ENGAGE
There are about 18 million Jews worldwide—0.2% of the world’s population. But Jews make up 54% of the world chess champions, 27% of the Nobel physics laureates and 31% of the medicine laureates. Within the United States, Jews make up only 2% of the US population, but 21% of the Ivy League student bodies, 26% of the Kennedy Center honorees, 37% of the Academy Award-winning directors, 38% of those on a recent Business Week list of philanthropists, and 51% of the Pulitzer Prize winners for nonfiction.
Such disproportionate success in these areas by the Jewish people is obviously not just a coincidence. There has to be some explanation and there has been no shortage of people who have attempted to figure out what it is. Even well-known atheist Richard Dawkins acknowledges just how astounding these statistics are and admits he has no explanation.
What is fascinating here is that this success can’t be explained merely by genetics. It’s not like saying that someone who is 6’5” tall and can jump is 99.9% more likely to make it to the NBA than me. Those who have studied this phenomenon have found that it can’t be explained merely by IQ scores for instance. Jews as a whole aren’t innately more intelligent than the rest of the population.
Those of us who are familiar with the Bible shouldn’t be all that surprised at these numbers though. All the way back in Genesis 12, God promised Abraham that all the nations of the earth would be blessed by his descendants. Certainly, the main blessing God had in mind there was Jesus, the Messiah who would be from Abraham’s lineage and who would bless all of mankind by providing a way for them to be reconciled to God. But that promise also seems to mean that the entire world also gets blessed by the achievements of God’s chosen people in areas like science, commerce and the arts.
TENSION
The passage that we’ll study this morning will give us some further insight into why the Jews have become so successful in these arenas. But I’m going to warn you up front that it is also going to challenge us to reevaluate our lives to make sure that we are also being the blessing to the rest of the world that God has called us to be.
TRUTH
Let me briefly remind you of our timeline.
After the Babylonian exile of the Jews ended, a group of about 50,000 Jews returned to Israel under the leadership of Zerubbabel in 536 BC Under his leadership the rebuilding of the temple was begun. This first return to Jerusalem is recorded in Ezra 1-6.
Roughly 50 years later, Xerxes, who is also known as Ahasuerus, becomes king of Persia. During his reign, Esther becomes queen and her influence in the Persian court paves the way for a second and third returns. We looked at some of those events last week.
A second return of a small company of only about 2,000 Jews takes place during the reign of King Artaxerxes in 457 BC, led by Ezra. That return is recorded in Ezra 7-10 and that will be our focus this morning.
A third return takes place 13 years later in 444 BC when Nehemiah leads a small group back to Jerusalem for the purpose of rebuilding the walls. The account of that return is obviously found in the book of Nehemiah and we’ll take a look at chapter 8 of that book next Sunday.
You’ll notice that Ezra chapter 7 begins with these words:
Now after this…
There is nearly a 60-year gap between the end of Ezra 6 and the beginning of Ezra 7. The events recorded in the book of Esther occur during that long break. The events in chapter 7 occur during the reign of the Persian king Artaxerxes. The first 5 verses of the chapter give us the genealogy of Ezra. This genealogy is not complete at all – several generations are left out. But the important thing here is that Ezra’s lineage is traced back to Aaron to prove that he was qualified to be a priest, even the high priest.
We’ll pick up the account in verse 6.
[Read Ezra 7:6-10]
Although Ezra had been born in Babylon, he is deeply committed and loyal to his Jewish roots. During his life, the era of the prophets was drawing to a close. Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi were the last of the prophets. But during this time God raised up this godly man named Ezra, whose name means “help”.
In addition to being a priest, Ezra was also a scribe. Since there were no printing presses or copy machines in those days, the Scriptures, which primarily consisted of the “Torah” – the first five books of our Bible – had to be copied by hand by the scribes. But as we’re going to see this morning, Ezra did much more than just copy the Scriptures. He very likely authored 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah and possibly even Esther. And Jewish tradition holds that he was the one who assembled the books of the Old Testament.
As we’ll see in more detail next week, Ezra also instituted small group Bible study by organizing and training the Levites to be Bible study teachers. It is also likely that Ezra was instrumental in establishing the entire synagogue system that allowed people to study the Scriptures and worship in a location near their homes instead of having to travel to the Temple in Jerusalem. So it’s no wonder that in verse 6, we see that Ezra is described as being “skilled in the Law of Moses”. While Zerubbabel was rebuilding the Temple and Nehemiah was rebuilding the walls, Ezra was rebuilding the spiritual life of the people.
This marked an important turning point for the Jewish people. Prior to the exile the focal point for their worship had been the sacrificial system that took place in the Temple. But after the exile, even once the Temple had been rebuilt, worship primarily took place in the synagogue, where the study of the Scriptures was the main form of worship. So by time Jesus was born, over 400 years later, the Jews were steeped in the Scriptures. They started studying the Bible in synagogues schools when they were 5 or 6 years old. Some even memorized the entire Old Testament by the time they were 13 or 14.
As a result, the Jews became to be known as “the people of the Book”, a term that Muslims still use to refer to Jews and Christians. And I have to believe that this love for learning within the Jewish culture has carried over to today and is at least a major contributing factor to the kind of disproportionate achievement for the Jews that I mentioned at the beginning of the message.
In both verse 6 and verse 9, we clearly see the reason that Ezra was able to accomplish so much – the hand of God was on him. That is a commonly used phrase in both Ezra and Nehemiah. It is used 6 times to describe Ezra and twice more to describe Nehemiah.
Wouldn’t you like for that to be said about your life – that the hand of God is on you? Well the good news is that this passage tells us exactly why that happened in Ezra’s life and by extension, how it can be true in our lives as well. The key verse is verse 10 and there we learn that…
God sets His hand on the person
who sets his or her heart on God’s Word
Before we go any further, I need to remind all of us that this isn’t some formula by which we can somehow earn God’s favor or force Him to set His hand on us and bless us. But at the same time, we do consistently see in Scripture that as a demonstration of His love and grace, God does delight in blessing those who delight in His Word in the way that Ezra did.
We also see that when God sets his hand on someone, it is not just for his or her own personal benefit, but rather a blessing that is to be used to bless others.
APPLICATION
With those caveats in mind, it is clear from the text that there was a connection between what Ezra did and God’s hand being on him. The little word “for” in verse 10 shows that the two were linked.
HOW TO SET MY HEART ON GOD’S WORD
1. Delight
The first thing we see here is that Ezra “set his heart”.
In our culture, like Ezra’s there are so many things that we can set our hearts on:
• We can set our hearts on making lots of money
• We can set our hearts on achievement – getting that promotion at work, or earning an advanced degree so we can put a bunch of initials after our name, or getting good grades in school
• We can set our hearts on pleasing others
• We can set our hearts on fame
• We can set our hearts on improving our physical appearance or our health by losing weight or working out
There is not anything inherently evil in any of these things. As long as we do it in a Biblical manner, there is nothing wrong with making lots of money or being a high achiever or even being famous. And it is certainly Biblical to take care of our bodies. But when those things become our source of delight, when they begin to consume our thoughts, our time and our resources, then that’s when we have a problem.
Ezra certainly achieved some of those things. He was well known. He was given tremendous financial resources by the king. He was intelligent and gifted. But for Ezra those were only byproducts of his consuming desire for and delight in the Scriptures. For Ezra, being a scribe was not just a job, it was his life’s purpose.
We don’t know a lot about Ezra’s background, but what is clear here is that at some point Ezra made a commitment to make God’s Word his sole delight in life. Everything else would be secondary to that.
Have you made a decision to delight in God’s Word like that? Unfortunately, the chances are that many of you here this morning have never done that. One recent survey found that while 90 percent of churchgoers say they “desire to please and honor Jesus in all I do”, only 19 percent personally read the Bible on a daily basis. And only 1 in 5 Americans have read through the Bible even one time.
So here are a few questions that might help you evaluate how much you really delight in God’s Word:
• Are you using a systematic plan to read through the entire Bible?
• Do you read the Bible out of a sense of duty or obligation or because you want to?
• Do you read the Bible every day, or at least almost every day?
If, after considering those questions, you would have to honestly admit that you don’t really delight in God’s Word like you should, then I want to encourage you by saying that this is one of those areas in life where delight often follows discipline. Sometimes the only way to get to the point where we delight in God’s Word is to start with the discipline of setting aside some time each day to read the Bible. I can promise you that if you’ll do that consistently, the delight will come as God reveals Himself to you each day through His Word.
2. Dig in
The first thing that Ezra had set his heart to do was to “study the Law of the Lord”. The verb “study” doesn’t mean just a casual reading. It could also be translated “seek” or “inquire” or “investigate”. The idea here is that Ezra really dug into God’s Word in order to understand what it meant.
That kind of study requires time and effort. That is one of the reasons I’m not a big fan of using devotionals because I think in many cases they tend to keep us from really digging into the text. That is also why I wrote a blog post titled “5 Reasons a ‘verse a day’ might be hazardous to your spiritual health” a couple of months ago and if you haven’t had a chance to read it, I’d encourage you to go to the website and do that.
This is also the reason that when I prepare my message each week, I don’t read commentaries or other sermons until I’ve first taken the time to wrestle with the text both on my own and with others in our Monday morning Bible study.
So how do I dig into the text like that? There are books and seminary classes that are devoted to teaching people how to do that, but the simplest way to start is to just begin asking questions about the text:
• To whom was this written?
• What is the historical context?
• Who are the main characters and what do I know about them?
• What words are repeated in this passage and what do they mean?
• What does this text reveal about God? (The most important question to ask IMO)
This is something we ought to do on our own, but we should also do this in community with others, which is why it is so important to be part of a small group Bible study or participate in something like our Bible Roundtable, which we have after our worship gathering each week.
3. Do it
Ezra didn’t study God’s Word just to get knowledge. He set his heart to do whatever God’s Word commanded him to do. As we saw several weeks ago at the end of 2 Chronicles, the people of Judah had been conquered by the Babylonians and taken into exile because information without application leads to judgment. It seems that Ezra was painfully aware of that truth and didn’t want to make that same mistake again. So he made a personal commitment to apply what he was learning from the Scriptures.
So I’m going to ask you the same question I asked you 4 weeks ago when we looked at that passage in 2 Chronicles 36: What specific actions have you taken in the last month based on what you’ve learned from God’s Word – either from the messages I’ve preached or through your own study of the Bible? If you’ve set your heart to do what is written in God’s Word, then you shouldn’t have any trouble at all identifying several areas of your life where to have put into practice what you’re learning from the Bible. But if you can’t do that then there is probably a pretty good chance that you need to renew your commitment to obey God’s Word and pray and ask God to help you do that.
4. Declare it
Ezra set his heart to “teach God’s statues and rules”. We see here that his devotion to God’s Word wasn’t just about living a better life for himself. He was completely committed to taking what he had been learning and applying in his own life and passing that on to others. And, as we’re going to see more fully next week, that had a tremendous impact on the entire nation.
I know that at this point many of you are probably thinking that you’re really not cut out to teach God’s Word to others. But you need to understand that it’s not necessary to be a pastor or Bible study teacher or small group leader or missionary to teach God’s Word.
Our culture is in desperate need of people who have studied and applied the Bible to their own lives and who then teach their children and grandchildren to do the same. It is in desperate need of people who can help others apply Biblical principles in their marriages and their finances. It is in desperate need of people who have spent enough time in God’s Word that they can use it to share the gospel and give hope to family members, co-workers and neighbors.
INSPIRATION
God sets His hand on the person
who sets his or her heart on God’s Word
In Ezra’s case, the hand of God on his life impacted an entire nation, not just during his life, but for generations to come. I have to believe that his devotion to the study of the Scriptures has been passed down through countless generations and at a minimum, it is at least contributing to the success that his ancestors are experiencing in our world today that I spoke about at the beginning of this message.
I can’t promise you that God’s hand on your life will produce that dramatic of a result. If you’ll set your heart on God’s Word, it may not impact an entire nation to the degree that Ezra did. But what I can promise is that when God sets his hand on your life, it will make a difference – perhaps for your children or grandchildren, perhaps for a co-worker or friend or neighbor, perhaps even for a stranger. And that may very well have a much more far reaching and longer lasting impact that you will ever know.
[Prayer]
ACTION
As I was working on the message this week, I couldn’t help but think that Ezra’s devotion to God has a lot of parallels with our discipleship path.
1. At some point in his life – we really don’t know when or how – he was introduced to God and His Word – he came.
2. The next step in his walk with God was to “set his heart” on God’s Word – he committed to live his life based on God’s Word.
3. As he studied the Scriptures he grew in his knowledge of God and in his relationship with God
4. As he applied God’s Word in his life, he undoubtedly served others.
5. His devotion to the Scriptures was not just for his own benefit – he shared that with others.
So it seems like this morning is a great time to challenge all of us once again to take the “next step” in our relationship with Jesus. Let me suggest some possibilities that we should all consider.
1. I believe there are some of you here this morning that need to make the next step of “commit”:
• If you have never put your faith and trust in Jesus and committed to make Him both your Savior and your Lord, then I know that is a commitment that God wants you to make this morning
• Some of you have made that commitment, but you have never obeyed Jesus’ command to be baptized by immersion in order to publicly testify to your faith in Jesus.
• Some of you have been attending here for a while, but you have not yet made a commitment to become a member of this church.
2. Some of you here this morning, need to take the next step of “grow”:
• If you don’t currently have a plan to read through the Bible in a systematic manner, then you need to find a plan and stick to it. Our church has developed a plan that will allow you to read through the entire Bible every 4 years and you can join in that plan at any time. There are a lot of other good plans to pick from, bust as I tell everyone the best plan is whichever one you actually use.
• If you aren’t currently part of some kind of small group Bible study, you need to be. You can stay for our Bible Roundtable on Sunday mornings. We have a small group for parents on Sunday mornings. We have men’s and women’s Bible studies that meet during the week. And if for some reason none of those work for you, let us know and we’ll help you start a new group.
3. Some of you here this morning need to take the next step of “serve”:
• Service is certainly not limited to this building or even among the members of this body. We should be serving others in the name of Jesus in our homes, in our neighborhoods, in our jobs and in our community every day. And those forms of service should be taking place every day.
• But I believe that every person should also have a place of service within our body. Many of you are already plugged in somewhere, some of you in multiple places. But if you’re not we would love to help you find a place where you can use your passions, skills, abilities and gifts to serve here at TFC.
4. Finally, we are all called to “share”:
• To be honest, this is probably the area where we have the most room to grow as a church. So we’re going to be focusing on how to be more outwardly focused after the first of the year.
• But I also think that in some cases, we have a tendency to make the process of sharing our faith a lot more complicated than it needs to be. If we really love Jesus and He has changed our lives, then we ought to want to tell others about that.
The good news is that you don’t have to take your “next step” on your own. We’re here to help you. We have a great group of elders who are committed to making sure you have the support you need as you take that step. Perhaps this morning as I’ve reviewed our discipleship path and suggested some possible next steps, God has impressed upon you what that next step is for you. If that is the case, will you let us know so we can make sure you get the assistance you need?
And if that is still not clear to you, will you commit right now to prayerfully considering this week, what that next step might be for you?
There are several ways that you can communicate your decision to us:
• I’ll be at the back along with some of our elders during the closing song and you can come and talk to us there. If you’re not sure what your next step should be, we’d love to pray with you about that.
• Contact any of our elders this week. Our contact information is on the back of your bulletin.
• Go to the “Connect” page on our website and contact us there or you can message the Elders through our Faithlife group.
Questions for the Bible Roundtable
1. What was the evidence that God’s hand was on Ezra? How do we know when God’s hand is on us?
2. When we “set our hearts” on God’s Word, what are some disciplines/practices we can adopt that will help us come to the place where we delight in the Bible?
3. How can tools like a “verse of the day”, devotionals and commentaries be helpful in studying the Bible like Ezra did? How can they be a hindrance?
4. What are some things I can do when I study the Bible that will help me to apply what I’m learning?
5. What are some ways that I can “teach” God’s Word to others in my life even if I am not in a formal teaching role or positon?
