Ezra 1:5-11

Responding to the Call of God.

 

 

Do you ever look at someone’s life, someone like Amy Carmichael, for example, and wonder if God called me to go to India to teach children would I be willing to go and do that?

 

Do you ever get anxious about what God might call you to do?

 

Maybe holding your breath that He won’t ask you to do something you don’t want to do?

 

It’s like that feeling when you are boarding a plane, and after finding your seat you watch one by one as the other passengers file in down the aisle and look down with trepidation at the empty seat beside you, worrying about who’s going to claim it, and releasing a breath when certain people pass by.

 

There’s this reticence in surrendering to the LORD’s calls, a fear that if we go all in we’re somehow taking a gamble with our life 

 

We tend to assume that if anything that comes up in life that we don’t want to do, that’s what we are going to have to do.  “I really don’t want to do that, so, of course that’s probably what God is going to tell me to do”

 

Have you ever heard people say that or something similar? Or have maybe said it yourself?

 

 Almost like it’s expected that the Christian life is going to be a compilation of one thing after the other that I don’t want. 

 

It’s this attitude that can cause us to tiptoe around in our Christian life.  Maybe if we don’t make any noise He won’t notice us and ask us to do something.  Ever done that with your parents? Careful, because if mom sees you she’s going to put you to work. 

 

The only time we should be on our toes in the Christian life is at the starting line.  When we’re trying to get traction and put on as much speed as we can.

 

In the passage before us, do you think every Israelite wanted to go back? I don’t know if you’ve thought about that.  My bet is that there were some who were pretty comfortable where they were. They’d made a life for themselves. I don’t know about you, but the prospect of uprooting myself and everything I know, again, doesn’t sound that appealing. Many times, there’s a reluctance to answer the LORD’s call. 

 

Where does this attitude come from? This sort of foreboding feeling we sometimes display?

 

We mentioned last time how so many of our problems stem from an unfamiliarity with the word of God – and closely related to that is an unfamiliarity with the character of God.

 

When we start to think along these lines, when we start to worry about what we might have to do – we are forgetting the nature of the One who calls us. 

 

God is not this cruel dictator.  He doesn’t derive some sort of sick pleasure from our discomfort.

 

It’s true that many times we are called to do things that go against what we would naturally choose, but that is because our nature as humans is directly against the nature of God. 

 

Our natural tendencies and inclinations do not fall in line with divine truth. That’s why sanctification is necessary. It’s this process of letting go of ourselves and this world and becoming more and more conformed to the image of Christ. 

 

Salvation itself was not a choice we made or would have made if God hadn’t intervened, was it?

 

It’s by His doing that we are in Christ.

 

But, God did not pull us kicking and screaming to Himself.  What did He do? He wooed us. Through His Holy Spirit He worked in our hearts and drew us to Himself. He changed our desires – He changed our hearts. 

 

Scripture talks about His kindness that leads to repentance. There is power and authority behind God’s calling, there has to be – but there is also love, mercy and kindness.   

 

He doesn’t drive us with a whip, He leads us with a hand

 

There is a sweetness to God’s calling.  

 

I think there’s a principle to be gleaned here about how the LORD calls His people. 

 

Keeping that in mind lets go back to our passage now –

 

V. 5 – “Then the heads of fathers’ households of Judah and Benjamin and the priests and the Levites arose, even everyone whose spirit God had stirred to go up and rebuild the house of the LORD which is in Jerusalem.”

 

The first thing we see in Israel responding to the call of God is—

 

A Supernatural Desire

 

“even everyone whose spirit God had stirred to go up”

 

Here’s this stirring again. We saw it with Cyrus and we see it here as well. This rousing. 

 

God worked in the hearts of each of His children.  He stirred their spirit – He gave them the desire to go back. Lit a fire in them. 

 

And without exception, everyone whom He had stirred answered His call.  

 

Again, you see this leading.  God first works in the heart. He guides and directs through promptings in our spirit.  Promptings that when submitted to start to become desires. 

 

And God works through our desires. 

 

Not I want to be careful… I am not promoting a “follow your heart” mentality.  We know that man’s heart is deceitful above all else and is desperately sick, and the one who follows it is stupid. 

 

However, when a heart is in submission – when it is under the direction and control of the Holy Spirit and we have a desire to do something, we need to pursue it.  It may not be that I end up doing that exact thing, but maybe God is using that one thing to lead me somewhere else. 

 

So, the answer to this concern that God is going to call me to something I don’t want to do is – If you are walking in submission to the LORD, you are going to want to do whatever He asks.  The LORD is going to lay it on your heart.  The struggle and strife comes from a resistance on our part.  When we are not walking in submission we AREN’T going to want to do what HE wants us to. 

 

It’s not so much a question of our desires, but rather our will.  Who’s in control?

 

That doesn’t mean that what God calls us to do is going to be easy. 

 

And that leads us to another aspect of responding to the call of God, and that is –

 

A supernatural enablement

 

V. 6 – “All those about them encouraged them with articles of silver, with gold, with goods, with cattle and with valuables, aside from all that was given as a freewill offering.”

 

All those about them encouraged them

 

This word means to strengthen, its’ to be courageous, resolute. 

 

When God calls us to do something, He doesn’t leave us high and dry.  He enables us to see it through.

 

ALL THOSE about them encouraged them – what a confirmation.  What a blessing. They were strengthened on all sides. It’s really amazing how God works, isn’t it?

 

 

When David was in the wilderness at Horesh, he became aware that Saul was coming to seek his life.  

 

The LORD sent Jonathan to him, it says –

 

“And Jonathan, Saul’s son, arose and went to David at Horesh, and encouraged him in God.” 

– 1 Sam 23:15

 

This is the same word as in our passage. 

 

You see, as sure as God is working and stirring our hearts with the desire to answer His calls, He is stirring in the hearts of others through whom he works to help strengthen us along this path. 

 

And as He does this He deepens our resolve to fulfill His word. Spiritual enablement has a way of doing that.  

 

Because it reminds us who is in control.  And it reaffirms and establishes our faith in the One who called us. 

 

“On the day I called, You answered me;

You made me bold with strength in my soul.” – Ps 138:3

 

God doesn’t just tell us to do something, He gives us the desire and He gives us the strength – the enablement.  

 

This is a spiritual strength, it they had nothing else, this would be enough.  But God also provides for our physical needs. 

 

Which leads us to another aspect of this response

 

 

A Supernatural Provision

 

Not only did God call them and encourage them, but He also provided for them.  

 

“All those about them encouraged them with articles of silver, with gold, with goods, with cattle and with valuables, aside from all that was given as a freewill offering.”

 

Do you see how foolish it is to worry about the calls of God? 

 

God didn’t just provide He gave them more than they needed. 

 

When God provides there are always leftovers. 

 

This is who God is.

 

Our problems occur when we try to take the place of God.  We try to work things out and provide for things according to our own strength.

 

It’s God’s to provide and mine to obey. We are taking on God’s work and neglecting our own when we start to worry and fret over what we need or how things are going to work out. 

 

These are not the hands that command the wind or cause the sun to rise.  

 

That’s the hand that leads us, that wooed us and is causing all things to work together for good to those who Love God, to those who are – called according to His purpose. 

 

“Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.” Heb 13:20-21

 

There is one more aspect to Israel’s response to God’s call –

 

A Supernatural Confirmation and Reminder

 

V. 7 -- “Also King Cyrus brought out the articles of the house of the LORD, which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and put in the house of his gods;”

 

What joy do you think it was for Israel to see these things brought out? 

 

How it would have bolstered their courage and strengthened their hearts.  

 

It was a confirmation that the temple was going to be rebuilt.  This wasn’t just wishful thinking.  They weren’t going back to Jerusalem to try to rebuild. They were going to see it through and once again, these vessels were going to be used for what they were created to do.

 

They didn’t belong in Babylon and they certainly did not belong with other gods.  They were made for God – divinely inspired craftsmanship.  Made for worship 

 

They didn’t belong in Babylon any more than Israel did.  

 

You can’t help but notice a bit of a correlation between these vessels and the children of Israel. 

 

These vessels are mentioned several times in this book – saying these things that Nebuchadnezzar took, let them be replaced. 

 

They were going back to fulfill their purpose. 

 

Israel was going back to rebuild God’s house, but more importantly – they were going back to worship.  

 

I think these vessels served as a reminder of that. 

 

God’s call, was a call to worship

 

This is what we as God’s people were made for. 

 

We all haven’t been asked to go and rebuild a temple, and we don’t need to – not anymore.  We are the temple.  God’s spirit lives in us.  If you are His then He has taken up residence. Every moment we stand at the threshold of the house of God called to worship.  We don’t have to go on some arduous journey or preform some spiritual ritual, we wake up every morning in the doorway of the tent of meeting.   

 

We are His temple, and we are His vessels.

 

And as such, we need to be responding to God’s calls and do so unafraid and unconcerned about what they may be or how they are going to be fulfilled.  Our only concern should be, how am I going to respond?