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.
St. Luke's Church Ramsgate 