When I heard these words, I sat down and wept and morurned for days, fasting and praying before the God of heaven (Nehemiah 1:4)

We’ve been looking at the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. To help us in this year of discernment ahead today we’re thinking about the call to fast and pray. Thinking what Nehemiah chapter 1 teaches us of this and how it might impact our discernment in the year ahead.

I don’t know how you respond to the news headlines but sometimes we attempted to turn it off because of the pain that we are faced with. we turn on the news currently and there are world problems and local problems galore. We see violence war and also difficulties with poverty, all impacting our world. Things in our communities and on a global scale that make us question what God is doing and get us thinking about how we can help because it seems to insurmountable.

There is something about this passage about praying for the needs of the world and as we look at the News items to be thinking about standing in the gap between God and the world and lay before God the needs, showing him a heartfelt anxiety about the current situation, laying it all before God.

This is what Nehemiah does in verse four of our chapter this morning – His fasting and praying is his way of standing in the gap of laying out the needs of the world before God.

What is the response when we watch the news? what is our response when we see the needs in our community? what is our response when we see the needs within our church? do we stand in the gap?

In our passage today We are introduced to Nehemiah through his prayer. At this point In the narrative we are probably 13 years after Ezra left for Jerusalem. We find out that Nehemiah is cupbearer to the Persian king, which is a really important role – there is a lot of privilege that comes with that role in terms of having the ear of the king, having access to the King. Between this prayer is chapter 1 and the action that carries on into ch2 there is probably a gap of about 4 to 5 months. Nehemiah has a reputation for being a man of action and we see that in subsequent chapters – but the fact that he’s spent these four months praying shows that for him it was a priority to come before God. Before any action took place Nehemiah shows us the importance of fasting and prayer.

In v 5 to 11 we have this wonderful prayer Of Nehemiah, It sets out a good pattern of prayer that we could follow. we read verse 5 that he focuses on the God of heaven which in fact we do in the Lord’s prayer that Jesus taught us. He recognises God’s greatness knowing who God is. The second part of his prayer inv6-7 shows real humility – there is confession not just for his own sin but for the sin of his people historically. Acknowledging the rebellion and where things have gone wrong. We touched a bit on this last week with the importance of safeguarding and realising where we may have got it wrong in the past and where we might need to improve on it in the future for the glory of God‘s name. There is something about confession that frees us, it’s not about making us feel guilty but it’s freeing us to sit in the gap open armed free of burden. In v8-10 in the build up to his plea. He recounts the history of who God is, of Gods history with his people. And remembers gods promises. That God would restore his people again and stands in the gap culminating in a plea in verse 11 that God would act making it possible for God’s people to again be settled in Jerusalem.

Only after this prayer do we then get the action – in chapter 2 we have an account of Nehemiah making a request of the King to return, we get the account of the journey and then as soon as Nehemiah gets there he makes a survey of what needs doing. In chapter 3 we have the account of him sharing out the workload, and in chapter 4 there is opposition which causes poor morale – Nehemiah acts by praying arming and continuing the work. This action is fuelled by this time of prayer that is represented in chapter 1 a time of discernment and seeking guards before the action commences.

The commentator Hannah Harrington says this about me Nehemiah: Despite Nehemiah’s powerful role he is a man of prayer with all the necessary humility that entails most of his prayers are short but the considerable number of them reveals a lifestyle of spontaneous recourse to Yahweh whatever needs arise, in this instance the phrase day and night indicate sustained prayer on behalf of Israel.

What can We learn from Nehemiahs prayer? We can use scripture to aid our prayers, we can come before God in humility in our prayers with our confession and we can persevere in our prayer life praying for particular things again and again. When we think about a year discernment, sitting and waiting can be uncomfortable particularly for people of action. but there is something in Nehemiah’s pragmatic approach and his humility that meant he realised he needed to begin with prayer and then came the action. Where do we need to fast and pray for the needs of the world but also thinking about discernment for the year ahead both corporately and in our Individual lives. Nehemiah’s prayer teaches us things about this.

Nehemiah’s Praying involved fasting and fasting can come in many shapes and sizes what it boils down to is fasting from things in order to give us more time to set aside for praying with God enables us to have a single focus on him and what we are bringing before him.

Being part of a church means we have a mission from God to be his people in the areas that we are based. Sharing God with our community. how will fasting and praying impact our mission? When we stand in the gap seeking gods well asking him questions what then will he do what will the actions be? The amazing thing about prayer is that all of us can take a part in that in this year of discernment ahead. We can all play a part. How will we respond when we watch the news? how will we respond when we see the needs in our community? how will we respond when we see the needs within our church? Will we stand in the gap? I Wonder what God might be stirring us to do as we take 2024 to discern his will. we can discern this together as we use Nehemiah’s pattern of prayer, as we fast and pray, so that when we do come to a point of action we know it is fuelled by him.

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.

Then the heads of the families of Judah and Benjamin and the priests and the Levites—everyone whose spirit God had stirred—got ready to go up and rebuild the house of the LORD in Jerusalem (Ezra 1:5)

Happy New Year. In this new Year 2024 there’s lots of exciting things that hopefully will be coming up ahead. In the beginning of this year We’ve got a five week series on the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Originally Ezra and Nehemiah were one book. We have them separately, but originally they were one book and say it reccounts part of the Jewish history when they were in a place of I guess desperation – they were exiled, and they probably didn’t know, or have hope that they would once again return to Jerusalem. The Babylonian empire had destroyed Jerusalem and the temple, and finally the remnant of Judah were taken away into exile.

 In 2024, how are you feeling and what kind of hopes and fears are you struggling with, wrestling with. what do we kind of fear about the year ahead? Maybe it’s our health maybe it’s the financial crisis that still seems to be around, maybe it’s more as a church – maybe we’re fearful of declining numbers in Church or  maybe we’re fearful of the different theologies that are around and wrestling in our hearts about where we stand in all of those situations.  But what hopes do we also have, the exciting thing about a New Year is that there’s a new opportunity for something to happen, yes there might be hardships ahead, but actually there’s hope of things. It’s why we make new year resolutions isn’t it they sometimes come from our fears – the fear that we’re not healthy might lead us to quit smoking. We might stop drinking as much alcohol or we might decide we’re gonna keep fit and be really healthy in this new year.  resolutions occur because we wanna get rid of the fears and we wanna look with hope to a new possibility.

 I love the hymn, o little town of bethlehem – it was actually my mums  favourite hymn. there’s a part in it that says: in the dark street shineth, the everlasting light, the hopes and fears of all the years are met in ther tonight.’ That’s a wonderful hope and a promise laid out for us, that in Jesus we don’t have to fear. He has won the victory. He is with us, living in us. Christ in me can overcome the fears of the world and so, as we’re entering in 2024, we want to think as individuals and as churches here in Ramsgate, what might God be stirring us to do? what fears can God help us overcome in the year ahead, and what hopes will we see fulfilled?

This year we are having a year of discernment  between the two churches of Saint Luke’s and Saint Georges about what God might be stirring us too in serving here in Ramsgate, and so in that mindset it made us think about these passages and this book of Ezra Nehemiah to help in our thinking about what is God, stirring us as individuals do, but also as churches 

Our opening verse said this: the heads of the families of Judah and Benjamin and the priests and the Levites, everyone who spirit God stirred , got ready to go up and rebuild the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. We don’t need to physically rebuild our building here but it’s still a good question for us what is God stirring us up individually and corporately in the year ahead to be involved with

 The books of Ezra and Nehemiah mark a turning point in  the history of God’s people. I thought it would be a good idea to briefly outline the history of God ‘s people. God created the world and he saw that it was very good and there’s an idyllic scene in Genesis where God is walking in the shade of the day, which gives a sense of intimacy between him and Adam and Eve. This doesn’t last for long and sin comes into the world, and there’s a spiral of people wanting to not be intimate with God, not wanting to obey and listen to his command, and so we get Cain killing Abel.. We get the flood, because God just couldn’t cope with the sin of the world, and then the tower of Babel, where people are trying to reach God because they wanna be God themselves. God doesn’t want to destroy his people again, he mourns the loss of the people in the flood and he says I want to start again. I wanna make it possible for my people to have a relationship with me and so we get the stories of Abraham and Isaac Jacob and Joseph – this family that God sets apart to be his people, to be people that he’s with and will through them Bless all nations 

God blesses this family and when they’re in Egypt, they become a massive group of people they’re more numerous than the Egyptians. Egyptians are scared of them and so they oppress them. God promises that he will save them and rescue them from this oppression that they’re  under and bring them  to a promised land where they can be a nation.

We then reach the part in Gods story with Moses and the plagues and the exodus from Egypt, God’s people are in the wilderness and then they get to the promised land and they have judges over them but then they look at the people around them. They think: they’ve got kings , we want kings too. God says okay, you can have kings and for nearly 5 centuries they had kings, but not all the kings ruled after God own heart, some didn’t encourage people to know God, didn’t encourage them to obey God’s law, didn’t obey God law themselves and the result was exile. First for the northern kingdom and then the southern kingdom gets taken by the Babylonians,  the Babylonians destroy the temple, and it seems disastrous. The people of God are in a place of no hope, and probably thinking where is God in all of that. maybe you resonate with some of those feelings of where is God in our world

 Then chronologically we get to the period of time of Ezra and Nehemiah – it’s likely that they two books were written  by the same person and they talk about three leaders and three distinct periods of time as people come back to Jerusalem once more. so we have Zerubbabel who is in the first six chapters of Ezra and he is given permission from KingCyrus to go back. He’s the leader that takes them back. They build the altar and they finally eventually build a temple, but there’s a struggle. There’s opposition, there’s difficulties in getting it done, but they have confidence in God that they get it sorted. Then we have Ezra from chapter 7 to 10 of the book of Ezra. Ezra comes as another leader, and he goes to Jerusalem, and he wants to teach them again of the law, of what it says, and rebuild the worshipping community that is following and obeying God, and then in the book of Nehemiah , we have Nehemiah going back to Jerusalem and building the city wall 

over the next five weeks we’re gonna look at these leaders and what they might be teaching us about this year ahead in 2024, as we listen to what God is stirring us up as a church and as a community and individuals

one commentator writes that at the beginning of the book they’re a nation that’s dispersed, that they aren’t really a nation anymore, they’re in exile, but by the end of these two books, the former exiles have had their chief structures, visible, and invisible reestablished, and their vocation confirmed to be a people instructed in the law and separated from the nations. I think this can be really valuable for us as well – hopefully by the end of this year we can see things that maybe we’ve let slip that we can re-establish again, that we can know our purpose in Christ. How do we establish again God, central to all that we do, all that we are, in our lives, in our work, in our schools, in our volunteer roles, in our family roles, as well as here as a church community. So what is God stirring in us – what can we learn this year ahead? 

I think from this passage today we learn that God will build his house because first he promised it, secondly, he can do that by using a few people, which enables us to really trust that he’s behind it. He’s in it. He is in control. Thirdly m that he will build his house, even in the face of opposition and fourthly he will build it in his perfect timing.  so let’s look at the passage 

God will build his house because he promised it and in the passage talks about how King Cyrus made a decree and he said that this was the prophecies of the Prophet Jeremiah coming true, We also find this prophecy in the book of Isaiah, chapter 45, verse 13, talking about King Cyrus: I have stirred him up in righteousness and I will make all his ways level. He shall build my city and set my exiles, free, not for prize or reward, says the Lord of hosts.   he’s doing it because God stirred him up, he’s not in Israelite, but God still is at work stirring up in him to bring his people back to Jerusalem. The Prophet Jeremiah also has that sense that they will be returned again. God promised his people that they would be back in Jerusalem and in chapter 29, verse 10, says: for thus says the Lord, when 70 years are completed for Babylon I will visit you and I will fulfil to you my promise and bring you back to this place. I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord plans for good and not for evil to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear you, you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.’ That promise I think it’s still true for us today and we can know those promises that God has already fulfilled.  people reading as Ezra Nehemiah will come across this promise andwill see that that happened, they returned to Jerusalem, and what more would that mean for the other promises God made – that there would be a messiah, that all nations would be reunited again in Zion, this kind of idea of a future heaven kingdom. we see that this promise through Jeremiah came true  and so we can trust that God will build his house today. 

Secondly, God will build his house and he uses a few. Zerubbabel goes back with a number of people but it is still probably only a proportion of what was existing of the people originally. it reminds me of the story of Gideon in the book of judges were so to defeat this opposing army, and it starts out with of 300,000 and God whittles down Gideon’s are to 300 people, and it’s to  show that Gideon can trust not in their own strength of numbers, but can trust in God and that’s true for us. We might feel that as Christians in Ramsgate there’s a few of us, but actually we can trust that he will use us if We continue to trust in him. He will use us to build his house because it is not in our own strength, but in the strength of the Lord 

Thirdly  God will build his house even in the face of opposition, in these first 6 chapters of Ezra, Zerubabbek comes back to Jerusalem with a group of people, they start settling down and they rebuild the altar and then there’s some opposition and so they sort of stop and then they decide God is stirring  them up to do this as he enabled them  to go back so they should continue. We then get the governor writing to Darius  about these people who were building a temple who had been sent back but they didn’t know why they’re building on whose authority and so are asking Darius the king at this point to sort it out. Darius does then sort it out. However before Darius intervenes we learn that God still prevails even in the face of opposition

Fourthly God builds his house in his perfect timing. After Darius receives this letter from the governor  he find out that they’re on a mission from God, that God stirred up Cyrus to allow this to happen and states that  he is gonna allow this to continue and so the temple was completed. Darius is reminded of Cyrus decree, he says give them all the resources and animals that they need to rebuild and to worship. He basically tells the governor to butt out and to not interfere, to let the work carry on. It’s not to stop and  that they can continue to completion, and encourages their worship and sacrifices, recogniseing that it’s God that is in control of all the Earth, even more sovereign than Darius himself.

 I’m encouraged by that. I hope you are too, that God is in control of this world, of our lives and God will build his house and I think as we go into 2024, we can be encouraged by that. we can be encouraged that God will build it – in Matthews Gospel He talks to Peter and says you are the rock on which my church will be built. Through Jesus he opened up for all people to know God to be intimate with him to have a restored relationship, and he promised that, and so we can be confident that God will build his house and he will do it by using us.  let’s trust God in his strength that he will build his church. we might face opposition in the year ahead, when we stand firm with what we believe God is calling us to do let’s continue in the face of opposition, but we know that God is with us in that, knowing that his timing is perfect and that is for us as a corporate church but also in our individual lives.  we can trust God’s promises, we can trust that he will grow his church numerically, but also our faith, that we will grow in spiritual maturity this year. Let’s pray for that, let’s just think about what God might do this year ahead and be excited and expectant of him, knowing that he will build his house and let’s listen out for him, be patient. We might not see clear plans straight away but let’s be patient that his timing is perfect for what he wants to accomplish.