waiting. We can know that. But believing that sometimes is really hard. Even when we study scripture, it’s still hard. Because the waiting is just… Everyone likes to wait. And we really don’t like to wait now because Amazon ruined us.

Now I can order something that shows up at my house before I even get home from school. What a terrible, great thing. It’s incredible. I can log in on my iPad and I can zoom, zoom, have like 8 movies for my kids to watch on a car trip because I don’t know, something broke. It’s amazing and very annoying because it’s made us less patient.

There was something recently. I don’t remember what it was. My kids know. And those in my Sunday school class know, I probably buy too many books. I don’t care. There’s way worse things you could buy too much of. And my wife doesn’t mind, because then she can buy shoes. She’s going to be really not thrilled that I said that. She also sells the shoes she doesn’t love, so it’s fine. I say that.

There have been things that I’ve ordered that have taken like months to show up because they weren’t printed yet. Like it’s a book that, and it’s always funny because when a box comes in the mail for dad, the kids just assume, dad, did you get another book or a Bible? And you’re like, probably. So we’ll open it and pull it out and like, you know, inevitably Rissa’s reading the thing to see like, did dad spend too much money? And you’re like, it’s not your business, dear. Also, dad’s very thrifty.

But she’ll be like, dad, you ordered this in February. And I’m like, I know, honey, like I had to wait a while because it wasn’t printed yet. Like they had to print it and then mail and all. And she’s like, wow, that’s terrible. And I’m like, we’ve actually, we’re so mean. We’ve started watching the kids really. We were in California. Cable, we don’t have cable at home. We just have a few streaming things and kept it simple and kids safe. We were in California and we needed to watch something. So they would wind down from the beach and Murder, She Wrote was on.

And we’re like, well, Murder, She Wrote’s safe. Like, which by the way, there’s a few moments in there that you’re like, ooh, this was safer in my brain. Nevertheless, they’ve never experienced commercials. They’ve never had to wait. Like streaming services, you just click play and it goes, or you can skip commercials because we all have, I don’t know, DVR things now. I’m like, guys, most of my movies growing up as a kid on VHS had commercials because you recorded them off TV.

Anyway, so we’re not great waiters. And now I can look at it and go, wow. So we’ve actually started making the kids, they thankfully asked to watch Murder, She Wrote, but we watch the commercials now. So that way they know commercials are there. It’s kind of funny. What’s the old saying? I prayed for patience once and I’ll never do that again. I prayed for patience once and I will never do it again.

But sometimes when you get to the other side, you can see how God has grown you and mellowed you through that time. And I said I wasn’t going to do this, but there’s another Cademan’s Call song. It’s called Lead of Love. I’m just going to make everybody a CD at some point. You still have a CD player. But they talk about that idea that once we get ahead in life, you look back and you can see that lead of love, that God was working out these things that we just didn’t understand at the time. But it’s just, thank God that it does help us in the future, but it’s still hard.

You know, it’s still hard to look back and go, man, I missed that. And then we get into the next hard thing and we’re like, where are you, God? Why is this taking so long, God? And then you get out and you’re like, oh, well, okay. It humbles you over and over again.

Okay. Ooh, 720. Okay. That’s so much.

Okay. Chapter 5. We’re going to read. Oh, man. Okay. We’re going to read 5. It’s going to be great. All right. Chapter 5.

Verses 1 through 2, 3 through 5. You know what? We’re going to read 11 through 12. That’s if we have to hone in on one spot. So what happens? I’m going to summarize for us.

Verses 1 and 2, the prophets begin to work. In fact, I even wrote it down. So in case I had to do this, I knew myself. The building resumes in verses 1 through 2. Haggai and Zechariah are working through this. The building resumes. It’s really a great moment.

Then there’s opposition 3 through 17. So we’re going to read on your paper. It’s got 11 and 12. So we’re reading chapter 5, 11 and 12.

This is the reply they gave us. We are the servants of God, and we are rebuilding the temple that was built many years ago, which a great king of Israel built and finished.

In Babylon, the gold and silver articles of God’s house that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple in Jerusalem and carried them to the temple in Babylon. He released them from the temple in Babylon to a man named Shezbazar, the governor by the appointment of King Cyrus. Cyrus told him, take these articles, put them in the temple in Jerusalem, and let the house of God be rebuilt on its original site.

Then the same Shezbazar came and laid the foundation of God’s house in Jerusalem. It has been under construction from this time until now, but it has not been completed. So, if it pleases the king, let a search of the royal archives in Babylon be conducted to see if it is true that a decree was issued by Cyrus to build the house of God in Jerusalem, and let the king’s decision regarding this matter be sent to us.

In this moment, this is the reply that is given to the opposition that the Jews are facing. So the Jews are still seeing pushback. So this is where, like, we had to kind of pop around a little bit. The end of chapter 4 into chapter 5 is when things start to unravel. And the people that are there that we saw in chapter 1, chapter 3—sorry, wow—they are pushing back just like they said they would.

When they weren’t allowed to help, which we know they weren’t going to, they did exactly what they said they were going to do. And they send letters. They find ways to stop shipments. They do anything they can to frustrate the efforts. And they actually get it shut down for a season.

And then in chapter 5, we see this moment unfold where they respond and say, could the king look for these things? Because there really was a decree. And indeed, I mean, we know the answer of what happens. But chapter 5 walks through this, I would say, very courageous response to opposition, very gracious response to opposition.

There’s no putting down or name-calling. There’s no harsh words about these people that have made life very difficult for them. It is a respectful and godly response. And they don’t try to placate to the king. They don’t try to act like you’re our ultimate king. They still talk about the Lord of heaven and earth, and this is why we’re here, and this is what we’re doing. They’re honest, and they’re forthright, and they’re direct. And I love it.

And it ends with that. So if it pleases the king, let a search of the royal archives in Babylon be conducted to see if it is true that a decree was issued by King Cyrus, and let the king’s decision be sent to us regarding this matter.

So there’s a few questions. We don’t have a ton of time, naturally. I want to look at the 3rd question. I’m sorry, 2nd question.

What does it mean to trust God’s providence when the outcome is still uncertain? Everyone has lived this. At some point, you’re living in uncertainty. It might be big uncertainty. It might be little uncertainty. But we’ve all been in seasons of uncertainty.

So what does it look like to trust God’s providence even when the outcome is unknown? Because they don’t know what the king’s going to say. We do because we have the whole book. They didn’t. They’re still right here waiting for the king’s response. So what does that mean to actually, what does it look like to genuinely hold on to providence and hope and belief when we don’t know how it’s going to play out?

Do we give up? It’s hard. It’s hard. I mean, agonizingly hard. We can only imagine that, like, again, they chose the respectful, like we will honor the king, but we will also remind you that we serve the Lord, the God of heaven and earth. They choose the right route. It doesn’t make it easier just because they chose the right. Oftentimes the right path is not the easy path.

This is very, very dorky. You will have to forgive me. I grew up in the age when Harry Potter was a big deal. I think it’s a big deal again. But the books were coming out. Now it’s like shows and stuff. There’s not everything great in Harry Potter, but there was one line that I vividly remember. And the main professor was saying to Harry Potter, he was like, you know, there’s going to come a time when you have to choose between what is right and what is easy.

Which is amazing, common grace that there’s actually something redemptive in a Hollywood production. But that’s a great quote because we all face moments like that where we have to choose between what is right and what is easy. And sometimes choosing the right thing is not fun because you have to walk through the uncertainties.

It’s easier to—I didn’t put this in your notes, but like when we think of that very first question I asked, like what do we do in the face of opposition and fear? Some people are very big fans of, I call it ostriching. They just kind of stick their head in the sand and hope when they come up, things have settled, the clouds have moved away. It doesn’t always work out.

In fact, I actually don’t know many situations, if any, that that’s ever worked out long term. It just doesn’t because the problem still is there later. The fear, the opposition, the things that are uncertain, the scary nonsense that keeps them awake at night. So we have to hold on. And that’s really the charge of that question. You must remember with our minds and our hearts and the moments of fear and uncertainty who God is.

I’m not God. This is, I mean, I think it’s so important to write down stories of how God’s been faithful in our own lives. So then we can remember when we’re in those moments that are so slow, and agony, and we have no idea what’s going to happen.

We have these moments in our house all the time. Not usually as catastrophic as fires and foster care, but little moments. I have to often remind Clara, honey, God has been so good to us. We just have to keep walking forward. We will get through this. God has been good so far. I know that it’s terrible, and I don’t like it, but I just have to believe that he’s the same God who got us through that, and that, and that, and that before.

Um, and that’s, that’s where again, that’s where I think it’s so important to tell our stories and to tell people the way God has been good and faithful, tell our children and our grandchildren and our neighbors and anyone who will listen. I’m a really, I’ve become a big fan of this. Um, there’s been a very teeny tiny movement of people buying, um, I don’t have mine with me, like voice recorders, you know, the old ones that had a little baby tape inside. Now they have nice digital ones that you plug into your computer, but people have been buying them for their grandparents and great-grandparents and just asking them, will you just tell stories? Like, will you just start recording, start at the beginning, tell me all about, you know, grandpa and this thing that happened and all the way through.

And I’m like, I really like that. It wasn’t, I don’t remember ever, I mean, I know voice recorders existed when my grandparents were around, but it’s not, it wasn’t as common. I love that idea because then there’s still a little bit of a story left behind that they can pass to the kids before them.

So something to think about. Buy a digital voice recorder. Start telling stories. Leave it behind. Good Lord.

Okay. Let’s look at chapter 6. Because that’s when we have to. All right. So chapter 6, we’ll sum up, and we’re just going to read. I think 14 through 15 was my, like, absolute we have to read. But verses 1 through 5, Cyrus’ decree is found. You know, we see…

King Darius gives the order. They search the archives in Babylon. Babylon was very fastidious with details. They find the scroll and they read it. And they learned all of these things the Hebrews are saying are indeed true. So then Darius issues a decree in verse 6 that Tatanai, the governor of the region west of the Euphrates, leave the construction of God alone. Leave them alone.

Like, let them build. Let them rebuild this house of God. And he issues a decree. And then he also, it’s so fun. I love when God does this. The cost is to be paid in full to these men out of the royal revenues from the taxes of the region west of the Euphrates. So with your money now, this is going to be, I mean, like, it’s not, I mean, it’s just how neat God is. And that unfolds.

And then we get to this point where, which is a little less savory, a beam is torn from his house and he will be impaled on it. So it doesn’t go well for those that oppose the work of God. But we need to read 14 and 15. Yep, 14 and 15.

This is on your paper. So the Jewish elders continued successfully with the building under the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah son of Edo. They finished the building according to the command of the God of Israel and the decrees of Cyrus, Darius, and King Artaxerxes of Persia.

I just have to read 16 too. Okay. And they appoint priests and divisions of Levites. Like this is a tremendous day of celebration. But we see all of this unfold.

And what’s so neat about it is that not only is Cyrus’ decree found, it’s reinforced by Darius. Darius makes sure that it happens. He provides the funds to make sure that it will happen. And the temple is actually completed.

Like, talk about God’s providence. Again, we know there were years of waiting for this to happen, even after they went back. And they’re sitting there wondering, God, where are you? You’re the one who, you roused us. Remember we read that last week, like he roused their hearts to go back. And now we’re waiting again? Like, why? You made us do this.

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve had that conversation with God. Like, why? You made me do this. And it’s, we’re the same. But that’s it’s beautiful. And then they celebrate Passover. It’s a verse. Let’s see. 20 through 22. It’s a lot.

So the exiles observe the Passover on the 14th day of the first month. All of the priests and Levites were ceremonially clean because they’d purified themselves. They killed the Passover lamb for themselves, their priestly brothers, and all the exiles. The Israelites who had returned from exile ate it together with all who had separated themselves from the uncleanliness of the Gentiles of the land in order to worship the Lord, the God of Israel.

And they observed the festival of unleavened bread for 7 days with joy because the Lord had made them joyful, having changed the Assyrian king’s attitude toward them so that he supported them in the work on the house of the God of Israel. What a cool day. Like God unraveling and unfolding and working all the details out. Like the thread is incredible. It’s not a thread. It’s a rope connecting all these cool things.

So… Think about how God has provided for you in ways that were totally unexpected. Think about, like, hopefully there’s things that come to mind. How God has just provided for you in ways you never expected.

I did not think I would be a high school business teacher. Like, that was a career shift that I did not see. I also did not think I would be a youth pastor. I remember going to SBU, Baptist College, and saying, like, oh, the youth ministry majors are exhausting. I would never be a youth pastor again. You know what my first job was out of college? Youth pastor. God has a sense of humor.

But God provides in bizarrely unexpected ways. I didn’t want to move back to St. Louis. So K-Life is the full-time ministry of Kanakuk. Since I had worked at Kanakuk and had volunteered at K-Life all through college, that was where I applied to work and didn’t expect to get the job, and I did.

But the thing is about K-Life, they pick where you go. You don’t get to pick where you move to go work for K-Life because they just have one per city in like 20 cities. And when they called me, they were like, hey, so we have an interview for you with a city, but we’re curious what you think. They’re like, it’s St. Louis. And I’m like, ugh. I had just spent all of my summers living in Colorado, and I’m like, I don’t want to go back to St. Louis.

And they’re like, here’s the deal. We’ve placed people in St. Louis before, and St. Louis is really weird. And I was like, okay. And they’re like, you don’t get it because you’re from there, which is why we need you to go interview there because it’s weird. And I’m like, can you give me more? And basically what they were saying was like, we all know this. St. Louis is weird and clicky and everyone knows everybody. Like everyone’s connected by like 1 or 2 people off.

So kids who had showed up to work for Kirkwood K-Life sometimes would struggle because they didn’t understand the dynamic of St. Louis where everybody kind of knows everybody and we have all these weird neighborhoods. Anyway, it was great. Obviously where God wanted me and it was a great 4 years I was there. But all of these unexpected things, now I can look back and go, oh, that makes sense. Like, I can’t imagine it working out a different way. But in the moment, it was weird.

I hope that you have things that come to mind, too. This question is important to me, though. Like, we’re going to skip the middle one. Why is worship the right response after a long season of hardship? I did not mean to aggressively put 2 question marks there. That was a typo. But I think it’s appropriate. It was a little providential typo.

Why is it so important to worship? Why is worship the right response? It’s very clear. I’m really proud of you guys. You stuck with 3 through 6 in less than an hour and 5 minutes. Why is it so important? You can’t read this and not realize the worship was the right move. Because it reveals your heart to God. Yeah. It reveals our heart. I love…

I don’t know if I told you this last week. So the Devo I’m doing with my students this year, wait to do Devo’s is like in class and I enjoy it. I’m doing Romans 12, which is like probably top 3 favorite chapters of the Bible. And Romans 12 is the, you know, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And then it goes on through like living life as a living sacrifice. It’s my favorites.

And, but I always started every year with the verses right before it in 11. And because Paul is explaining this deeper truth of the gospel. And then his only response, the last, I don’t know how many verses it is, let’s say 5 verses of chapter 11 leading into chapter 12, is it’s doxology. It’s this beautiful moment of praise. And I’m like, that is the heart that God wants us to have, is that we’re so consumed with love and just for the grace and the mercy.

And that is our response. We can only worship when we see what God has done. And I love it. And Terry’s right. That’s why worship is the right response after a season of hardship. Some of you actually came over after the… Studs were up at our house.

We told people, like, hey, no pressure, but, like, anyone’s welcome to come over and write scripture on studs. And it just was the right thing. Like, we just knew, like, the house has been given a new – we have a new home and a new – it was weird. Moving back to where you lived before, and it’s very similar, but it’s not the – it’s very trippy. Just – I don’t recommend. But –

I loved, because it felt like this is how we can worship and thank God for what he’s done. Like, that’s a big deal. See?

I think, yeah, Sally’s right. Did you guys all hear? It’s a way of saying thank you. Thank you for what I’ve learned. Thank you for what you’ve done. Thank you for being faithful when I wasn’t. I think you’re right. It is. And it should be that response where it just kind of almost draws us to our knees of just…

Wow, like I can’t believe that’s what you did and I didn’t see it coming and I’m so glad. I know I have other examples of that, but there’s just so many good ones. Yeah, so, so many good ones.

Okay, at the risk of running out of time, I want to get to the last couple of questions because I like, I’m coming back to the initial question. I put it there at the very bottom. It says, what initially I asked, what do we tend to do in the face of fear and opposition? And now I phrase it there. So what should we do in the face of opposition and fear?

So this really goes back to the same question before we read through this. What should we do? Like we know human beings tend to fight or run or ostrich. I don’t know which one that actually is that fawning. Okay. I like ostriching. I know the others are all alliterations, but I like ostriching. We know we do those things. We know we avoid things that we don’t want to do.

But in the end, I think it’s really hard to not see an example in Ezra 3 through 6 of a better way. And I would submit that that better way is to be steadfast. To be resolute. Even when the emotions aren’t there, we still obey. And we obey out of love. We obey out of a deep understanding of what God has done for us before.

There’s a band I like a lot. Apparently I listen to too much music. They’re called the Arcadian Wild. They’re young. They’re in Nashville. But they have this song called The Storm. And it’s a really, really good song. It’s a good song, but lyrics are incredible. And he says in the song…

I’ve seen an evil that overcomes us all. The backs of good and wicked men are both against the wall. That idea that we all deal with trouble. We can’t escape trouble this side of eternity. And then he goes on to say, what then shall we do when we are destined for the dust? And then it kind of pauses. And then he goes, dig our feet into the earth and roll them sleeves up.

And I remember the first time I heard it, I didn’t catch the lyrics. You’re listening. The 2nd or 3rd or 8th time I listened to the song, I kept hearing the lyrics. And I would get choked up because I’m like, that’s right. That is what we do. The world is broken. The world is evil. The world pushes back on the work of God. The world will continually push back on those that want to be faithful.

And instead… We dig our feet in and we roll up our sleeves and we get back to work. And which I think beautifully ties in, I mentioned Romans 12. That’s the idea of like our lives are the living sacrifice. The way that we live, the things that we do. We don’t succumb to fear because we know at the other end, the best is always yet to come for those who believe in Jesus. The best is always yet to come.

There’s a phrase I sometimes will talk about with my kids at school. And I’m sorry I talk about that too much. I just spend a lot of time with them. I don’t know Latin, but I sometimes like Latin phrases because I think they’re fun. And it’s ora et labora, which means work and pray. Work and pray.

Again, I don’t know Latin, but I really love that phrase. I have a few Latin phrases that are in my room that I just really love. And when I think about this idea of what should we do in the face of fear and opposition and doubt and disappointment and misunderstanding and all of the above, ora et labora, work and pray. Roll up the sleeves, get back to it, and seek the Lord the whole time.

That’s why I wanted Ezra and Nehemiah. I just think it’s such a timely message for not just our church, but for the world, for our lives. God doesn’t place these things for no reason. But that’s that question I want to leave us with.

Terry, you have a thought. I think of Watchman Nee, the Chinese Bible scholar. He was put in prison supposedly for 15 years. They kept him for 20. And he died in 1952 in a labor camp in China for the communists. But he would not bow to the devil. He kept the little church going. And they tried him. Yeah. Yeah.

If you guys couldn’t hear, Watchman Nee was a Bible scholar in China from, was it from like late 1800s through the 50s? Somewhere. Okay. So it was, okay. 40s. Oh, that’s right, and then went forward. That’s right. And eventually was really just murdered in a labor camp. I mean, they purposefully persecuted him over and over again for his unwavering faith. But he’s a great example.

My kids love this show. It’s called Heroes of the Faith. I love that they love it. But it’s, you know, they’ve got… Oh, gosh. One of my heroes, like George Mueller, he was a guy that orphanages in England and Bristol in the 1800s. They’ve got Martin Luther. They’ve got St. Augustine. They have all these old church fathers and fathers.

They’re incredible. Like, Amy Carmichael’s there, Harriet Tubman’s there. There are great stories, and they’re all people who were resolute, and they still did the work God called them to, even though they were, by and large, incredibly persecuted. I mean, John Bunyan wrote the best-selling book of all time behind the Bible. Anyone remember what it’s called? Pilgrim’s Progress. Pilgrim’s Progress. And he was incredibly persecuted for it.

John Tendon. Tyndale. Translating the Bible into English was William Tyndale. I knew John wasn’t right. One of those names, Tyndale. These men were incredibly persecuted, but they did the thing they were called to go do. I’m sure they were still afraid, but yet they were faithful and obedient.

So I love this because I do believe we see a better way. We don’t have to succumb to fear. We don’t have to flee. We don’t have to fight. We can instead remain steadfast and keep walking forward. Roll up the sleeves. You know, what was it? Ora et labora. Work and pray and move forward. So let me pray.

Oh my goodness, it’s 7:44. We did it. Oh man, I can’t believe that. Wow. Okay, God’s good. Oh, Father God, thank you. Thank you for this hour, this hour to study your Word, a very rarely visited little book hidden in the Old Testament right between all of these stories. God, thank you for so much wisdom, for the mercy that you gave your people, and for the role that your providence played in restoring all these things. God, help us to be brave. Help us to be courageous. Help us to not succumb to fear, but help us to remain steadfast and resolute. Help us to genuinely work and pray. Help us to worship you in our work every single day. To be obedient to the things you’ve called us to. The big things, the small things, the things that seem insignificant that matter in your kingdom. God, we love you, praise you, and we ask all this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Alright, thank you guys. So next week, 7 and 8 is our reading, or our chapters. So way less to cover in one night. But I’m proud of everyone.