The Bible Breakdown

Ezra 07: A Mission Statement for Life

• Brandon Cannon • Episode 452

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Well, everybody, welcome back to the Bible Breakdown podcast with your host, pastor Brandon. Today, ezra, chapter 7, and today's title is A Mission Statement for Life. A Mission Statement for Life, and we're going to get into that in just a moment, as we're going to start to transition from hearing this story in the third person, as Ezra is recounting what he had heard, to where now he's going to start talking from the first person because Ezra has now arrived in Jerusalem. We'll get into that in just a moment. But, as always, if you like what we're doing, make sure you like, share and subscribe to YouTube channel and the podcast. Make sure you're leaving us comments and reviews so we can continue to grow and do life together, and always join us at the Bible Breakdown Discussion on Facebook, because the more we dig, the more we find, and we're really working hard to develop a community of people that are rallying around reading God's word together and I kind of like to think of myself as your friendly neighborhood, you know Bible tour guide slowly just growing through things together. And we've still got some great ideas for what we want to do. We still want to have some interviews with people and just continue to grow. And so what would you like to see us do on this channel, along with our daily Bible readings? Are there some things that we could help to assist you as you continue to grow in your walk with God? I want you to let us know because, man, we want to continue this community to growing closer to God every single day. If you have your Bibles, I want to open it with me to Ezra, chapter 7. Remember, the overall theme of Ezra is the more we dig, the more we find by keeping the main thing. The main thing and the goal of the whole book of Ezra is King Cyrus had told the people of Israel to go back to Jerusalem and build a temple and start worshiping again. And, man, they have encountered so many obstacles to doing that, but finally, in chapter six, they were able to establish the temple of God. But just having a temple doesn't mean they're worshiping. They need guidance, they need instruction. They didn't know how to do this. Well, that's where Ezra comes in and he has this mission statement for life. I think it's beautiful and it's wonderful and I want it to be a challenge to all of us today. So, if you're ready, ezra, chapter 7, verse 1, says this Many ready.

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Ezra, chapter 7, verse 1, says this many years later, during the reign of King Artaxerxes of Persia, there was a man named Ezra. He was a son of Sariah and son of Azariah, son of Hilkiah, son of Shulam, son of Zadok, son of Atub, the son of Amariah, son of Azariah, son of Meroth, son of Zechariah, son of Uzziah, son of Buki, son of Abishu, son of Phinehas. Now, what did he just do? Pause. He was showing that he had a heritage that went all the way back to Aaron, the high priest. So he was a priest unto God. So he was just saying I can prove it, I am part of the priestly line, because, if you remember, when they were all getting ready to go back to the land of Israel, there were people who were acting like they belonged. They really didn't. So he's saying I can prove it. Here's my lineage, verse 6.

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This Ezra was a scribe and he was so well-versed in the laws of Moses, which the God of Israel had given the people of Israel, that he came up to Jerusalem from Babylon and there Some of the people of Israel, as well as some of the priests, levites, singers, gatekeepers and temple servants, traveled up to Jerusalem with him in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes' reign, ezra arrived in Jerusalem in August of that year. He had arranged to leave Babylon on April 8th, the first day of the new year, and he arrived in Jerusalem in August, for the gracious hand of the Lord was upon him. And this was because and here it is this was because Ezra had determined to study and obey the law of the Lord and to teach those decrees and regulations to the people of Israel. King Artaxerxes had given him a copy of the following letter to Ezra and the priest and scribe who studied and taught the commands and decrees of the Lord of Israel. This is what it said From Artaxerxes, the king of kings, to Ezra, the priest, the teacher of the law of God of heaven, greetings, I decree that any of the people of Israel in my kingdom, including the priests and Levites, may volunteer to return to Jerusalem with you.

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I and my council of seven hereby instruct you to conduct an inquiry into the situation in Judah and Jerusalem and, based on your God's law, which is in your hand, we also commission you to take with you silver and gold which you are freely presenting as an offering to the God of Israel who lives in Jerusalem. Furthermore, you are to take any silver or gold that you may attain from the province of Babylon, as well as the voluntary offerings of the people and the priests that are presented for the temple of the God of Jerusalem. These donations are to be used specifically for the purchase of bulls, rams, male lambs and the appropriate grain offerings and liquid offerings, all of which will be offered on the altar of the temple of your God in Jerusalem. Any of the silver or gold that is left over may be used in whatever way you and your colleagues feel is the will of your God, but as for the cups that are entrusted to you for the service of the temple of your God, deliver them all to the God of Jerusalem. If you need anything else from your God's temple, or from any similar needs, you may take it from the royal treasury.

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I, artaxerxes, the king, hereby send this decree to all the treasurers in the province west of the Euphrates River. You are to give Ezra, the priest and the teacher of the law of God of heaven, whatever he requests of you. You are to give him up to 7,500 pounds of silver, 500 bushels of wheat, 550 gallons of wine and 550 gallons of olive oil, and an unlimited supply of salt, be careful to provide whatever the God of heaven demands for his temple. For why should we risk bringing God's anger against the realm of the king and his sons? I also decree that no priest, levite, singer, gatekeeper, temple servant or other worker of this temple of God will be required to pay tribute, custom or tolls of any kind. And you, ezra, are to use the wisdom your God has given you to appoint magistrates and judges who know your God's laws to govern all the people of the province west of the Euphrates River. Teach the law to anyone who does not know it. Anyone who refuses to obey the law of your God or the law of the king will be punished immediately, either by death, banishment, confiscation of goods or imprisonment. So, wow, he has just been given all the authority from the king to do whatever needs to be done.

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Verse 27,. Praise the Lord, the God of our ancestors, who made the king want to beautify the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, and praise him for demonstrating such unfailing love to me by honoring me before the king, his counsel and his mighty nobles. I felt encouraged because the gracious hand of the Lord, my God, was on me, and so I gathered some of the leaders of Israel to return with me to Jerusalem. So did you notice how right there, the last few verses, it switched from third person to first person. So now we are journeying with Ezra as he goes back to Israel. But one of the things I love about this is you would look at this person and go man. God gave this person such great favor.

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God did amazing things through Ezra's life. As I told you back at the beginning of the book of Ezra that God used him likely to write 1 and 2 Chronicles. We know he wrote this one. It's possible he may have had a hand in writing Esther or Nehemiah, and we also know he wrote some Psalms. It's even also possible that Ezra was one of the ones that compiled a lot of what we now call today the Old Testament together. God used Ezra in a mighty way, and so the question would be why? What was it about Ezra that God used in such a way? Well, it says all the way back toward the beginning of this chapter that this was because Ezra had determined to study and obey the law of the Lord and then to teach what he had learned to the people of Israel. So, in other words, he wanted to know God and then he wanted to teach how to know God to other people. What an amazing mission statement for life.

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There's a great apologist by the name of Aquinas who lived in something like 400, 600 AD and he was one of the first people to take philosophy which, using your brain and theology, the study of God, and say there go together and so it's okay to use philosophy and theology together. And so he was constantly talking and thinking and debating back and forth with people and understanding the basics and the foundation of faith, what is sin, what is righteousness and just thinking through these things a lot, and he finally wrote this systematic theology called Summa Theologica, and it was just this great, huge work of God. And he was known to have this great work ethic where he would just work for hours and hours and hours just studying such things and writing it down. And it's amazing because there are people still today who just use his stuff all the time. They're called Thomistic apologists and one of my great mentors, dr Norman Geisler, he was a Thomistic apologist and he's just using a lot of the teachings of Thomas Aquinas to understand the world around us and it's just amazing what he did.

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But according to legend, as he was writing everything down, he got to the end of writing his great systematic theology of just learning to know God. And then his hunger was to know God and then his hunger was to teach the ways of God to others. And the legend says that as he was finishing up writing this great systematic theology, that an angel of the Lord visited him and said Thomas, you've done such a great job, showing all that I am to everybody else. What can I do for you? Almost like, god visited Solomon and said what can I give you? What can I give to you for all that you have blessed my people with? And according to legend, the legend says that Thomas Aquinas said God, all I want is to know you even more.

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And that night, according to legend, he had such a revelation of who God was, such a vision of who God was, that he stopped writing after that and he was known to be a man of great discipline. But from that day on he never wrote another piece of theology. And when people would ask him what happened and he said I can't put it into words. I trying to write it down, I would do no justice. God is so much bigger than I can imagine that I don't even know where to start. And it was that he just had received such a revelation of God that he couldn't write anymore. And it was that he just had received such a revelation of God that he couldn't write anymore. And he received such a blessing because he had made it his life's goal to know God and then to make him known to everybody else.

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And I wanna ask you this question what is your goal in life? Do you know God is more interested in who you become than what you accomplish. That doesn't mean that God doesn't want you to do great things and God doesn't want you to succeed in your area, your pursuit of life, all that stuff, but the most important thing is who you become in the process. If you currently have a mission statement for life, make sure God's part of it, make sure God's leading it, and if so, then go for it with all that you have. But if you don't have a mission statement for life, might I suggest Ezra's mission statement for life, and that is he said I wanted to know God for myself, and then when I learn something about God, I wanna share it with somebody else. That's become my mission statement for life. I wanna know God and I wanna serve God's people. In other words, the more I know him, the more I want to share him with others. And I want to challenge you If you don't have a mission statement, that's a pretty good one. Let's pray together.

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God, thank you so much for today. Thank you, god, for being with us, for knowing us, for loving us as only you can. I pray God, you will help us to know you more, open our eyes to see you, to see you for who you really are, to see just a glimpse of your greatness. God, that you are greater than we can imagine, lord, that you hold the entire universe in the palm of your hand and it doesn't even begin to compare to who you are. I pray, god, that as we get a glimpse of you, that it will grow a hunger in us to share what we have found with others. We celebrate you today In Jesus' name. We pray Amen, amen. God's Word says in Ezra 7, verse 10,. We just read it. How did all this happen? Because Ezra had determined to study and obey the law of the Lord and to teach those decrees and regulations to the people of Israel. His goal was to know God and to make Him known. May that be our mission statement for life too.

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Brandon Cannon

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