Unlikely Help Series

INTRODUCTION

• When you look back on your life, have you ever thought about all the people who have helped you to get where you are in both your life and your walk with Jesus today?

• We do not get where we are alone; our life is not lived in a vacuum.

• I would imagine we can all think about those Christians who helped lead us to Jesus or those Christians who significantly impacted our faith journey.

• However, when you start to dig down deep into your life, you may begin to realize that folks who are not followers of Jesus have also had an impact on your faith journey.

• We can get caught in the trap of thinking that God only uses those who are His to help us and bless us along the way.

• In the history of the Jewish people from the book of Ezra, as they are nearing the end of their captivity in Babylon, we see that God used some unlikely people to bless the nation and help them as they were ending their time of captivity.

• Over an 80 plus year period, Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes, the most powerful men in the world in the era of the exiles' homecoming, were instrumental in returning from captivity.

• The Persian Empire stretched from Africa and southern Europe to China.

• It was the center of economic, military, and cultural power.

• Thousands of tribes, nations, and people groups were conquered citizens of the Persians.

• Amazingly, all three of these kings helped a small tribe of exiles from a small geographical area in the empire.

• God used all to bless the Jews, making decrees for their freedom and provision for the Jewish return home.

• All were pagans and had no lineage to Abraham.

• God could have released and blessed the people without using these three leaders, yet He used them.

• Sometimes, as I look at it, I wonder why He did not do some miracle or raise an army to let the nation fight its way out of Babylon.

• When I look back on my life, I sometimes wonder why God used some of the people He used to help me grow in my faith and bless me.

› Big Idea of the Message: God uses unlikely people to accomplish his purposes and bless the community of faith.

• Today, we will look at how God used these three unlikely sources of help to be a blessing to the nation leaving captivity!

• Let's begin by looking at a passage we studied last week, Ezra 1:1-4

Ezra 1:1–4 (CSB)

1 In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken through Jeremiah, the LORD roused the spirit of King Cyrus to issue a proclamation throughout his entire kingdom and to put it in writing:

2 This is what King Cyrus of Persia says: "The LORD, the God of the heavens, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and has appointed me to build him a house at Jerusalem in Judah.

3 Any of his people among you, may his God be with him, and may he go to Jerusalem in Judah and build the house of the LORD, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem.

4 Let every survivor, wherever he resides, be assisted by the men of that region with silver, gold, goods, and livestock, along with a freewill offering for the house of God in Jerusalem."

SERMON

I. Unlikely help from Cyrus.

• Seventy years of captivity is about to end.

• Of all the ways God could have ended it, He chose to use the Persian defeat of the Babylonians, and their leader, to get the ball rolling!

• As we learned last week, Persians defeated the Babylonians in 539 BC, and within a year of that event, Cyrus issued his decree to allow those who were called to do so to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple and the city.

• Outside of issuing the decree to allow this fantastic event to happen, Cyrus also bankrolled the project.

• We also know that Cyrus was doing this because of his own interests, not so much because he wanted the Jews to be able to go home and worship.

• We also see from this that even if one does not have the same intentions of God, God will still use them for His purpose.

• When it was time for the captivity to begin, God used this pagan leader to get the ball rolling.

• This was not some quick decision, both Jeremiah and about 130 years before this time, the Prophet Isaiah wrote about this event, even to the point that Isaiah revealed the leader's namer who would start the process of ending the captivity!