All right. Let’s go ahead and pray. Father God, help us tonight as we dig into the last couple chapters of Ezra. And honestly, we’re going to work through really hard stuff. So Father, give us wisdom. Help us to understand your heart behind the hard things that we’ll study. But more than anything, help us to understand our lives before you. We ask all this in your name. Amen.
All right, so you will find on your paper. So actually, I will say this, and you can weigh in. Since I can’t copy all the scripture anyway, and I have to end up, you know, just selecting chunks, I think what I’m going to do next week, since everybody’s got Bibles or Bible phones, Bible phones? Phone apps. Oh, thanks, Phil. I forgot about the door again. I think what I’ll do is, like, the page that has the discussion questions, go with a bigger font, but leave space if you are a note taker. And then we’ll just, I won’t copy the scripture over on that side. And then we can spread it all out. But if you hate that idea, you can tell me later. I will not be offended. It won’t change anything, but you can tell her. No, it won’t change my mind.
I work at a high school. It’s hard to offend someone who works at a high school. Are you high school or middle school? Elementary school. Elementary school kids are still sweeter. Yeah, high school kids, they’re perpetually rude. And if you say something like, you’re being terrible. You only care about yourself. They’re all like, oh. They’re like, why are you so offended? You’re the one being offensive. Anyway, it’s fine. Middle school is the worst. Middle school is also brutal. But weirdly, they don’t know where they belong. Yeah, they have endeared themselves to me because they’re so awkward and strange. There’s something sweet about it. But I don’t know.
OK, so if you notice on your on your handout, our topic tonight is the idea of holiness and the costliness of repentance. I probably could have come up with a better title, but that was where we landed today. But the question on the back says the initial question there in black. This is where we’ll land. This is a good, like, think about it, because we’re going to come back to it. How seriously do you take your own sin? How seriously do you take your own sin? Not in theory, but like, actually in practice, how seriously do you take your sin?
There’s a comment later in my notes, and I read it in a commentary, and the pastor who’s writing the commentary made the comment that oftentimes when you start really poking at sin, people get pretty edgy. But that’s unfortunately where we go tonight, so buckle up. The second question, what place does the pursuit of holiness actually hold in your daily life? And really that’s something that not many people might know because it’s the little acts of obedience. It’s the taking seriously the way that our thoughts wander, the things that we spend our time and attention and money on. They might be obvious to people close to us, but they also might not be.
So as we dig into the scripture tonight, those are the questions I want to kind of frame this with. Because what we’re going to see, Ezra has to deal with some really hard stuff. The people have been incredibly, honestly, evil. They have slipped right back into the bad habits they had before, and it just breaks Ezra. The sin of it just breaks Ezra.
So we’re going to go ahead and read chapter 9, and we’ll pause before we read chapter 10. We’ll kind of make that division tonight. So chapter 9 of Ezra. After these things have been done, the leaders approached me and said, the people of Israel, the priests and Levites have not separated themselves from the surrounding peoples whose detestable practices are like those of the Canaanites, the Hethites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, Egyptians and Amorites. Indeed, the Israelite men have taken some of their daughters as wives with themselves and their sons. So the holy seed has become mixed with the surrounding peoples. The leaders and officials have taken the lead in this unfaithfulness.
When I heard this report, I tore my tunic and robe, pulled out some of the hair of my head and beard and sat down devastated. Everyone, verse 4, everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel gathered around me because of the unfaithfulness of the exiles while I sat devastated until the evening offering. At the evening offering, I got up from my time of humiliation with my tunic and robe torn. Then I fell down on my knees and spread out my hands to the Lord my God. And I said, my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift my face toward you, my God, because our iniquities are higher than our heads and our guilt is as high as the heavens.
Our guilt has been terrible from the days of our ancestors until the present. Because of our iniquities, we have been handed over along with our kings and priests to the surrounding kings and to the sword, captivity, plundering, and open shame as it is today. But now, for a brief moment, grace has come from the Lord our God to preserve a remnant for us and give us a stake in his holy place. Even in our slavery, God has given us a little relief and light to our eyes. Though we are slaves, our God has not abandoned us in our slavery. He has extended grace to us in the presence of the Persian kings, giving us relief so that we can rebuild the house of our God and repair its ruins to give us a wall in Judah and Jerusalem.
Verse 10. Now, our God, what can we say in light of this? For we have abandoned the commands you gave through your servants, the prophets saying, the land you were entering to possess is an impure land. The surrounding peoples have filled it from end to end with their uncleanness, by their impurity and detestable practices. So do not give your daughters to the sons in marriage, to their sons in marriage, or take their daughters for your sons. Never pursue their welfare or prosperity, so you will be strong. Eat the good things of the land and leave it as an inheritance to your sons forever.
After all that has happened to us because of our evil deeds and terrible guilt, though you, our God, have punished us less than our iniquities deserve and have allowed us to survive. Should we break your commands again and intermarry with the people who commit these detestable practices? Wouldn’t you become so angry with us that you would destroy us, leaving neither remnant nor survivor? Lord God of Israel, you are righteous, for we survive as a remnant today. Here we are before you with our guilt, though no one can stand in your presence because of this.
So if you’re tracking, it’s a pretty heavy moment. This is a moment where… The people sin. Ezra has come back after a long journey from Babylon. God has blessed their journey back. And then they get to Israel and it takes time. This is a few months after they’ve arrived and they’re realizing what has been happening. And the people sin has completely wrecked them all over again. And these are the folks who just came back a few years before. They’re the ones who rebuilt the altar and reestablished worship. They rebuilt the temple. I mean, all these beautiful things have happened, yet they’ve still slipped into the same idolatry and same sins that they did before.
We see the first couple of verses, verse 1 and 2, that Ezra is, I mean, not only is this the people, but it says, let’s see, verse… It’s the end of verse 2. The leaders and officials have taken the lead in this unfaithfulness. So not only are the people given into the sin, the leaders and the priests are leading the charge and the unfaithfulness. I mean, it breaks your heart when you zoom out of this for a minute and you look at the whole of Scripture and you know what God wants for his people and you know the hope and the dreams and the goals he has for his people to be blessed so that they’re a blessing to the rest of the world. And this is what happens again.
I mean, it’s bizarre, and it’s bizarre, but it’s also the same human inclination that we have. We fall into the same traps. We do the same dumb things. So then in verse 3 and 4, this is when Ezra just, I mean, he rips his tunic, his robe, some of the hair of his head and his beard, and he just collapses in devastation because he’s genuinely grieved by their sin. I mean, completely grieved by their sin. And then we have, and we’ll come back to those four verses.
Six verses. But then starting in verse 6, we have this really long but very beautiful and very heartfelt prayer of Ezra. And so that’s that number of verse 6 through verse 15. I think I copied that on your paper. Yeah, I did. That part is it’s hard. But it’s so humble and honest and sincere. Ezra didn’t do these things. Ezra’s not the one who went back and married into a pagan family and started worshiping the same evil gods before. But because it’s his people, the sin grieves him completely. So we have that moment there, and he’s praying a prayer of confession despite the fact it was not his sin.
But he then goes on as we read, or we just read, he says in verse, let’s see, I didn’t mark down in my notes the verse. I’ll find it in a second. He makes the comment, this is the same problem of old. We’re committing the same old sins in a brand new way despite all the good things that God. Oh, here it is. Yep. I knew that if I stopped looking at my Bible and went back to it, I’d find it. Verse 10.
Then he goes on. Let’s see. Verse 14, should we break your commands again and intermarry with the peoples who commit these detestable practices? Wouldn’t you become so angry with us you would destroy us, leaving neither remnant nor survivor? So he’s admitting not only the heaviness of the sin, but we keep doing this over and over again. Why? We literally, we were sent into exile for doing these things. And now we’re back and we’re doing these things all over again. Just like, why won’t we learn our lesson?
Which is funny because many of you are parents, but like when you’re talking to your children, you’re like, why will you not learn this lesson? And then in that moment, typically is when the Holy Spirit clicks in and you’re like, why won’t you learn that lesson? Because it’s just the annoying way that the brokenness of sin has affected us. We still do the same foolish things, which is why what we see in Ezra’s response to all this is so good. It’s humble and it’s repentant, which is such a rare thing, but it’s beautiful.
So Ezra is, and I think I put this on your notes in purple. It’s not purple on your paper. I printed one in color at home and then I felt guilty because when you come make copies at church, there’s a sign over the copier that gives you like a guilt trip about, like, did you know that a color copy costs seven times more than a black and white copy? Then you’re like, yeah, I know. So then I felt guilty. So anyway. What’s that? That’s why I’m making the copies here. That’s fair. If my printer at home wasn’t so slow, I would have printed them all in color, but anyway.
Last time I tried that, it was like, I went back downstairs to my office. I’m like, oh my gosh, I printed these like 40 minutes ago. How are you still going? Anyway, home printers are not the same. But there at the top, under the black words, I put, Ezra 9 and 10 is really about taking sin seriously and pursuing holiness with intentionality. That is a very weird concept in 2026, about taking sin serious and pursuing holiness intentionally.
One of my favorite authors, and I don’t ever recommend any book completely and totally besides the Bible, but I love Andrew Murray. He was an English minister, 18-somethings. I want to say like 60s and 70s, but I could be wrong. And he had many great books, but Holiness, oh gosh, I don’t think the total title was Holiness. I’ll think of it later. But he had this line in one of his books, and it was, no one becomes holy on accident. Like, we don’t become holy on accident. We don’t. We like to think sometimes. It’s like, oh, but like, I’ve done the right things. No, like, you don’t become holy without the work of the Holy Spirit and some intentionality in how we live. And we see this very clearly in Ezra here.
So, that’s an important caveat. The thing that we will see, and we did not read 10 yet, most theologians qualify 9 and 10 of Ezra as important. I always say it backwards. It is descriptive, not prescriptive, meaning it’s descriptive of the heart we ought to have. It is helping us understand the seriousness God takes in. It is not prescriptive in the sense of like we should cast off people from our midst and be insular and cut off. So that was an important caveat. So we haven’t gotten to 10 yet, but it’s a heavy topic, so it’s important to remember.
The heart posture is what matters in this story because it’s descriptive of the heart God desires for us, not prescriptive of you must do exactly as the Hebrews did right here in this scenario. So we’ll come back around to that. But when we look at these, I’m sliding forward in my notes a little bit. There’s some interesting noteworthy things. So it says a couple of places. But for sure, in verse 14, when it says, And there’s another spot where it mentions detestable practices. It happens twice. Oh, I think it’s in verse 1. Yep.
The Levites have not separated themselves from the surrounding peoples whose detestable practices are like those of the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, and Amorites. And I think there’s a third time, too, he talks about detestable practices. So detestable practices in my heart, just I read that and go, oh, sin, like evil things that are not right in front of God. Well, no. This is where commentaries were very helpful and horrifying.
So there’s a gentleman who actually, he was from St. Louis, wrote a commentary on Ezra and Nehemiah. And another commentary I was reading referenced this one. It’s amazing. All the commentaries are really just re-quoting each other from different books, but it’s still helpful. The word abominations or detestable practices in Hebrew is toibot. I don’t know if I’m saying that right, but for whatever. But it’s much uglier. Like again, reading detestable practices is like the very kosher, nice way of saying horrible, horrible things.
The Steinman commentary, he mentions that that word in Hebrew actually means, it’s referring to blatant idolatry and bless you, and the abhorrent practices associated with it, such as child sacrifice and sexual perversions, including incest, homosexuality, and bestiality, which God deemed detestable and deserving of judgment. Whoa. Whoa. Like, it’s one of those moments, like, you can, again, I’m thankful sometimes when my Bible places it in a detestable practices. Because I didn’t even like typing that. But that’s the word’s implication, is that it’s not just, oh, we were worshiping our money again. Like, we were trusting ourselves. It’s like, no, you were doing the very worst of human things.
In the very place that God put you back after removing you for your sin. And so it’s heartbreaking. But that’s what sin is. And that’s why tonight is a little uncomfortable. I was, like, prepping notes the last few days, and I was like, oh, this was the week that I was kind of maybe dreading. But it’s really, really important. Because that’s exactly where we are. John, you have a thought. We do. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. It’s called what? Abortion. Oh. Yeah, that we have child sacrifice once again. I mean, it’s mind-boggling how we’re able to twist, and there’s no doubt in my mind, when they were initially confronted, I’m sure they had explanations. Like, or rationale for it. We are masters of justifying things. Have you ever bought something you didn’t need, and then you come up with a long list of all the reasons why this is so great? I mean, I hope everybody has. I hope it’s not just me. Otherwise, weird moment for me.
But I don’t, I’m not a, obviously, I’m not a fashion person. My wife is very beautiful and fashionable. I am more… I’ve dressed the exact same since high school. So not much changes. I still wear plaid shirts to school. But I say all that. I can justify buying a book. Really easy like it takes very little effort because you’re like oh, honey There’s a sale this website has a sale again on and but and Clara typically is like don’t care like it’s fine Buy your book, but it is still funny because it doesn’t take much for me to justify like oh I have that on my Kindle, but I don’t have the paper copy and my paper copies kind of Junkie that hardback I mean, but we can do that. We can also do it with bad things too. Not just books.
So we have to genuinely wrestle with our sin. And in this case, that really paints a vivid picture of how evil this had gotten and how quick it had gotten. There was also something, let’s see, verse 2. So if we reread. What in the world? Yeah. I wonder what they’re doing up there. They won’t eat me, I guess. You know, we have like very large rodentia in the ductwork. That was bizarre. Yeah. Mysteries.
So we see in verse two, indeed, the Israelite men have taken up some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons so that the holy seat has become mixed with the surrounding peoples. The leaders and officials have taken the lead in this unfaithfulness. Every single commentary I read reminded this was not a racial phobia, but it was a religious phobia. It was a matter of you have continually been around. You were supposed to, back in Exodus and Joshua, clear the land of the people that God knew would pull you away from worshiping him wholly, and you didn’t. And then they remained, and they continually caused trouble ongoing forever.
I mean, even Solomon, who was the wealthiest, wisest man to ever live, continually kept taking wives from the surrounding towns and countries that were pagan, and that led his heart astray. Like, it’s the same story over and over again. So every commentary I read said that. It said, like, you’ve got to remember, it’s not about who the people were. It’s about the fact that they were people that were leading them astray, and they continually wanted to be just like them. Over and over and over again.
So let’s see. So many good things that were in here. OK, verse verse seven. Verse seven. Our guilt has been terrible from the days of our ancestors until the present. Because of our iniquities, we have been handed over along with our kings and priests to the surrounding kings, to the sword, captivity, plundering, open shame, as it is today. It’s the same old boring sin. We’ve said it before, but it’s the same thing they keep falling into.
One of the commentaries I read, I don’t know if I told you guys the story. Do I have it with me? I think I do. Yep. Okay, I bought this book this summer. This is what I do in my free time. When I don’t have a seminary class, I find other books. It’s very dorky. But I got this book, and we were heading to California with the kids, like, end of July. And I was packing it, and I’m looking at it one day, and I’m like, Dale Ralph Davis. And there’s a guy that teaches Bible at my school named Luke Davis. And I don’t know why I bought the book. Like, it had been sitting on my desk for a month. And I was looking at it, and I was like…
Reading the intro, I’m like, could this guy be related to Luke Davis at school? And so I hop on Google and look real quick, and it was his dad. And it just blew my mind. So I emailed him right away, and it was summer, so he didn’t email me back for like five weeks. But it’s been – man, if you’re bored and you like to read, I highly recommend it because he takes a very quirky approach, and some of the insights he comes up with are just incredible. But he’s written other books. I had read some of his other books and had zero idea that I worked with his son, which is pretty cool.
Nevertheless – he makes this comment in his notes. He said, they were called to be holy and distinctive and set apart. That’s what they were called to be, period. But it seems as though they had an allergy to it. Like they had an allergy to being holy and set apart. They didn’t want to be distinctive. You know, if you remember, way back, they had judges and they had prophets, but they wanted a king like all the countries around them.
Hi, honey. Cool. Love you. That was number 2.
But we see over and over again Israelites struggle because they want to be just like all their neighbors. They don’t want to be holy and set apart. Even though they’ve been told what to do and how God’s rhythm and order is best for them, they still crave and lust after what everybody else has. Should feel kind of familiar for us, so he makes that comment that they didn’t want to be distinctive or different, but they prefer to blend and mesh with the trappings of their culture. And then he said this, and I like bolded it because it’s so good: “It’s hard to be holy because holy does not necessarily depend completely on us; it also depends upon the Lord.” But that means we’re learning to depend on the Lord and obey and walk in his ways. Which means not only is it hard to be holy, it’s hard to be holy because you’re probably going to be weird.
And that’s the reality they’re contending with. And I will submit, that’s the same reality we contend with in 2026. The more we want to be like Jesus, the more we’re going to be holy and set apart, the more we’re going to be odd. And that’s a hard feeling. No one really wants to be the weirdos in the neighborhood. No one wants to be the weirdo in their family. No one wants to be the one that’s kind of off to the side. Nobody wants that.
But we have to decide: do I want to blend in, like, how did he say it? Blend in with the trappings of our culture, or do we want the things of God? We have to decide. Working in high school, you have to see this. How many kids would stand up when we found out? Very few. Very few. Even in our society, we’re geared to, you want to be like everybody else. You don’t want to be the one that…
We all kind of quietly laugh about it at school. Laugh not at, but laugh just in general. We call it the Westminster girl look. And they all straighten their hair. They all kind of dyed about the same colors. It’s really hard for the first month of class to remember their names because they all look the same.
And it’s like, you have a girl in class with curly hair and you’re like, “Thank you so much for not straightening your hair. Like, I know your name.” It’s, but because they just, they so desperately, like they’re, because they’re not, honestly, they’re not secure in who they are. So they’re desperate to just blend in. Or at the very least, like, not call attention to themselves. I mean, it’s the same in grade schools, same in middle school, high school, sometimes the same with adults. Like there are many who just, “I want to blend in. I want to stay in the background. I don’t want to stand out.” But yeah, we do kind of laugh, like not at them, but just the irony of how hard it is to tell their names apart because they all look the same. And even worse, they’re wearing uniforms. So like you can’t even depend upon like, “Oh, you wear the red jacket every day.” It’s like, “Oh man, you’re all wearing the same skirt. Like I can’t tell you apart.”
Um, there’s a couple of girls in my 4th hour. I’m not totally sure if I know which one is which yet. Um, I know which names belong to the 3 of them, but they all sit together and yeah, we’ll get there. I purposefully have assignments where they have to present. So they have to introduce themselves again. So I can, anyway. Um, so we see Ezra, like it’s such a cool thing.
Because I think it’s easy to look at Ezra’s reaction. Like if you go back and look at 3 and he says, “When I heard this report, I tore my tunic and my robe. I pulled out some of the hair of my head and beard and I sat down devastated. Everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel gathered around me because of the unfaithfulness of the exiles. And I sat devastated until the evening offering.” And then he lays prostrate again when that happens.
So, do you think, does it feel like in our world today, the modern world, maybe he’s overreacting a little bit? I mean, does it seem like an overreaction? I think if it happened today, I think we’d look at it and go, “Whew, easy tiger. Like, take a breath.” Like, I think we would. I can’t help but think they might have, too, because they’re the ones living in the sins.
So watching this person lose their cool and be grieved completely over the sin of the people probably struck an uncomfortable chord. Despite the fact that he’s in charge, despite the fact that he’s the one that’s, you know, come back to the city and is going to direct people back to the word of the Lord. You just can’t help but think that there was an awkward quiet that sets in pretty fast. And I think that that’s a fair reality of when we deal with this.
So, before I get too ahead of myself, I tried dividing questions up a little bit by sections, and then I failed horribly because we just started reading, but that’s okay. The first couple verses, though, this is where we have, and I wrote in the notes, like the report of intermarriage, the covenant compromise with unions, and they’re practicing pagan things. So that first question there, why does Israel keep repeating the sentence?
Why do I think that’s the right question back? Why do we, why do we, you know, it’s like parenting is interesting, as many of you know. And I think when I have conversations, hopefully she doesn’t listen to this. Rissa is currently probably our hardest. Like Jack has had his moments, um, bears a wild card, but Rissa right now, like is just our hardest. And, and it,
Every parent knows. Like, it’s just… You get one, and it’s like whack-a-mole. Like, you get one under control, and then it never fails. But even this morning, like, trying to have a conversation with her via FaceTime, because I get to school before they’re awake. And… But I try to at least say hi to her on the phone for a few minutes. She was really having a hard time. And, like, everything was mom’s fault. Like, her eggs weren’t right. Or her mom was mean because mom is doing my… Mom won’t let me do my hair. I mean, just…
Things that you’re like, “Oh, these are silly things for you to lose your mind over.” But to her, they were important. And in the end, and the moms in the room all know, it’s not like that’s ever fun in the morning. You’re like trying to get everybody ready for school, and that’s the battle. So dad’s trying to rein this back in. And with her, like, I have to keep having the conversation with her again and again of like, “Sweetheart.”
You can’t just say you love Jesus and let that and let dad kind of calm you down. You have to continually over and over again to remind yourself, “I can’t fix my mistakes like only Jesus can do this.” And I thank God in the moment, probably Holy Spirit said it more cohesive than that. But it’s easy for her and it’s easy for me. And I think it’s easy for all of us to get in the habit of “I got to pull myself up by my bootstraps and I got to fix this.”
And there’s an element of truth in the sense of like, yes, you do now need to be obedient to what God said. But the only one who can change a heart isn’t ourselves, but Jesus. So in this case, like this is a, you know, we think about this idea of like, why do they keep repeating the same sin? Like, why do we keep repeating the same sin? Well, just like the conversation with Rissa this morning, like it reveals the fact that we can’t do it on our own.
We just can’t. Like the only thing that can, and this is beautiful because it points us to Jesus. You know, it’s neat when scripture and all of scripture does it in its own way, but it looks forward to the redemption found in Jesus. That’s an amazing gift. So we’ll skip to the 2nd or the 3rd question here. It says, what influences shape us? I think sometimes to understand the things that draw us or pull us, we have to genuinely figure out like, you know,
What relationships or what environment or like where am I putting myself that is like helping divide my loyalty from the Lord? It’s not a fun question, but it’s an important question. Because it’s many, many things. And it looks different for, honestly, everyone. Sometimes it’s the media we consume. I mean, I…
And I tell you what, that conversation with high schoolers comes up all the time because they watch trash. I mean, like, the very worst things. And listen to terrible music. And then they’re really, like, appalled when I have never seen those things. You’re like, “One, I don’t remember the last time I really watched a show show.” Like, maybe every blue moon you restream a show that you saw 10 years ago that you wanted to rewatch because you can fall asleep and not be sad. The things that influence us, just there’s, oh gosh, I don’t remember if it was Dale Carnegie, there was somebody who said the concept of “you’re the sum of your 5 closest relationships.” I don’t remember if it might… it was somebody like that who wrote lots of like businessy books, and he’s right, like I can see it. We literally talked about this today in class. If I were to pluck a kid out
and set him in the corner, just status quo, with a bunch of kids who were kind of quirky, pretty good students, maybe played intramurals, but well-behaved, he would adapt to that friend group. If I plucked the same kid and put him with, I don’t know, mean girls, he would adapt to that friend group. We’re the sum of the people that we’re around, whether we like it or not, which is why we always tell kids, you’ve got to be so careful, especially going off to college, who are the people you make friends with?
Because they will become, I’m sorry, they’re the people you will slowly become. Purity, relationships, friendships, time, money. Like there’s so many things that influence us without realizing that they influence us. You know, one of my marketing class today we were talking about
how psychology shows up in marketing, which is actually a pretty fascinating topic. If you ever want to talk about it, let me know. But we were talking about mere exposure effect, which for marketing psychology, and I’m not a psychologist, so don’t assume I know what I’m talking about. But with mere exposure, the general idea in marketing is the more you see something, the more favorable impression you have of it.
So if you see, like, I don’t know if you remember seeing Timu ads when Timu kind of came out. It was that website that was selling Chinese stuff that was like, live like a billionaire. Like, they were everywhere. I mean, you couldn’t hop on the internet or watch TV or open a phone without seeing an ad for Timu. And maybe it’s Timu. I don’t know how you say it. But is it Timu? Timu. Timu? Timu. Timu? Okay. They sell everything.
Yeah, that’s what the kids said today. They were like, “Oh, Mr. Malloy, they’re still everywhere.” But for the idea of mere exposure effect, the more you see it, the more it conditions you that, “Oh, it must be good.” Which, when we think about what influences us, it doesn’t take a lot. We are easily influenced if we’re not constantly going back to the word to remind ourselves what is right and true. We are easily influenced.
Let’s see. There was one other thought I didn’t want to miss. When we look at 3 and 4, though, we can look at those questions because I think these are fun questions, too. 3 and 4 is Ezra’s grief and shock. Like where he just he rips his beard, his clothes. He is grieved by the sin. So that first question, why does Ezra respond with grief? And the 2nd part of that question is like, what does this posture teach us about the seriousness of sin?
When he overreacts, maybe, or reacts appropriately, what does that tell us about the seriousness of sin? What do you think? It’s serious. It’s devastatingly serious. It’s life or death serious. I have a visual. Oh. That’s how I felt about sin. Uh-huh.
Ooh, I like that. It is utterly baffled. Ooh, that’s good. I like that. Yeah. I mean, just completely, utterly baffled. I like that.
I mean, it’s just that idea of completely overcome with grief. I mean, and I think what it should, and we can look at the 2nd question, because this kind of is where I’m going. How do we then respond to our own sin? How do we respond to our own sin? And there’s a few samples of, like, some people’s instinctive response, and I think, unfortunately, we see this more often than not, defensiveness. We start coming up with excuses.
Like, “You don’t understand,” or “It’s misunderstanding.” We play the defensive game really fast. Sometimes it’s the minimization of, like, “It’s not a big deal. Like, we’ve got this under control. Everyone’s heard these things.” That’s why it’s weird. Avoidance. There are a lot of people, I call it ostriching, which, you know, the idea, Bill got it, like sticking your head in the sand and just kind of hoping that, you know, things clear by the time you come up for air.
And there probably are more reactions. I just wrote 4. But the last one I put then is, or grief. Gosh, our sins should grieve us. I think I said this to my Sunday school class a few weeks ago, so I’m sorry if it’s true. There was a, I think it was 3-ish weeks ago, and high school kids do dumb stuff. We all know they do. Like, everyone knows high school kids do dumb stuff.
And apparently, I try to really stay out of the news. Ignorance is bliss sometimes. But I found out, unfortunately, that a lot of seniors went to a very stupid party. And it was just, it broke me. I mean, like I came home and I was still upset about it. Like the whole, and it wasn’t, it was because I, one, I love those kids. Like even the knuckleheads that are, I actually kind of like the knuckleheads more than the others because they’re the ones everybody kind of wants to push out. But they’re entertaining. But it still breaks your heart when they sin a bit. Like, and I know they’re humans. Like we all sin.
But it just, man, like, but it grieved me. It wasn’t my sin. But driving home, like, I actually got home. And I had to kind of check myself before I walked into the house. Because I knew I wasn’t in, like, happy dad, like, happy to come home space. I was just devastated. I was utterly baffled. Like, why in the world would good kids do this? People have no idea the mental toll of being a teacher. Seriously. Seriously. You can’t just leave it at work.
It’s so hard. I mean, that’s why I started going to school for counseling. Because I honestly was like, well, at least if I go get a master’s in counseling and maybe I can be more helpful. I don’t know. Like, we’ll see if that helps. But tell the kids that they’re sinning. They probably will avoid you. That’s true. That is true. I will say, now that I have my cohort in the business department,
We wanted to hire a lady for years, but we just haven’t had any good ones that had applied. And we… This lady, she actually, there used to be a cupcake place downtown called the Cupery. Or Cupcakery? Cup. Something like that. She was the half owner of it for years and years. And she has 3 adopted daughters. And then when her first daughter was born, she was like, “I got to step back. I know I’m going to be a workaholic. I got to lock in.” And then she owned an interior decorating business so she could kind of work as schedule allowed. And when she, she had lots of Westminster connections. And when she came, it was just like,
immediate click because we both are a little ADHD but like very entrepreneurial and excited about new things. I say all that, she gets so much girl drama. I mean, it’s just I sometimes have to go save her from the girl drama where I’m like, “Hey guys, Mrs. P needs to come over to a meeting, so can we table,” because it’s just non-stop. But poor thing, it wears her out too. But sin should grieve us. Like our sin should grieve us. The sins of others should grieve us. That should be our response because that was Ezra’s response. Because sin isn’t okay.
So we see all that happening. When we look at, I’m not going to reread the whole prayer, but from verse 6, all the way through verse 15, we have the beautiful prayer of Ezra where he’s confessing and he’s recounting Israel’s history. That was verse, I think, 7. “Our guilt has been terrible from the days of our ancestors until the present.” And then he goes on and he starts to talk about God’s mercy. And he mentions it many times. Like, “God has given us a little relief and light to our eyes.” In verse 9, “Though we are slaves, our God has not abandoned us. He extended grace to us.”
So you have this unfolding of Ezra, and I would argue he’s trying to reckon with and make sense of the great evil that has come. And so, in very, very wise direction, he’s grieved, and what’s the first thing he does in his grief? He goes to the Lord.
He doesn’t try and manipulate, doesn’t try and take it to his own hands, doesn’t try and come up with a 5-step plan to solve this problem. He is grieved deeply, and he goes straight to the Lord in utter sincerity and very humble honesty. Not even his sin, but he’s going to the Lord with that kind of humility. I love it. So the questions I jotted down there. One, where do we make excuses?
Where do you tend to soften or justify your sin instead of confessing it plainly? That might be a question you have to think about for a while. I don’t know that that’s a question. I think it’s just one you’ve got to shoot on. Because we don’t necessarily in the moment know, “Oh, well, this is exactly what I do.” But what were you going to say, Bill?
I was going to say, I think sin should blacken the way. Yeah. Yeah, it’s kind of like the spectrum. Can you imagine, though, if you turned around and said, like, “Do you want me to sin in this moment? Like, do you want me to, like… I just don’t feel…” I think people don’t have problems with little white lies, even though a little white lie is no different than the bank teller who stole thousands of dollars was lying about it. And I think that’s what, even back in this time, we married into these other people. But we’re still doing the temple stuff. What’s the big deal? They think there’s a lot of…
That’s a really good point. A lot of people rationalizing. Yeah, their sin. That’s a really good point. I think you’re right, because they… I’m sure in their minds, like, “We’re still doing the temple stuff. Like, just because we married some of the locals, I mean, it doesn’t mean, like, we’re not still doing the Yahweh thing.” And what if we convert them? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s always up there. It’s…
The 2nd question we kind of already have delved into a little bit, but it’s, you know, how does confession restore worship? Well, the hope would be, because we know sin separates us from God, but yet when we confess our sins, he’s faithful and just to forgive, and it restores and reopens the relationship. It doesn’t mean there’s not still some natural consequence, but… it does still put us back to where we can approach the throne of grace in a, in a new way. Um, I don’t know. It’s a, this is a heavy topic and it’s not one that’s, that’s, I don’t think it’s one people love to study because it’s studying passages that dig deep, deep into this idea of, of our ugliness and our sin tend to like the commentary said, it makes people squirm. Um, but in the end, what we really see in Ezra 9, um,
it’s revealing Israel’s unfaithfulness, but it’s also pointing to Jesus because we can read chapter 9 and go, “Wow, this is why we needed Jesus.” Like this was something that they could not do on their own. No amount of temple and altar sacrifice was ever going to help change their hearts. It might be good outward behavior, but it was never going to be a real heart change, which is really cool. So on that note…
Any thoughts on 9 before we pivot to 10? Okay, let’s pivot to chapter 10. Okay, so you do have in your notes, there’s a nice summary of all of this. The parts that we’ll really go back and look at more are 10 through 17, but we’ll read through that point.
Chapter 10, verse 1. “While Ezra prayed and confessed, weeping and falling face down before the house of God, an extremely large assembly of Israelite men, women, and children gathered around him. The people also wept bitterly. Then Seconiah, the son of Jehiel, an Elamite, responded to Ezra, ‘We have been unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women from the surrounding peoples, but there is still hope for Israel in spite of this. Therefore, let’s make a covenant before our God to send away all the foreign wives and their children according to the counsel of my Lord and those who tremble at the command of our God. Let it be done according to the law. Get up, for this matter is your responsibility, and we support you. Be strong and take action.’”
Then Ezra got up and made the leading priests, Levites, and all Israel take an oath to do what had been said. So they took the oath. Ezra then went from the house of God and walked to the chamber of Jehonan of Elishab where he spent the night. He did not eat food or drink water because he was mourning over the unfaithfulness of the exiles.
They circulated a proclamation throughout Judah and Jerusalem that all the exiles would gather at Jerusalem. Whoever did not come within 3 days would forfeit all his possessions according to the decision of the leaders and elders and would be excluded from the assembly of the exiles. So all the men of Judah and Benjamin gathered in Jerusalem within 3 days. On the 20th day of the 9th month, all the people sat in the square at the house of God, trembling because of this matter and because of the heavy rain.
Then the priest Ezra stood up and said to them, “You have been unfaithful by marrying foreign women, adding to Israel’s guilt. Therefore, make a confession to the Lord, the God of your ancestors, and do his will. Separate yourselves from the surrounding peoples and your foreign wives.”
Then all the assembly responded loudly, yes, we will do as you say. But there are many people, and it is the rainy season. We don’t have the stamina to stay out in the open. This isn’t something that can be done in a day or two, for we have rebelled deeply in this matter. Let our leaders represent the entire assembly. Let all those in our towns who have married foreign women come at appointed times together with the elders and judges of each town in order to avert the fierce anger of our God concerning this matter.
Only Jonathan, son of Ashael, and Jazaziah, son of Tikva, opposed this, with Melchulam and the Levites supporting them. The exiles did what had been proposed. The priest Ezra selected men who were family heads, all identified by name to represent their ancestral families. They convened on the 1st day of the 10th month to investigate the matter. And by the 1st day of the 1st month, they had dealt with all the men who had married foreign women.
Okay, does that strike anybody else as harsh? Yeah. Like, if there is 1 chapter I have not been looking forward to teaching since we started Ezra and Nehemiah, it was the one where all of the women and children get sent away. Because our own heart and mercy hates it. It hates it. But lest we forget, every commentary I looked at, this is a descriptive passage of scripture, not a prescriptive passage of scripture. So the heart behind this is what we have to try and look at. So the first few verses, Ezra is laying out the corporate, the conviction of what everyone has done.
That you have continually married into families that worship evil, demonic, pagan gods over and over again. You’ve done these things. And then 2nd Naya proposes a covenant to address this. So it says in verse 2, 2nd Naya, son of, I can’t pronounce these names, responded to Ezra, we have been unfaithful by marrying foreign women, but there’s still hope for Israel in spite of this.
So even in the midst of their sin, he knew that repentance could still happen. I will say this before we really dig into it anymore. Sometimes repentance costs us a lot. It just does. Sometimes repentance is not just an emotional feeling. It’s actually something we have to walk out.
Does not mean we need to send away our wives and children. But it does mean that it’s not. This is where Dietrich Bonhoeffer talked about cheap grace versus costly grace. Well, Jesus died. It was costly to give us the grace that we needed to be saved. I would say, likewise, this is costly repentance. When their sin is so great, it’s not just something that can be wiped away with a few words and a smile.
Like, it takes follow-up. We say this to our own kids all the time. You can’t shove your brother down the stairs, or maybe not stairs, but shove him down and then be like, oh, I’m sorry. Like, you have to stop shoving him down the stairs. Like, you have to walk this thing out. Otherwise, your sorry feels fake. Like, it’s just not real. If you’re going to do that, you have to stop now, or at least try. Just because you’re sorry.
That’s right. And that’s costly repentance. Just because you’re sorry does not mean you don’t have consequences. And that’s happened with the kids before. That’s happened with us before. Like that’s happened with every human on some level. And unfortunately, that’s what we’re seeing in this chapter. That’s a very hard chapter to read. So not only is Ezra assessing the situation and then Shekinah proposes this idea, then the assembly gathers, verses 5 through 9.
They all show up in Jerusalem. Everyone has to come to the city together. And the suggestion is proposed that people agree to deal with it. Like in this moment, they realize their sin and they actually want to deal with the problem. They don’t want to avoid it. They don’t want to delay. Like they want to deal with the problem, but it’s pouring down rain. And I mean, my gosh, standing outside in the rain for weeks on end, sorting this thing out, probably asking for pneumonia. So, there is the request made, and I think it’s in verse 10. Like, can we, oh, verse 9. No? Sorry, 12. This isn’t something that can be done in a day or two, for we have rebelled terribly in this matter. Let our leaders represent the entire assembly. Then let all those in our towns who have married foreign women come at appointed times together with the elders and judges of each town in order to avert the fierce anger of our God. This is kind of neat.
Because the decision is not centralized on Ezra. It’s not everyone coming. It kind of reminds me a little bit of Moses when he was judging for everyone. And then Jethro’s like, you’ve got to stop. You have to have individual family heads, like chiefs, handle these issues. You can’t handle everyone’s issues.
Ezra, thankfully, the suggestion is wise that comes from the people. Like, let us go back to our towns and villages, appoint elders and judges in each town. They know us. They know our wives, the kids. They understand the complexities of all this, and we’re going to deal with it. It’s very cool. I have to commend them in this moment. Like, they’ve done great evil, but they don’t want to remain in their evil. They want to stop it and then repent and change their way. Again, descriptive, not prescriptive.
This is hard because we see the hardness of what’s being asked of these women and children. But we see the description of this is the heart God wants for our own sin. We should deeply want to deal with it, be aware of it, cut it off, and then change way going forward. That’s how we deal with our sin. So the people commit to this very costly remedy. And honestly, it’s pretty amazing that that’s their response.
And I read this in one of the commentaries, and I don’t remember which one now. In some ways, we can look at how hard this is, but when we read like 12 through 16, 17, I think there’s kindness in it being slow on purpose. It’s not like, nope, go away now. Like it’s not a, we’re standing here in the rain talking about it, just send them on their merry way. It’s like, no.
It takes time to untangle some of this that we’ve done. There’s kids involved. There’s wives involved. There’s things that have happened. And benefit, the elders and judges in each of these towns would know the nuance of these situations. Just because one of these guys married a foreign wife doesn’t mean she might be worshiping Yahweh faithfully now. But just a giant blanket chop off and send away doesn’t would eliminate any of the nuance. So there’s something special. And again, I don’t remember a commentary said this. There’s something special when we look at this because they were wise and thoughtful enough to say, okay, go back, meet with your own elders and judges in your own towns. They know your families. They know the nuance of all these situations. And then we can deal with it case by case.
versus just a blanket edict that would be very harsh. So in a neat way, I still hate it. The kid and wife thing really gets at me. But I get the heart of what they’re trying to do. We have to get rid of the sin in the city. We have to get rid of the sin among God’s people. Let’s unravel it wisely and rightly. We’re going to deal with it, but we’re also going to handle it with care and nuance. Yeah.
And that they finish the first day of the first month. Yeah, so that’s… On which calendar you’re looking at 3 months. Right. 2 to 3 months. Yeah. That it took to go through all. Yeah. Somewhere I read that… So we didn’t read it, but like 18 through 44, where it lists off all the people. Someone did the math. And… Based upon that time, they said the math would equate to like 1.5 cases a day being worked through. Which again, this is horribly difficult, but what a blessing that’s like, we didn’t just rush this and do it poorly, we gave it the care that it deserved. This translation says December 15th and finished by March 15th. Okay, so right there about 3 months then, yeah. Which is, that’s a long time, but again, this is a very hard thing, and that should remind us too.
Sometimes unraveling our sin is not as easy as just, again, saying sorry. Sometimes it takes work. Everyone knows that. When you’ve broken someone’s trust, it’s not like when they come and apologize, all of a sudden you’re back to 100% trust again. Like, it takes time to rebuild that. I say that to high school kids way more than you think I would. Be like, you just lost 15% of my trust. Good luck. And they kind of look at you like, oh, no, did I? And you’re like, yes, you just lied to me. Like, why would I trust you? You just lied. Like, you have to earn it back now. But I joke with them to try to make it light. That’s true. It is really hard to trust when something like that has happened. But it takes time to rebuild.
There’s a few questions that I put in this section. The 10 through 12 is when Ezra is kind of calling them to repentance and the people agree to this. So the first question there is, why is the solution so costly? Why does repentance sometimes require painful change? We’ve talked about that, but any other thoughts? Why does repentance sometimes cost us? Why isn’t it just saying sorry?
There’s consequences and we have to change. A number of times I’ve had to say that to my own kids. I’m like, guys, just saying sorry is not enough. You’ve got to knock it off. You can’t say you’re sorry and then turn around and smack your brother again. You’ve got to try. Sometimes I write these questions and then I read them now and I’m like, hmm, I think I would have phrased that differently. But I wrote down, it’s the second one there, where have we settled for remorse? Or where have you felt sorrow over sin but avoided action? I think I would rephrase that. Why is it hard for us to take that step? Like why is it hard for, we’ll have emotional like about sin. But why is it so hard to then take the next step that we need? For like healing or reconciliation or fixing the problem. Why is that so hard for us?
Some of us are slow learners. Yeah, we are. It’s, you know, it’s, I think it’s our own stupid pride that gets in the way so often. I mean, we are just, did y’all ever watch, I haven’t seen it in years, that old movie, The War Room? Man, one, like, the sweet older lady that’s in it, Miss Clara, one of my favorites. But, like, she says at some point when she’s… I don’t remember the other character’s name. It’s been so long. But I remember her staying there in front of the other younger… the young mom. And she’s like, yeah, my husband… I mean, he died. We were not in a good place. Like, it was my own stupid pride. Or foolish pride, I think she says. We’re just so prideful, and we don’t even see it sometimes. But…
I genuinely think we sometimes see the effects of our sin, and it does bubble up some emotion, but not to the point that we can always set down the pride and say, I’ve got to do the hard work of fixing this. Because it’s hard work. People don’t like hard things anymore. People like easy things now. They just do. We all do.
Okay, last couple questions. We’re okay-ish. Okay. And 13 through 17. I just want to reread a little bit of it. So 13. But there are many people and it is the rainy season. We don’t have the stamina to stay out in the open. This isn’t something that can be done in a day or two for we have rebelled deeply. And then we reread the other part where they send them off to their villages. So the question I put there is why does Ezra slow down? Like what does that show us about – or what does it teach us about that process of wise leadership? What does him slowing down reveal to us?
I think sometimes the method is very important. It’s literally tearing families up. This must be handled with delicate caution. Yeah.
What were you saying, John? You said something. Yeah, it’s time looking for things that might have been missed.
Kathy, what did you say? Yeah, I think that should be a good reminder for us. I am as guilty of this as anybody, but we’re American. We tend to be like, let’s do it now. Let’s get it done. Let’s be fast. And sometimes that’s right. Floodwaters are coming in. Put the sandbags down. Do it fast. But when you’re dealing with families and kids and honestly, very… What’s that? They’re going to leave. Right. Your family, like your children and wife are leaving. Like this is a delicate thing. It would have been even more unkind for it to be the like quick hurry up situation. I can’t even imagine.
So we look at this though, and you have to remember, I don’t like saying this, but we have to remember… These families were very possibly the ones very responsible for the, where was it in 14, those that were committing detestable practices. There’s no reason we should assume if these are the ones being sent away, it’s because they’re literally practicing. I don’t want to reread that. But you remember like the detestable practices, whatever the Hebrew word was, wasn’t just like, oh, I idolize my money and power. They’re doing really sick, evil things. So we have to remember like this. If they’re being sent away, it’s because they’re still practicing those things. Like, it’s not, these are not the ones who, like, I love Yahweh and we go to temple and we faithfully follow. These are the ones who don’t faithfully follow, which is still agonizingly sad. But it should paint in our minds how serious it is to take our sin or how serious we should take it.
So the second question is, and I’m just going to read the second part of it. How can the church as a whole, how do we create space for thoughtful, patient repentance?
I know that I like things to be wrapped up quick. I’m a to-do list guy. I really love my to-do list. I have a little sticky note to-do list. It’s cool. I hate leaving school and there’s like half of it left. I’m such a dork. I usually take it off and rewrite the things I didn’t finish for the next day so I feel like tidied up. I like getting stuff done. But that’s not always the way things work. I mean, even with my own kids.
I can’t will everyone to be Christ-like immediately. It takes time and it takes conversations. It takes wrestling out with the kids like, sweetheart, this is what it looks like if we say we want to follow Jesus. And the way you were treating your sibling or friend at school or mom, whatever it is, that wasn’t it. So if we say we love Jesus and we want to obey, we’ve got to understand. Those are slow conversations. And then you parents know, like, you have those conversations, like, it feels like millions of times. It might only be a few hundred, but it feels like millions of times.
So this is heavy. But learning how to be patient in healing and repentance, I think, matters a lot. And we are not typically the most patient people. We’re Americans in the age of Amazon, and everything is available online, streaming all the time. We’ve been watching, there’s this show, the kids love this show. It’s on like Up TV or something called Blue Skies.
They love it because the dog is in the show, and our kids love dogs. And they love parks. So, like, the fact that the main character is a park ranger detective in the park system and her partner is a dog, our kids are, like, smitten.
Blue Skies is only on every Thursday night at 8 o’clock. Well, they’re in bed by 8 o’clock. We’re not watching it at 8 o’clock. And so we typically watch it Friday night or Saturday. And it’s hilarious because our kids are like, when does the next one come on? Why isn’t it here yet? Because they have no concept of us watching shows for… eons, we could only watch one episode a week as it came out on TV. And apparently, Jack saw a commercial. If you pay for Up TV, you can watch the whole season at once. And we’re like…
I love you. No, but I think it’s actually really good for them because it’s this almost, one, it’s actually kind of sweet now. It’s like their routine on the weekend is we get to watch Blue Skies tonight, which is great, but we’re just not good at it. And they’ve only lived in the world of streaming. They’ve never had a house phone. They’ve never had to record something on a VHS tape and go back and watch it. I said this last week. I even make a point. When a book comes in the mail that I ordered months ago and it finally shows up, I’m like, guys, dad waited months for this. And they’re like, how? I mean, because they just, nothing takes that long for them. Anyway, but when we think about the hard work of repenting and confessing of sin, we have to also look at it is a slow, frustrating process sometimes. That had to have been a really hard 3 months. There’s no way else to cut it. Even if the kids and family being sent away are literally worshiping demonic things, it’s still a hard 3 months.
Why would they not send the men out? I think one of the commentators I read said they did. Yeah.
Well, and I think what I read oftentimes, if the husband wasn’t repentant, he went to, which is why they sent them all back to the villages for like, you need to be dealt with by the people who actually know like who is, who has been faithful and who hasn’t been faithful, um, which is enormously heavy.
So on that note, okay, we’re good. We’re good. The bottom questions there on the paper, and these are, we can talk about them. You can ponder them. Um, I don’t think people necessarily want to answer these questions out loud. But if someone watched your week, what would they conclude about how important holiness is to you? What would they conclude? Like, what would they genuinely walk away thinking? Ezra, the second part there, Ezra trembled at sin. Do we tremble at the sin around us? Do you tremble at your sin? We should. It should bother us. It should even…
Even when we pray for forgiveness and we’re confessing those sins, it’s still just – I very rarely have felt like that immediate wash of just like freedom. It takes a little bit of like I have to let go. God already forgave it, but I have to let go of whatever it may have been. And then the third one there, like what’s one area of your life where holiness needs to become more important than convenience, comfort, or habit? You could list anything there. I just picked a few. But convenience, comfort, and habit very often get in the way of personal holiness. Because they’re the things that like, but they’re mine. And we don’t like to be uncomfortable. We don’t like leaving our comfort zone because it’s comfortable. Like it’s nice. But comfort can be an idol. Convenience can be an idol. Habits can very quickly become idols.
It’s funny how, I know we pick on high schoolers too much, but I spend too much time with them. They can be so disciplined, especially now. They’re very like fitness obsessed by and large. Like, and maybe I’m just at a school with a lot of athletes, but they’re very like, like counting their protein every day. And like, I will only have water that has electrolytes. I mean, they’re very like, they’re constantly checking steps. And like, did I get all my, like I woke up early so I could make it to that workout. And you’re like, whoa, like you’re very disciplined in these things. Are you that disciplined in pursuing the Lord? And, I mean, very few are because that’s the thing in the moment that’s more important.
So… Didn’t you say the one in the Sunday class that the Bible should be our habit? Yeah, I love that thought. Like, it should be our hobby. Like, yeah, the Bible should be our hobby. It should be the thing that, you know, whether it’s our audio Bible on our phone in the car, whether it’s, you know, the thing… It is so easy to pick up a phone and just scroll until our blue in the face. What if it was a Bible? I mean, what if it’s just simple as picking up and like, I’m going to read a psalm before I do anything else. Like, I’ll just make it my habit. But yeah, making the Bible our hobby changes everything. And it slowly reshapes us to want the things of God more fully. Which is good, because those last couple of reflection questions…
Are we being shaped more by the world’s rhythm or by God’s word? Only you and the Holy Spirit really know. But that’s a hard, frustrating question to me at least. Is the world shaping my rhythms or is God’s word? And then are our patterns of life telling the truth about our loyalty to Christ?
You know, I had a kid. This is not a pat myself on the back at all. But I had a kid last year. A really sweet kid. He was one of my favorites.
And he, his, oh gosh. He was in my class. We were done, so he was kind of floating around. And I don’t remember what my Bible was open to, but it was on my desk. And he was like, what are you reading? I was like, oh, I’m reading such and such. I’m getting ready for Sunday school.
And he was like, oh, I didn’t know you taught Sunday school. I was like, I do. I’m in a 60- and 70-year-old class with my mom. And he was like, whoa. He was like, I don’t think I want to be in a Sunday school class with my mom. And I was like, I get it. Someday you will.
But DM’s a funny kid. And he said something about it. Then apparently he went home and talked to his mom about it. And his mom comes to me at conferences and she’s like, by the way, DM said something about your Bible. She was like, thank you for having your Bible open on your desk. More teachers should have their Bibles open on their desk.
And I was like, I had not thought about it that way. She was like, he’s a really tender-hearted kid, but not necessarily, you wouldn’t see it just talking to him, but when you’re in one-on-one or with his mom, way more. She was like, it meant the world to him because he was like, yeah, Mr. Malloy was reading this and prepping for Sunday school with his mom or something, which was a riot.
But she was like, thank you, though. She was like, that’s the kind of thing that it was enough for him to see it that it encouraged him to want to have his out and just read. And I was like, what a great thought. So again, like, that’s not a pat myself on the back. It’s just, it’s a reminder of a little pattern, a little habit, a little thing can have far more impact than we really realize. You know, we never know how the dominoes will fall. Like we’ll know the first couple, maybe, but then we have no idea after that. So the way that we live our lives tells a story, and hopefully is a story that points back to Jesus by our habits, the things we love, the things we read, the things we study.
Can I share a little story?
Please, yeah. I feel it’s appropriate that you’re with me today. So, talking about patterns, making patterns and whatnot. So, I grew up in a family that just like, you know, when someone hurt your feelings, you hurt them back. You know, there was no repentance, never sorry, and just, you know, as a mom, I just always like, I struggle with that because that’s all that was modeled. And so it is one of those like sins, like I don’t have patience all the time. And I still tend to do those things.
So I was in the car with my older son today and he’s mad at me. He’s always mad at me. And I, you know, he’s just sitting there completely silent. And I’m like, hey, I love you. And he’s like, whatever. I was like, wow, ouch. You know, immediately I wanted to be like, say something snarky or mean.
And so like I just took a breath and thought about if someone had said that to me, you know. So I took a deep breath and I was like, I was really harsh. I said, you know, I said my prayer for you is that you never have to feel the way I just felt when you said that to me. That you never experience what it feels like to tell someone you love them and get a response like that. And you didn’t say anything. I didn’t say anything.
Goes home, takes a shower, comes out. He’s like, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings like that. That’s awesome. So it’s just that breaking those patterns.
Yep, yep. You know, I wanted to say something. Yeah. Yeah. Took a second, took a deep breath. Which is easier said than done sometimes.
Very much so. And, of course, the hope being that that was in his mind. Yeah. And he never wants to make anybody feel that way. That’s awesome. And that could be one of those, I mean, it’s funny, you can think back in your own mind, like, those core memories of that thing that happened.
But, like, I mean, I remember a time working at camp 20-something years ago. One conversation with my buddy Tim was, like, life-changing. I don’t remember the whole conversation. Tim doesn’t even remember it happening. But it’s, like, a core memory that you’re, like, that was a moment, like, you realize, oh, this stuff really does matter. You never know. You never know.
Oh, I love that. That’s a good story. I will say one of the commentaries made the comment that typically teachers and pastors like to end on a hopeful charge at the end. They’re like, Ezra really doesn’t. It kind of ends in this very like, well, there’s the sin. Here’s the consequences. It’s a heavy ending. So on that note, let’s pray.
Father God, thank you for our class. Father, thank you for being with us in a sincerely challenging section of Ezra. Ezra has been great in so many ways, but dealing with our own sin, I think even watching someone else dealing with their own sin makes us uncomfortable because sin makes us uncomfortable. And it should make us uncomfortable. So Father, help us. Help us to understand the ways that we struggle, the ways that we hang on to things that keep us from obeying and living in your rhythm. The things that keep us from being loyal to you. Help us to make your word our copy. Let it be the place that we come back to and we abide over and over again, and we’re conformed to your word, not conformed to the world. God, thank you for our class, and thank you for our Wednesday nights. We ask all this in your name. Amen.
All right, I’m going to take another picture because I have to take attendance, and I forgot.
