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Hello, listeners, and welcome to the YCC Anglican Podcast. Today we begin a new sermon series in Ezra and Nehemiah. We begin in Ezra chapter 1 with Pastor Wei preaching his message entitled Preparation to Return. May the Lord speak to all our hearts this morning.

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Church, we are embarking on a new study. This year we are looking at uh Ezra Nehemiah. Right? And Ezra and Nehemiah appears as two separate books in our Bible. But together they form a continuous story. The story of Israel's return from exile. It is also the story of the rebuilding of the temple and the city world. And lastly, it is a story about the resistance they will face along the way. And this is a story that we will be studying for the next few months. And there are really three main plots to this story. If you see on the screen, Ezra chapters 1 to 6 details the return of return to Judah. The return to Judah to rebuild the temple. And this was done in the days of Zerubabel, the governor of Judah. And then we hear nothing for 60 years actually, until in chapter 7, all the way to the end, there is a second wave of people going back to the land, this time led by Ezra. And then we will hop on to the next book, the Book of Nehemiah, to look at the issue with the rebuilding of the walls and the struggles, the resistance that they faced. And it is a lot of history. And it's built on even more history, on what has happened before Ezra Nehimaya. And I know Sunday morning, with this cool weather, this is not the best time to talk about history. And I don't know how you feel about it. To be honest, I don't remember anything from my own history or social study classes when I was in secondary school. But I wish I paid more attention. Because only later in life did I realize that history is not just about a bunch of dates or the names of people and places. In which God promised to bless Abraham and give him descendants, offspring, as many as there are the sands sand in the beach, right? He'll form a nation out of these people, and they will be his people, and God will bless them. And he will use them to bless everyone else. This nation will be called Israel. And they will end up becoming slaves in Egypt. So God acted in power for his people with great signs and wonders. And God, at that point where they had the Exodus, God cost Israel his treasured possession, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation in Exodus chapter 19. And he makes another covenant with them. God promises that he will bless them as long as they are obedient, and he will punish them as long as they were disobedient. And if we continue reading throughout the rest of the Old Testament, right, throughout their life, uh as God's holy nation, God led them in so many different ways. He led them by the pillar of cloud and fire in the wilderness. He led them into the promised land, he gave them judges, and later on he would give them kings and prophets, so that they may follow the ways of God, so that they may enjoy God's covenantal blessing and become a blessing to the world. God had made every provision for Israel so that they may worship him and follow him. And yet the history of Israel is uh checkered with idolatry and faithlessness. Right? A big theme in the history of Israel is their waywardness. They will break the covenant time and again, preferring to worship other gods and doing things their way. And no matter how many great signs and wonders, no matter how many judges, how many kings, how many prophets, no matter the provision that God has given to them, the chosen people of God kept falling back into idolatry and sin. And so God being faithful to his covenant, right, he punished them. He allowed for the destruction of his holy temple where his spirit resides. He allowed for foreign power to carry his chosen people away into exile. He allowed for the promised land to be occupied by strangers. And so Judah, captives now to the Babylonian Empire, went into exile. They lost their freedom, they lost their land, they lost the temple, they lost their worship. And this is where we are starting Ezra chapter 1. Um, by the time of Ezra chapter 1, actually decades have passed from from the events of the exile, right? And it was a dark time, right? People might have been feeling hopeless now, it's been so long. Will God really do something about it? Right, and and that's really the history of Israel as God's people, right? Checkered with idolatry, with sin, with waywardness. But it is not simply a history about the people, right? The Old Testament is also the history about a God who acts in the lives of his people, a God who acts for them. And even as Israel was persistently unfaithful, God was unieldingly, unyieldingly faithful to his covenant and his promises. He is faithful to his treasured possession, his chosen people. And so now we come to Ezra Nahimaya as a whole, right? And it is really a story about God's covenantal faithfulness. A God who sees to it that his purpose for his people is accomplished. We see God's faithfulness in rescuing them yet again, his faithfulness in providing a new exodus from the Babylonian captivity, a faithfulness to restore them as a nation and to renew them that their hearts may turn to him once more in worship. And so Ezra alludes to this faithfulness of God in his book when he writes in uh Exod chapter 1, verse 1, in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled. Right? What is Ezra referring to? What word of the Lord that came from the mouth of Jeremiah? We see uh very quickly in Jeremiah 25 and then again in 29, we see God speaking through Jeremiah in chapter 25, verse 11. This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon 70 years. Right? God was giving his word through Jeremiah and prophesying that the exile is gonna come, and this land will be made into ruins. But in chapter 29, verse 10, uh Jeremiah records that for thus says the Lord, when 70 years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and that is his promise to the people. I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. God remembers his people, he remembers his promise to them. And in extra, the time has finally come. God asked to bring him, bring them back to their land after their 70 years in captivity. All this time, if I were one of them, I will probably have forgotten God, to be honest. Or I would have thought, man, this this God probably is not really real anymore. We are doomed to be here under captivity. But God remembers his people, and now he finally comes with comes to visit them. And so this is the first point of my sermon today that God is faithful and he keeps his promises.

unknown 9:44

Right?

SPEAKER_01 9:44

The history of Israel, as we have just seen, and in fact, the history of the patriarchs, the judges, and the kings, even the good ones, right? Even the good kings and the judges, right? They show us that we have all fallen short of God's glory. But God remains faithful in carrying out his purposes in us. And just as God was faithful and kept his promises to his people back then, he is also faithful towards us today. He keeps his promise to us regardless of our history, regardless of our past.

unknown 10:22

Right?

SPEAKER_01 10:23

He promised that he will never leave us nor forsake us. That his grace is sufficient for us. He promised that he will bless us with every spiritual blessing in Christ, that he'll provide for our every need so we know we do not need to be anxious about anything. He'll give us peace that will guide, that will guide our hearts and minds in Christ. Most importantly, he promised us that we will have new life in Christ Jesus and that we'll be made into a new creation. God has said it and he will keep it. Even if we have at times been faithless, even if at times we have given up on him, God never gives up on us. Right? We can give up on him, we can give up on ourselves, but God will never give up on us. So there will be times when we messed up, when we stumble, when we fall, when we choose to go astray, when we wander away from his intended life and blessing for us. And to be honest, if we are honest with ourselves, who hasn't been unfaithful to God at some point in our lives? And yet God is faithful. I personally have never had a dramatic turn in my life. I don't think I have gone like really, really wayward and then come back to the Lord. Um but at one point in my life, I I felt really, really dumb praying to God. I felt stupid. Um I I I couldn't fathom, I couldn't grasp the existence of God. Like to me, that was just ridiculous at some point. And I even said out loud, like literally out loud, that I really feel I'm just talking to the wall when I'm praying to you. And I was half hoping God maybe will speak back audibly and scold me for it, right? Um, but that didn't happen. And and I was carrying this doubt for quite a while. Um as I look back now, I think God was really faithful to me regardless. He never kind of just gave up on me, like, oh you you faithless child, you if you don't believe in me, fine. Right? God doesn't do that to any of us, you know. And I think he brought about a series of events in my life where I I had the resources, I had the ways to solidify my faith and to connect with him again on a spiritual level. And really, no matter what we have gone through, no matter what we are going through today, and no matter what we'll go through tomorrow, in this one thing we can trust that God is faithful and he keeps his promises, and he will visit, and he will lead you through um the dark times. And that's the so that's the first point for for this morning that God is faithful and he keeps his promises. The second point is this that God is sovereign over all. As we continue reading Ezra 1, we see how God acted to keep his promise to his people. Ezra 1, um, the second part of uh verse 1, all the way to verse 4. The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing. Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel. He is the God who is in Jerusalem, and let each survivor in whatever place his sojourns be assisted by the men of his place with silver and gold, with goods and with beasts, besides free will offerings for the house of God that is in Jerusalem. Right. Of course, the important bit is really the first part, right? That God stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia. Historically, Cyrus was never Jewish. Yeah, historically, he it wasn't like he became a believer of the God of Israel. And he w he didn't worship God exclusively. Um he was something of a polytheist, right? He believed in many gods. He had his own ancestral god, Ahura Mazda. He for every nation that he conquers, right, he will say that he'll thank their gods and say that, oh, it is their God that gave me victory over this nation, right? So he had no problem saying things like, oh, the God of uh the Babylonian uh Babylonians is also the Lord of the heavens and all that, right? Um so it's more it was not like Cyrus was uh like biased or on the side of Israel, but what this whole thing does show us is how God is sovereign, right? The sovereign God raised Babylon to destroy Judah, and it is this same sovereign Lord who now stirs the heart of Cyrus, who is not his people, who is not his tribe, who who does not even really worship him, but he stirs up the heart of King Cyrus so that he may decree that they go back and rebuild the temple. And God didn't just decree, to let them just take all the gold and silver that they need.

unknown 15:46

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SPEAKER_01 15:47

All this was done according to a prophecy found in Isaiah 45, right? That that years years before this thing happened, Isaiah already prophesied that Cyrus would be the anointed one who was chosen by God to subdue all nations and be the one to free Israel. And so we see that it is the Lord who stirred up the spirit of Cyrus to decree that the Israelites go back and rebuild the temple. And they would get so much more than that. It is a decree from the king himself that they'll get all the silver, all the gold, and any other vessels that they need, any other material that they will need for the rebuilding project, they will have it. Right? Um, and so from verses 6 to the end, we see kind of all these things happening, right? Um, Israel essentially plunders Babylon. Right? Before this, they had nothing and they were uh held captive by Babylon, right? And now, because of this one decree, because of what God was doing in Cyrus, now they take the wealth of the Babylonians, right, and they bring it back to their land to rebuild the temple. And so we see uh the second point from this sermon that God is sovereign in everything that happens, right? God is sovereign in everything that happens. If God intends for something to happen, nothing can stop him. Um I have probably shared this uh about my life before, um, how I became Christian and started attending uh this church, but but that's why I'll make it a bit quick. Uh, there was a of course a series of events uh that span from my primary school days all the way till I was about 15 years old before I came. And when I look back, I really do see God's hand guiding and leading me through all those years. Uh the most pivotal thing happened when I was when I had to choose my secondary school. Um, when I had to submit my uh my choice before my results. So I had to guess how well I did and then just hope that I get into the school I wanted to go. Um and so I honestly should have ended up in Issun Town Secondary. Yeah, that was going to be my choice. But my mother talked me into putting um this other school, uh, a mission school, right? Presbyterian high school. Um, a school that I never considered for the simple reason that it was not in Issue. Right? All my schools were just schools in Issue. Um she made me put it before Ishun town. Um so he she made me put it as a as a as a my my higher choice. And her reason is I quote her, you also won't get in. Right? So just put, you also won't get in, right? Just just put for fun. So in my mind, I was like, put for what? Like this is so so silly. Um but I was a good boy, right? So I believed it, and I believed that it wouldn't get in anyway. So okay, I'll just just just pull on. I was so sure, you know, I was so sure I'll get into Issuan town secondary. Um and I got into Presbyterian High and I was so disappointed because now I had to travel to Yochukang. I could have just stayed in Ishan, right? But now I have to okay, back then it to me it was very far from from from Khati to Yojukang. Um yeah, but but it was in Presbyterian High School that I had contact with Christians, right? Uh who actually made me kind of angry with with Christians in general and with the faith. I just wasn't happy about everything. I wasn't happy about the devotion that they made us sit through. I wasn't happy that they kept making us uh to me it was recitation. It kept making us recite the Lord's Prayer. Uh I wasn't happy with uh a lot of these things. Um until I eventually came to know the Lord in the school. Right. And then I realized I actually gained so much from from being in the school uh before I became Christian. The reason why I can remember the Lord's Prayer is really Presbyterian High School, not so much uh attending service. And when I look back at this whole thing, the real kicker to me is that my mother wasn't even Christian. But she made me choose a school that she thought I wouldn't get in. And of course, this is not a miraculous story, right? There was no visitation from an angel, the clouds didn't part with a ray of light coming through, uh, there was no thunderous voice to tell me to choose this school or else. But I still see God's sovereign work all over it. And in the other events in my life that kind of led me to Jesus, right? I see God's sovereignty through and through. And what I've learned is that if God has a purpose for you to be somewhere, then he will make a way and he'll lead you there. Yeah, if you earnestly seek him and wait on him, he will bring you to where he wants you to be. Right, he will bring you to where he wants you to be. Um and so be attentive, right? Be attentive to the things that are happening around you in your life. God may be acting and moving, and we may be missing it.

unknown 20:54

Right?

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Imagine saying, Oh, we got so lucky that you know Cyrus was so nice. He gave He's giving us this gold and silver, he's letting us go back to rebuild our temple. What a nice guy, right? Of course, he was God all along, right? And so everything is in God's hands and he intentionally leads us through the people we meet, through the events we have, through the things that happen in our lives. Right? He leads us through all these things that he may bring us to where he wants us to be. And so the first point is that uh God is faithful and he keeps his promises. The second point is that God is sovereign over all. And the very last point is found in verse 5, which happens to be our memory verse for this month that God stirs up the people of God. Right in verse 5, it says, Then rose up the heads of the fathers' houses of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and the Levites, everyone whose spirit God had stirred to go up to rebuild the house of the Lord. That is in Jerusalem. Going back to their own land was a marvelous thing. It was wonderful. But it was not the preeminent thing. It was not the most important thing that was happening for them. Right? The most important thing that was happening for them was that they were going back to rebuild the temple. That was by far the most crucial thing out of this whole episode. Because they were going back to rebuild the house of their God. It was so momentous and it was so important because the temple was the place of worship for them. It was the place of worship for them. And it was destroyed by the Babylonians. Without a temple, they couldn't gather, they couldn't worship, they couldn't offer sacrifices. All these things were gone for them for 70 years. But now, now they were going to rebuild. Now they will have a place to gather. Now they will hear the law being read publicly again. Now they can offer sacrifices again. And they were finally coming back to rebuild the temple where God dwells. It wouldn't have been a real exodus if they were merely relocating back. But this is a new exodus for the Israelites because they were finally coming out of captivity to worship God again. It was a return to true worship. And these men whose spirit was stirred to go, they probably were not passive people, they were not apathetic, they were not your nominal Christians, kind of just sitting around and waiting for things to happen, right? One commentator writes, a spiritually weak people would not have bothered to reclaim their temple and Torah, but would instead have been content gradually to blend into the society of Babylon. A spiritually weak people wouldn't have gone through all the trouble of relocating and rebuilding. They will have just stayed in Babylon and just be happy with it. Instead, these people chose to go through the struggle of returning to the land, rebuilding the temple, and then facing resistance to all their efforts. And they will bear the pains, the frustrations, the threats, because deep in their spirit was a rumbling, a yearning to worship the Lord once more. And so the commentator goes on to say that obedience to the law and worship at the temple actually increased in the centuries after Ezra as compared to the centuries prior to the exile. What that means is that you know before the exile, we have seen that they keep going back again and again to idolatry. God made all the provision, but they just went back to idolatry again and again. After the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, after the temple was rebuilt, right? The obedience to the law, the worship at the temple, just increased and increased. The Israelites never really went back to idolatry. Yeah? They never went back to worship Baal or Molech or Kimosh or these other foreign gods, right? They never really built high places again, they never really kind of turned away. Um they never really went back to idolatry. And that is really remarkable because the exile actually played its part, right? They were finally cleansed in their sense. And so when they came back, of course they had still had issues. I mean, yeah, they still have issues that needed to be dealt with until the coming of Jesus and all. But by and large, the Israelites sought to be obedient to the law now. Um and and there was something that was that is a sign of true renewal in their worship, right? These men were seeking and they were waiting, and when the time came, they were open to God's stirring in their spirit to rebuild the temple and to renew their worship. And so this is the third and final point that it is God who stirs our hearts to worship. But it is our hearts, uh, it is uh the tenderness of our hearts that gives us this position, right, to respond to God. But we must remember that God is the one who initiates worship, right? God is the one who draws people to himself in the first place. In the liturgical understanding of uh worship and Sunday service, right? It is not simply that we choose to come to church, right? We come to church by the invitation of God, who calls his people into his house, into his presence, to worship him together. Right? God is the one who initiates and who stirs, and it is those hearts that are yearning for him and seeking him that are responsive to his stirring. Because in fact, God calls all of us, but not everyone responds. Right? God calls all of us, but not everyone will respond the same way. So is our is our heart tender towards his stirring? Is our heart open to his invitation? Or is it cold and hard towards God? Have we yearned to come here to worship him? Or are we just waiting for this whole thing to be over so that we can get on with our lives? Wherever you are at, uh whether you feel like you have gone astray, whether or like you messed up too much, um, whether you are feeling faithless and apathetic towards God right now. Or even if you are longing for God to come and renew your spirit and to renew your worship, right? God's invitation is the same to all. Come to me. One of the most uh one of the more impactful songs for me, at least, that has come out in the recent years is this song, Oh come or you unfaithful. Um is a song we sang, I think, I like at least three times, uh last Advent and Christmas, just in December last month. Right. Um if you have the time, watch the video that they put out. Um it's a video they recorded of people reacting to the song for the first time, right? Um and and watching that video always gets me, yeah, always gets me like like somehow I tear up and and and um there's something very raw, very honest, and very powerful about the message uh in this song that touches the depths of our human predicament and our human uh uh condition. Right that speaks to those who aren't feeling joyful or triumphant, that and that really encapsulates the gospel for us all. If you can remember, like I'm just gonna briefly run through the lyrics a bit, but if you remember, it is an invitation for all those who are unfaithful, who are weak and unstable, those who are barren and waiting, those who are just tired of praying, those who are bitter, broken, those who are guilty and hiding from God. The song says, Everyone, come see what God has done. Christ is born for you. I have reproduced uh verse 5 on the screen, and I will end my sermon with this. And it's so beautifully written. Come, though you have nothing. Come. He is the offering. Come, see what your God has done. God made all the provision for Israel in the Old Testament, and God has made all the provision for us who live post New Testament, right? He has faithfully kept his promise. He sent his only son to die on the cross so that we may come out of the captivity of sin and once and for all be set free. And nothing happened to Jesus that was outside God's sovereign will. The whole thing about Judas betraying him or Pontius Pilate sentencing him to be flocked and then to throw him to the Jews to be crucified. Nothing escaped God's sovereign will. But Jesus, think about it, Jesus willingly suffered and died on our behalf. And Jesus Himself is the offering for the atonement of our sins. And Jesus is the temple in Christ. We worship God in spirit and in truth, and that is why Jesus calls us to Him, to dwell in Him, to abide in Him as He abides in us. Because He is truly life, and He is the only one who can renew our spirit and renew our worship. And God has made every provision for us. And so if our hearts are open and tender, His spirit may yet stir our spirit to worship. So, church, come not to see what is not to see what God is going to do, right? But what He has already done for you and for me in Christ Jesus. And I pray that our spirit may be stirred, maybe stirred to true worship. I pray that we may come alive. I pray that we may treasure these times where we can gather in a place where YCCA is not in ruin, but but but but where we have this beautiful sanctuary so that the people of God can come together to worship the Lord.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

We pray that you've administered to by the Word of God today. If you'd like to know more about each Christian church, please visit our website at yccit.com. Have a blessed day.