1. The leaders (2:2a)
2. The laymen (2:2b-35)
3. The Lord’s ministers (2:36-58)
4. The leftovers (2:59-67)
EZRA 2:1
It’s difficult to find anything more difficult to read through than a list of names. But that’s where we find ourselves in our text tonight. How do you act when you get a new phone book? OK, come clean—what is the first thing you do? You look for your name. Well, even though you’re not going to find your name in this list, that doesn’t make it any less important. As a matter of fact, it is far more important, because it is included in Scripture. 2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” How much Scripture? ALL Scripture. I had a Bible professor who had a line that he used over and over again. He said, “All means all, all the time.” So, if like my professor said, “all means all, all the time”… and the Bible says that ALL Scripture is given by God for our profit… it’s our task to see the profit in even the most seemingly mundane parts of Scripture like the name lists. Unlike a lot of the “name lists” in Scripture, this one isn’t a genealogy. It’s really more like a census. But it’s not even really like a census. Because a census numbers an entire nation. That’s not what this does. Really, it’s more like a passenger manifest. Roger and Zela are on a cruise right now. There are certain things that a passenger ship has to accomplish before it leaves port. First, it has to have an itinerary. People have to know where it’s going, what route it’s going to take, and when it’s going to get there. It also has to have a manifest. The manifest is a list of all the cargo and passengers. Well, just like Roger and Zela are on their cruise, the people in our passage were taking a trip also. Their itinerary was simple. They were going to travel from the place of their exile in Babylon to the place of God’s call in Jerusalem. That was their itinerary, but what was their manifest? Who was taking the trip? That’s what this list is in our passage tonight. The verse we just read tells us that. 70 years before, God had allowed Nebuchadnezzar to carry His chosen people into exile from Jerusalem and Judah. Now it was time for a remnant of them to return. To return with the first purpose of rebuilding the temple. Remember last week we said that Israel had to go through four stages of restoration before they were ready to rebuild the temple foundations. God had to restore resources, a remnant, responsibility, and religion. Last week we looked at restoring resources. Tonight we’re looking at restoring a remnant. God is all powerful, but what is amazing is that He chooses to accomplish His work through people. While God’s desire is for all people to respond to His desires, the fact is that only a remnant will. But in that remnant, God provides the kinds of people it takes to accomplish His work. Just like the remnant we’re looking at tonight. Tonight, I want each of us to respond to God’s call the same way His remnant did. Whatever category we might find ourselves in doesn’t really matter. What matters is that God has a place for each of us in His work. And I want each of us to serve faithfully in the place He has called us. In order to do that, we’re going to look at four kinds of people it takes to accomplish God’s work. The first kind of people is leaders. The leaders are the names listed in the first sentence of verse 2. I will leave you to read the names on your own.
The first kind of people it takes to accomplish God’s work is leaders. One Sunday morning, a fellow named George told his mother he wasn’t going to church. "First," he said, "I’m tired. Second, the people there don’t like me. And third, the sermons are boring." But George’s mother wouldn’t take no for an answer. "George," she said, "you have to go. First, we always worship on Sunday. Second, it doesn’t matter whether they like us or not. And third, you are the pastor, you have to go!" Leadership isn’t for the faint of heart, is it? Well these guys certainly weren’t faint of heart. Think of the task that lay before them. They had to get over 42,000 people to follow them. But it wasn’t like they were just getting them to follow them down the street. They were leading them from a place that had been their home for as long as they could remember. Many of them probably grew up there. They had raised kids there. They had built lives there. They were comfortable there. Think about how comfortable you would be in Bluefield if your family had arrived here 70 years ago. And now God placed this group of men in a position where they were to lead them away from there. Move the clock back about 900 years from where we are here to Moses’ day. The situation was a lot different for Moses. In Moses’ day, the Israelites were actually in bondage. They were being used as slave laborers. And because of some different political situations, Pharaoh didn’t trust them. So he abused them and oppressed them. The Israelites of Moses’ day were far from comfortable. And the longer they sat in captivity, the worse it got. That wasn’t the case with the Israelites of Zerubbabel’s day. Things weren’t too bad for them. They were allowed to own their own land and pretty much live like regular Persians. That’s what the Persians were looking for anyway. They wanted the nations they conquered to blend in. So, it was in that kind of environment that God called these men to lead. Lead a comfortable people away from their comfort and into a land fraught with discouragement, opposition, frustration, and most of all, hard work. Imagine putting that sales pitch together. “Hi, I’m Zerubbabel and this is my partner Jeshua. My, what a nice house you have. And what a great piece of property! We’re here to ask you to leave it and come with us to the destroyed city of Jerusalem. Once we get all the rubble cleared, and the temple and wall rebuilt, you’ll just love it. Oh, by the way—you’re going to be the one who clears the rubble and builds the temple and the wall.” I don’t think that’s a marketing plan that the church growth folks would approve of, do you? But that’s the only marketing approach they had. And since they couldn’t sales-pitch people into following them, they had to really lead. What did that leadership look like? Obedience. Obedience to the call that God had placed on their lives. Zerubbabel had to obey the call that came with his birthright. He was the heir to the throne of David. As such, he was the chief prince of Israel. As we see in Haggai and Zechariah, Jeshua was the chief priest of Israel. He had to obey the call that came with his high-priestly office. If you want to think of it that way, they were the Moses and Aaron of the first return from exile. But God didn’t give them the same authenticating signs and wonders that he gave Moses and Aaron. Just like today, He didn’t meet with them from a cloud on a mountain. He didn’t, because just like us, they already had God’s Word. But God knew that two men couldn’t lead by themselves. So He gave them a group of other men to assist them and learn from them and hold them accountable. Proverbs 24:5-6 says, “A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength. For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war: and in multitude of counsellors there is safety.” Even more tellingly, Proverbs 15:22 says, “Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counsellors they are established.” God surrounded Zerubbabel and Jeshua with a multitude of counselors, to enable them to be the leaders God had called them to be. The first kind of people it takes to accomplish God’s work is the leaders. But what are leaders without followers? I’ve heard it said that a person who thinks he’s leading with nobody following is really just taking a walk. So leaders have to have followers or they aren’t really leaders. So the second kind of people it takes to accomplish God’s work is the laymen. In our context, we would say that laymen are the people in the pew. In Israel’s context, they would be the people listed from the second sentence of verse 2 through verse 35. Once again, I’ll leave the reading of all those names up to you.
The second kind of people it takes to accomplish God’s work is laymen. When you have a child in college, you learn how to fill out scholarship applications. There is a very common question on both scholarship and college admittance applications. Many of those forms ask the question, “Are you a leader?” One time, an honest young lady came to that question on a college application. She wrestled with the answer for a long time. She knew what the answer was supposed to be. She was supposed to talk about all the wonderful leadership qualities she had. But she also knew that she didn’t have those qualities. She knew she wasn’t a leader. So, should she be honest or give them what they wanted to hear? Since she was such an honest young lady, she gave the honest answer. She wrote down that she wasn’t a leader and mailed in the application. Of course she expected the worst. Here’s the letter she received back: “Dear Applicant: A study of our application forms reveals that this year our college will have 1,452 new freshman leaders. We are accepting you to our college because we feel it necessary for them to have at least one follower.” The fact is, God has not called everyone to be a leader in accomplishing His work. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of people He calls are not called to leadership positions. Out of over 42,000 people, God only called 11 people to be their leaders. He called the rest of them to follow their leadership. Notice how the laymen are grouped here in verses 3-35. The ones through verse 20 are grouped according to their family names. But the ones from verse 21 through 35 are grouped according to the town they were from. Why is that? One reason could be because that describes the class of people they were. The ones who were grouped according to their family names were probably what we would consider “high-class” folks. They were people who had a name—whose family had made a name for themselves. They had land and possessions in their family names. The Parosh estate, the Arah plantation, the Zattu place. They were the “old money” Jewish names in Babylon. But notice that that’s not the only laymen listed. From verse 21 through 35, they’re grouped according to what town they’re from because they didn’t have a big family name. They probably didn’t own land in their family names. They were the working class folks. In our day, they would be the ones who make it paycheck to paycheck. They’re the people who don’t spend a lot of time worrying about the inheritance tax, because they’re spending their kids’ inheritance now. Now, let me ask you—which group had a harder time packing up and leaving Babylon? They both did. What a difficult thing it would be to leave the security, heritage and tradition of the old home place. On the other hand, what a difficult thing it would be to leave when you have no idea where the next paycheck’s coming from. But these are the kind of laymen it takes to accomplish God’s work. He calls people from all different backgrounds, and of all different means and abilities. And what does He require? Obedience. Obedience to the call that God had placed on their lives. Obedience to respond to God’s call rather than relying on some so-called leader’s fast talking sales pitch. The “old money” people had to obey by giving up on their traditions and personal security and the things they held dear. The “working class” people had to obey by trusting God to supply their needs along the way. God uses leaders and laymen and the Lord’s ministers to accomplish His work. They are listed from verse 36-58.
The third kind of people it takes to accomplish God’s work is the Lord’s ministers. These were the people that God called to do the ministry work of the temple. So why did He call them now? Why didn’t He just wait until the temple was complete and then send for them? Just because they didn’t have a building didn’t mean that ministry was supposed to wait. The names listed here show that God’s ministry includes all sorts of things. It includes people things and facility things. All too often, we tend to put ministry in a box. In our context, we think ministry is something “the minister” does. But that’s not how God sees it. He sees it as the work of many people. The first two groups listed here are the priests and the Levites. Those are people who were born into the position. The priests were about 10% of the people. Originally, King David had organized the priests into 24 family groups. The sad thing about the priests in our passage is that they only represented 4 of the 24 groups. The situation with the priests was sad, but it was nothing compared to the situation with the Levites. The Law originally provided for many times the number of Levites as compared to priests. In other words if there were 10 priests, there might be well over 100 Levites. But now, even with the reduced number of priests, there were less Levites than priests. Later on, when Ezra took a group of exiles to Jerusalem, he could only get 38 Levites to go with him. Isn’t it interesting that the people with the most official ministry offices were the least interested in doing ministry? But they weren’t the only ones God called as His ministers. He not only called people who were born into the position, He called people by the tasks they could do. Verse 41 shows He called the choir and praise group. And verse 42 shows that He called the ushers. That word “porters” literally means “gatekeepers.” And if you look in 1 Chronicles 9:17-29, you can see that their job description lines up pretty well with the job description of our ushers. The priests and Levites were called by birth. The singers and ushers were called by task. But there was one more group of the Lord’s ministers. That was the group that was called by grace. Verses 43-54 call part of them the Nethinims. That simply means “the dedicated ones.” They were temple servants who had dedicated themselves to His service. Verses 55-58 call the rest of these ministers “the children of Solomon’s servants.” Both the Nethinims and the children of Solomon’s servants were descended from people that Israel had conquered. And instead of killing them, they allowed them to be circumcised and serve in the temple. Over the years, it would have been easy for their later generations to forsake God and go back to their homelands. But many of them didn’t. And these people, with nothing more to bind them than their willing obedience… basically volunteered to go back and minister with the Jews. They ministered simply because they wanted to be obedient. As opposed to the priests and Levites, their birthright was one of bondage. As opposed to the singers and ushers, their personal gifts and talents aren’t mentioned. But God called them to minister just the same. And they did. Out of thanks for God’s grace that He poured out on them by allowing them to serve Him, they returned with the exiles. They were counted as the Lord’s ministers just like the ones who held the high positions. They were counted as the Lord’s ministers just like the ones who held the very visible positions. God calls leaders, laymen, the Lord’s ministers and leftovers. Look with me at verse 59.
EZRA 2:59
The fourth kind of people it takes to accomplish God’s work is leftovers. My kids are leftover snobs. That’s why my belly is so big, because I think I eat all the leftovers in the house. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe they don’t eat the leftovers because I always get to them first. But whether they’re leftover snobs or not—I thank God that He isn’t. As you look at verses 59 through 67, one thing strikes you. What a hodgepodge of characters. Israelites who couldn’t prove their lineage. Priests who couldn’t prove their lineage. Male and female servants and farm animals. A hodgepodge of hangers-on that most people wouldn’t have anything to do with. But not God. To Him, they were all equally important for the work He was going to do. He called them all. From Zerubbabel and Jeshua to the lowest maid-servant, God called them all. Aren’t you thankful that God calls us all? Turn with me to Ephesians 2.
EPHESIANS 2:13-22
God calls each of us. He calls each of us to different tasks, but He calls each of us. He calls some to leadership—not just the pastor. If He says that a multitude of counselors is a good thing, then He’s going to call people who are wise and able to do that. He also calls people to be good laymen. Believe it or not, God calls some people just to follow. But He calls them to follow well. To follow supportively. To follow actively. To follow positively. People are also called to the Lord’s ministry. Once again, not just the pastor or the deacons. He calls people to use their gifts, talents and abilities in ministry. If you can swing a hammer, swing one in ministry. If you can cook a meal, cook one in ministry. If you can clean a toilet, clean one in ministry. If you can drive a car, drive one in ministry. Finally, and probably most importantly, God calls leftovers. He uses the leftover bricks of our lives to build this thing that He calls the body of Christ. He fitly frames together leftover leader bricks, leftover laymen bricks, and leftover ministry bricks to build His habitation. To build the place where He dwells through His Spirit. He did it with the ragtag remnant in our passage tonight. Don’t you think He can do it here? So how’s He going to do it here? The same way He did it there. Through our willing obedience. Whoever you are. Whatever area God has called you to. Obey Him and do it. The outcome isn’t really the issue. The issue is your obedience. He’ll take care of the outcome. He’ll provide the increase. That’s God’s job. Yours is to be obedient to do the things He’s called you to do. After all, we’re all leftovers. Whether you’re a maidservant or a mule, a servant or a singer. It doesn’t really matter. What matters is that when each of us is obedient to God’s call, He will fitly frame us together and grow us unto an holy temple in the Lord.
