For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the LORD and to do it and to teach the statutes and ordinances in Israel (Ezra 7:10)
Today, we’re thinking about what it means to study and obey God’s word. What does that mean in the context of this New Year of 2024 – this year where we’re thinking about what God might be calling us to as churches here in central Ramsgate.
There are an awful lot of self-help and life hacks around. I wonder what your bookshelf looks like? some bookshelves would be covered with books about living your best life – facing your fears. There are also lots of things on social media called life hacks – ways of making life easier and more efficient. We are in an era of self-help and looking for improved life and if we really do trust and believe in God’s word not just as another guide, but as a way that God communicates to us about how we live and how we should be trusting him, how he has worked in the history of his people and is continuing to work in that way today, then it’s an important book to read and know
In our opening verse we heard that ‘Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord and do it and teach the statues and ordinances in Israel. – we are introduced to Ezra this leader that is sent and given permission to go back to Jerusalem and he shares the statues and laws with the people – that was his gifting. He was a teacher. He was given his gifting and passion to go back and to teach God’s law to the new community there.
when we are reading the Bibleit is important to think about the context in which it was written for then and interpret it to where we are now. sometimes there can be a really direct comparison. Sometimes we have to work a bit harder at seeing what that means.
The people of God had been given opportunity and opportunity to follow God and live in an obedient relationship with him – in this loving relationship. All that had to do was Continue to give God their full attention and obedience. We might think that we are constantly going on about sin but sometimes we need that reminder. God’s people had again and again fallen short. We all do which is why we come to our service every week and say a confession.
In our communion service we often talk of the commandments that Jesus shared with his disciples: love the Lord your God, with all your heart soul mind and strength and love your neighbour, as yourself. I wonder as Gods people how are we living up to that? And in Ezra’s time how were they living up to that , it seems that they were falling short of loving God. They hadn’t really known who he was, they hadn’t been reading his word , They hadn’t been into the habit of practising of worship and Ezra is coming back into this time. We had zerubbabel in the first six chapters that we looked at last week, where they came back and were rebuilding the temple and then we’ve got Ezra he returns to Jerusalem and tries to bring about a change of rebuilding the community by the returning to and reading of the law. Ezra is rebuilding the community. At the time there were people who had never been exiled away they remained but under Babylonian rule, we’ve got the people that come back with zerubabbel and then we’ve got people that come back with Ezra and they’re quite disjointed bunch of people – they had different backgrounds – and they’re trying to rebuild this community of people again to get a joint identity and Ezra does this by returning to the law, and bringing people back to know what God said, what God has done, and what God will continue to do
What does this mean to us? We are a community of people but we’ve got different backgrounds , we all want to hear in this year ahead of us what God has planned for us in our church as well as about how are we gonna be reaching out and fulfilling our purposes for God here in Ramsgate. Ezra and Nehemiah are hopefully going to help us explore that and go a bit deeper
I said we have the second wave of returnees from exile, Ezra is being introduced as someone returning them to the law to rebuild the community of God. In chapter 7 we’re introduced to Ezra and he’s been given permission, as a teacher of the law, to go back to Jerusalem. we’re told that he lived out what he was reading and learning about. one commentator says this says about Ezra: he’s a model reformer in that what he taught he lived and what he had lived He first made sure of in scriptures. with study conduct and teaching put deliberately in this right order Each of these was able to function properly at its best: study, was saved from unreality, conduct from uncertainty and teaching from insincerity and shallowness. We’ve been given a great gift of God in our context today, and it’s got the whole history, from OT and the joy of the new Testament, seeing God fulfilling the promises that were made in Ezra time the word of God is not irrelevant. It speaks into the reality that we’re in and we need to be aware of that – it’s not uncertain. God promises have come true will continue to come true. and it’s not insincere. We wanna dig deeper into the richness of the Bible so that we can see the riches it provides for our community and ourselves.
Ezra is given a letter from the king of Persia: it says you are sent by the King and his advisors to enquire about Judah and Jerusalem, with regards to the law of your God, which is in your hand. There are a variety of thoughts about this, whether the law wasn’t already in Jerusalem and, Ezra had gone back with a copy of the scrolls. its unlikely, it probably was there already, but the significance of this phrase was that Ezra had been given a task, a function, a purpose to go back with God’s law, with a specific purpose of teaching and explaining it and reading it again. like I said they might have been out of the habit of the pattern of worship and so Ezra had a task a command to share Gods law with the people of God
As we go through into chapter 8, we see the list of families returning. on their journey Ezra decides worship is gonna be really important as part of their rebuilding of the community and he finds Levites for the temple, he ready and prepared to find leadership and train those that are going to help to build the community of God. we read about them fasting for protection that God will protect them in their journey, and when they finally get to Jerusalem, they offer the sacrifices and then we get to this point of chapter 9, which was the second part of the reading.
There is sort of like an presumption given some weight by mention in chapter 10 that between the worship in the temple on arrival and these people coming to Ezra with their concerns that Ezra did teach from the Torah, from God’s law – they’ve been hearing God’s word. The word has been read to them, it might’ve been explained as well but they definitely had it read, and then the people respond to that, they respond to God’s law. After hearing it l they approach Ezra with concerns and these concerns were about intermarriage with the tribes around them.
In the context of that day in the context of them being heir of the exodus. we need to go back to the old Testament fir Gods people there was a call to be separate, pure, a holy seed – set apart to be a chosen nation given cOmmanents to be the people he had called them to be. if we read Exodus 34: 11-16 and Deuteronomy 7:1-4 these verses seem harsh words in our modern sensibilities, it seems kind of really countercultural to our thinking of God as a loving caring God, but God called these people at this time to a high calling. They were holy seed to be set up so that the world could see who God was, could see the holiness of God. They were to be a blessing to others, and that was the kind of deal. If you like God is saying follow me be my people be my holy people and you will get all this. This blessing you will be blessed because I give my blessing to you came obedience
In our passage in Ezra you may have realised that the writer has repeated the same pattern of the people in the exodus and Deuteronomy passages – it’s the same list. Don’t be like those people in your in your neighbourhood et cetera. It’s there to remind them that they were an exodus people and now they’re a people are being brought back from exile
As exodus people they didn’t live up to bargain of obedience, they didn’t live up to standard, it was hard for them, so God is bringing them back again, giving them another chance reminding them that they were these people holy and set apart, but they haven’t been living this way
Ezra is presented with this fact that they haven’t been living up to that they have been intermarrying. They’ve been dealing with different religious practices that were around. They weren’t focused on worshipping God with their heart, soul, mind and strength. He responds in grief and prayer
We get this prayer of Ezra and it’s likely that this happened in the ninth month. It’s likely they’ve been in Jerusalem about four months now and it’s probably unlikely, the commentators think, that Ezra had not heard of this before, but there’s almost like a procedure he goes through to acknowledge that the people have come to him and recognised that they’ve not been living How the word of God is telling them to live, and so he sits in silence in v 3 to 4. He doesn’t really act other than kind of tearing his clothes, and just sitting. He recognises their rebellion. He recognises what they’ve done as a nation that they’ve not followed God And he acknowledges that, but in v8-15 he also acknowledges God’s mercy and his call on them as a people, he recognises that they were a nation and nor There’s a small remnant of them back, but that’s because of God being gracious. We may look around and see the church declining dramatically, seeing morality around us change, seeing tempers raised around us on trains and buses and thinking I really long for peace for you. We are essentially a remnant.
I think this passage is not saying that in today’s age intermarriage is wrong, or that we are to withdraw from society and not to mix with . I think in general this is calling us to holiness to focus on what sets us apart from the world around us as the Christian remnant today.
I think it is helping us to think about what does God’s word say how do we obey it and how do we live it out in our society. remember Jesus words about loving the Lords are God, with our heart, soul, mind and strength and our neighbours our self? How are we doing that today? How are we putting God as number one how are we loving our neighbour as ourselves?
We should be encouraging each other to keep God number one in our lives. What is God saying to us and we only know what he’s saying if we study and read and meditate on God’s word. As a church family, we wanna help to keep each other accountable to obeying God’s word, and in living out God’s word by caring for our community.
Ultimately, we’re on a mission from God, got a submission for the whole world to know who he is do we see our lives in this light do we see going to the supermarket as a mission? Do we see our jobs as a mission from God? In every aspect of our lives we are on a mission from God. how we are in our society in our workplaces in our church impacts the lives of those around us. God called his people to be a blessing to others. To be different to stand apart which is the same for us today so in 2024, what might God be staring in us to do? What might he want us to change? Developed an adopt that we can love God with our heart, soul mind, strength, and our neighbours, our mself And see where he’s drawing us to be that presence in the community around us both outside and inside of our church.
St. George's Church Ramsgate 