All Hands on Deck

In my introductory sermon a couple of weeks ago, we saw that the story of Ezra–Nehemiah is much like our own. God called them out of exile in Persia to build his temple and his city. They were opposed by their enemies and fought them off with God’s help. Likewise, we have been called out of exile in sin and death so that we can build the temple and the city, which is the church. We are promised persecution. But because God has made a new, better, stronger covenant with us, this chapter of the story will not end in tragedy and compromise. It will end with all things made new, the church as a spotless bride, the city of God expanding as the increase of Christ’s government has no end, and even death swallowed up in victory.

This week our text tells us the outset of the story. Most basically, what we see is God calling his people to return to the land and rebuild the temple and the city. That is what this text is about: God’s calling to return and rebuild. God gives his people a mission, a calling. He equips them for it and provides everything they need. And then he sends them back, each with a role to play in his sacred mission. So that is where we are going to get: God’s calling on us to rebuild, and our role in his sacred mission. But before we can get there, we first need to situate the story of Ezra–Nehemiah in the previous prophecy, because it says here that this happened so that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled. After we are situated in the prophecies being fulfilled here, we will look at Cyrus’s decree, and at what it means for our own day when a pagan king does good. Then we will be ready to consider their mission and calling, and what it teaches us about our own. Here is the path. The prophecies behind the return. Then thanksgiving when pagan rulers do good. Then what it means to rebuild the temple and the city. Then the mission and the role God gives us.

The Prophecies Behind the Return

I hope you still have your Bible open to Ezra 1. Turn back one page to 2 Chronicles 36, and look at verse 22. Look familiar? It is the same thing as the beginning of Ezra. This is to show us that Ezra–Nehemiah is not a new story. It is not even really a new chapter. It is a continuation of Chronicles. So just look at the headings in your Bible there at the end of Chronicles. Judah declines in chapter 36. The decline is summarized in verses 15 and 16.

The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD rose against his people, until there was no remedy.

It is at this point that God brings the Chaldeans to destroy them and carry them off to Babylon. Look at verse 20.

He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.

Chronicles is also mentioning a prophecy from Jeremiah, and saying that it would be specifically seventy years. And it explains that those seventy years are a Sabbath for the land. Let me show you the prophecies Chronicles and Ezra are referring to. The first begins in Jeremiah 25:11. There God says,

This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. Then after seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, declares the LORD, making the land an everlasting waste.

So Israel will be in exile under Babylon for seventy years, and then Babylon will be punished. This is confirmed in Jeremiah 29:10.

For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

God is so gracious that before he even sent them into exile, he told them how long it would be. What has happened is that the people have defiled the land. They oppress the widow and the orphan. They pervert justice. They steal and kill and destroy, and they worship the gods around them. They were supposed to live in the land at rest, worshiping and trusting God. And the sign of their trust in God, and of his favor on them, was the Sabbath. One day a week they rested, trusting that six days of labor blessed by God were better than seven in their own strength. And one year out of seven, they were supposed to let the land rest, trusting that God would provide so richly that they would have a whole extra year of food to survive on. When they will not live trusting God, and they break his Sabbath and defile the land, God kicks them out of the land. He gives the land a big ol’ Sabbath rest. Not just one year in seven, but a whole seventy years, ten Sabbath cycles. Every seventh year was a year of Jubilee, a year of the LORD’s favor. And in the tenth Jubilee, a kind of Jubilee of Jubilees, God calls them back to the land.

But there is more to see, and it will help us understand the place of Ezra–Nehemiah in the story of the Bible. In Daniel 9:2, Daniel unrolls Jeremiah, sees “seventy years,” takes God at his word, and says, “It’s time, Lord. Please turn from your wrath and bring us home.” And Gabriel comes with an answer to his prayer.

Gabriel says “seventy sevens” are decreed for the people. Your Bible might say “weeks,” with a note that the Hebrew word is “sevens.” So Daniel sees Jeremiah’s ten sevens and prays. Gabriel says, “God has even more in store. There are seventy sevens planned for you.” Now, I think the NLT translates this really well, so let me read how they render Daniel 9:24–26.

A period of seventy sets of seven has been decreed for your people and your holy city to finish their rebellion, to put an end to their sin, to atone for their guilt, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to confirm the prophetic vision, and to anoint the Most Holy Place.

Stop there a second and appreciate what Gabriel is saying. To a sinful people, exiled for their incessant sinfulness, in seventy sevens, a Jubilee of Jubilees of Jubilees, God will put an end to their sin and atone for their guilt. In its place he is bringing everlasting righteousness. Now he explains more about how it will come about.

Now listen and understand! Seven sets of seven plus sixty-two sets of seven will pass from the time the command is given to rebuild Jerusalem until a ruler—the Anointed One—comes. Jerusalem will be rebuilt with streets and strong defenses, despite the perilous times. After this period of sixty-two sets of seven, the Anointed One will be killed.

So first comes a period of seven sevens, in which Jerusalem is rebuilt. After those seven sevens comes another sixty-two sevens. Then, in the seventieth seven, the Messiah will come and be killed. God showed Jeremiah ten sevens before the people would come back from exile in Babylon. Gabriel shows Daniel seventy sevens before the people come out of exile in sin and guilt, and the Anointed One dies on their behalf.

Now, I think it is best to take these sevens as literal years, since that was true of Jeremiah’s seventy years, and that is what Daniel is praying about. Gabriel gives him insight into the next period of years. This is especially convincing because in Daniel 10:2 it says “weeks of days,” to clarify that he is talking about days again after talking about years. I am not going to commit you to one timeline for how all of this works, because of some biblical complications in how to determine those years, complications that will come up later in our series. I will tell you this. If you start counting Daniel’s years from the day Ezra is sent in fulfillment of Cyrus’s decree, the seventieth week begins in about AD 27, and in AD 31, our best guess for when Jesus died, you are halfway through the week, right when Daniel said our Savior was to be crucified.

Now, why does all of this matter? Because it shows that the redemption of God’s people will happen in two stages, in two returns. They will come out of Babylon and rebuild Jerusalem in forty-nine years, and God will rip Babylon out of them in about 490 years. It further reinforces my point from the opening sermon, that our part of the story is the ramped-up version of theirs. They lived in the Jubilee of Jubilees. We live in the great climactic Jubilee, the year of the LORD’s favor, when his Spirit is poured out on all flesh and guilt has been atoned for.

That brings our section on the prophecies surrounding Ezra to a close. What I want you to see is that, as Ezra begins, the Bible shows us what is going to happen. After seven Sabbath years, Jerusalem will be rebuilt. After seventy Sabbath years, the Messiah will come to die. Cyrus makes his decree to fulfill Jeremiah. Daniel extends Jeremiah’s ten Sabbath years to seventy, to be fulfilled in two stages. And we live in the climactic age of fulfillment, where all God’s promises are yes and amen.

Worship God for His Sovereignty

So take a moment to worship God for his absolute sovereignty. We serve a God who plans the world down to the year. No one else could have revealed to his people the year he would act for them. No one else can call the shots 490 years in the future. But our God can. We do not know the challenges and the joys that face us as we begin to build and fight together. But our God does.

When Pagan Rulers Do Good

Now let us look at Cyrus’s decree. First, remember that the decree is from God on the lips of Cyrus. The LORD stirred up Cyrus to make this decree.

The decree allows the Jews, a captive people, to return to their homeland at their own discretion, in order to rebuild the temple of God and worship him. Cyrus encourages his citizens to help the Jews by providing them with money, goods, and livestock. Then he returns the vessels of the temple that Nebuchadnezzar stole when he ransacked Jerusalem.

What Cyrus does here is really good. It is in line with what is just and good. Powerful nations should not take smaller nations captive just because it sounds like fun to have their stuff or their people. It is good to allow them to return home. It is good because it fits the plan of God and what he wants Cyrus to do. And we should rejoice when a political authority does what is good. But this is probably not a good decree merely because the person who made it worships God.

It sounds as though Cyrus may have been converted. He says that God is the God of heaven, and he acknowledges that God gave him all the kingdoms of the world. He says that God charged him to rebuild the temple. However, this is not the only place Cyrus wrote something like this. On the Cyrus Cylinder, a famous archaeological find, he recognizes Marduk as the god who gave the world into his hands. Most likely, Cyrus has a general policy of making all the gods happy. That is why he refers to Yahweh as a local god in verse 3, “the God who dwells in Jerusalem.” Well, that is kind of true. But it is the kind of thing he might just as well say about other gods and the cities where their temples stand. Probably Cyrus is a pagan king whom God stirs up to accomplish his will.

This fits well with Isaiah 45. God predicted that Cyrus would be king, and said that he would use him to bless his people. But then he says,

I call you by your name, I name you, though you do not know me. I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me.

The point of Isaiah 45 is that although Cyrus does not know God, he is like clay in the hands of the potter. God is not asking his opinion about what to do with his people. He is using Cyrus as his instrument. Verse 13 concludes, “I have stirred him up in righteousness. . . . He shall build my city and set my exiles free, not for price or reward.” And that is exactly what God stirs him up to do.

Let us pause on something obvious. It is a good thing when kings do good things. It is a good thing that Cyrus participated positively in God’s plan. His decree was not good only by the standard of kindness or fairness. His decree was good by God’s standard. And that is the standard that matters. Even if the ruler does not acknowledge God, even if he pridefully snubs God’s salvation, when he does what is right by God’s standard, that is a good thing.

The central thing here is that God’s standard is the only one that matters. God commands the rulers of the earth to bow the knee to King Jesus and acknowledge him as king. That means the rulers of the world, including the United States, Minnesota, and Washington County, should do good by King Jesus’ standard. They should do justice by Jesus’ standard. No earthly ruler is ever the highest authority in the land, because there is a King of kings. And it is the job of the president, and his cabinet, and the county commissioners, to carry out the commands of their king.

You can call this what you want. You could just call it good biblical common sense: everyone should do what Jesus says, including political rulers. Today it is sometimes called Christian nationalism. Whatever it is called, it is the plain teaching of Scripture, in places like Psalm 2: “Be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son.” Or Romans 13:

Be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. . . . For he is God’s servant.

The basic idea is that God defines what good is, and the rulers of the earth are not exempt from his definitions. God set them up as his servants to do his will, and they have been warned that if they do not, they will be in trouble with God’s Son, whom he has set up as king over the kings.

This kind of Christian nationalism is just “all of life” theology applied to politics. It is simply admitting that there is no neutral zone. Jesus has opinions on economics and families and justice and foreign policy. And if Jesus is Lord, we should do it his way. That is the simple principle: since Jesus is Lord, we should do it his way.

The basic gospel confession is “Jesus is Lord.” Do you see how that changes every little piece of your life? If Jesus is Lord, then we need to run our marriages the way he says, with husbands as the head. If Jesus is Lord, then we need to parent our kids the way he says, not exasperating them, and being careful to discipline them diligently. If Jesus is Lord, then we need to run our businesses the way he says, with integrity and excellence, and as a way to love our neighbors as ourselves, both the customers and our employees. And if Jesus is Lord, we need to run our countries the way he says, with his definition of justice and fairness.

Cyrus shows us that sometimes kings will do what is right even if they are not on Jesus’ side. And when that happens, we should rejoice. Any time our rulers do what is right by Jesus’ standard, we should rejoice. In Ezra 7 another king decrees what is good, to help the people of God, and sends Ezra to help them. This is Ezra’s response: “Blessed be the LORD, the God of our fathers, who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king, and who extended to me his steadfast love before the king and his counselors.”

Recently God has been very good to our country by turning us away from the wickedness and foolishness we were pursuing. Like Cyrus, it does not seem that either Trump or Vance has repented of his sin and received the free gift of salvation from King Jesus. But God has stirred their hearts to do a great deal of good, for which we should be thankful. Here is a smattering of what we should give thanks for:

• Policies preventing government interference in constitutionally protected speech.
• Investigating governmental corruption and waste.
• Securing our country’s borders.
• Reinstating capital punishment for capital crimes.
• Defining “sex” solely as an immutable binary biological classification, rather than promoting “gender ideology,” including in the nation’s military.
• Declaring that America will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support those under nineteen changing their sex, and naming it for what it is: “child chemical and surgical mutilation.”
• Ending radical DEI programs.
• Reestablishing the Hyde Amendment, so that federal tax dollars are not used for abortions.
• Stopping support for abortion overseas.
• Seeking to curb the indoctrination of kids in the public school system with harmful and wicked ideologies.

For all of these we should give hearty thanksgiving to God. In the words of Ezra, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of our fathers, who put such a thing as this into the heart of the president.” These are not just “political issues.” These are clear goods according to the standard of God’s word, and we ought to give thanks to God for them. Of course we ought not idolize these rulers, or foolishly put our hopes in unbelieving rulers, any more than the Jews should have with Cyrus or with later kings. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of Yahweh our God. And when Yahweh stirs up the heart of our rulers to do his will, we thank him and rejoice, while still understanding that we are a long way from living, as a country and a society, as though Jesus is Lord.

Rebuilding the Temple and the City

Next we are going to consider what it means to rebuild the temple and the city. We learned from Daniel that the rebuilding happens in two phases. The rebuilding in the days of Ezra–Nehemiah was phase one. Our building of God’s temple and city, the church, is phase two.

In their day, the temple was destroyed when Babylon attacked Jerusalem. So the temple structure needed to be rebuilt. But it was not only a mission to rebuild the temple. For the temple to function as it should, a whole society has to surround it. The temple needs the city of Jerusalem rebuilt, so that the priests and Levites who serve the temple have a place to live. And the city needs to be populated by more than the priests and Levites, so that there is enough economic activity to supply bread and meat and clothing, and everything else required to live.

And the towns surrounding Jerusalem need to be populated, so that there are people to come and worship God, including giving a tithe to the Levites, so that the Levites have what they need to live and to serve in the temple and teach the people. Building the temple means building a whole society. The mission is to restore the worship of God, which includes rebuilding the society that supports the worship of God.

In our chapter of the story, we are here to rebuild the temple and the city as well. And we have seen from Scripture that both of these are the church. Not the local church, but the universal church, which we confess in the Nicene Creed. The universal church is the society of all believers. And the universal church is manifest in local churches all over the world. But let us make a careful distinction here, lest we accidentally open a sacred-secular divide.

Our task in building the city of God and the temple is not just church planting. Church planting is crucial. We need healthy churches as we keep building up the body of Christ. But local churches are just one piece of the society we are looking to build.

Local churches have an important role in building the city of God. But they are not all that needs to be built. The job of local churches is just what our mission statement says. Churches are here to make disciples, the kind of disciples who glorify God in all of life. Churches do that by ministering the word of God and the sacraments, or ordinances, of God: baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

But local churches are not here to run schools, protect the public from criminals, make new inventions, sling software code, produce food, repair snowmobiles, run restaurants, or build decks. And yet all of life is supposed to be transformed to the glory of God. The city of God is not limited to Sunday mornings. That is where all of us, the members, come in. The local church’s mission is to make disciples who glorify God in all of life. And each Christian’s mission is to glorify God in all of life. As Jesus builds his church, as the temple is constructed and the city walls go up, the work knows no boundaries.

The gathered church, as an institution with elders and deacons, which is just one aspect of what we are called to build, has a particular job given to it by God. It is focused on making disciples and teaching them to obey all that Jesus commanded, just as government has the particular job of enforcing justice, and the family the particular job of rearing children. The scattered church, as an organic society spread across the whole community, is to infiltrate every area of life and reclaim it for God’s glory. We should plant churches as launch pads and supports for Christians who are building and fighting everywhere. God not only calls us together to worship each week. He commissions us out each week to serve him in the world.

So what are we building? A society, a community, a civilization, with art and culture and skills and churches and businesses and schools and households and charities and crisis pregnancy centers and tutors and missions agencies and production studios and marketing agencies and engineering firms. We are building a full-orbed culture, with food and dancing and holidays and traditions. This culture will start like a mustard seed, small, in an insignificant corner where no one notices. And, God willing, it will grow.

And since our sacred mission encompasses all of life, every role is sacred. No one’s job is more sacred than another’s. God has called me to full-time Christian service as a pastor. And God has called Brad to full-time Christian service in defense sales, and Nick to full-time Christian service in construction, and Grant to full-time Christian service in software, and Lauren to full-time Christian service as a homemaker. All of it is absolutely sacred. Everyone is called to full-time Christian work, building the city of God, whether a mom, a teacher, a salesman, a business owner, a CEO, a hairstylist, a carpenter, a janitor, a student, or a toddler. Do you hear that, kids? You toddle and play to God’s glory. You have an important role. What kind of city would it be without children to laugh, and boys to play ball, and girls to do whatever young girls do together?

Receive Your Mission and Your Role

You probably noticed that the genealogy in chapter 2 is pretty long. There is something to learn there. The work of rebuilding was not the work of a few elite believers. It was the work of hundreds of households. It changed the trajectory of their families for generations, as they moved across the known world back to their homeland, leaving behind everything these people had known.

And notice that they did not all come to do the same thing. The genealogy comes in a few different lists, broken out by the basic role each group will play in the work of reformation.

• First, the leaders, in verse 2.
• Then the people of Israel, the average guys.
• In verse 36, the priests.
• In verse 40, the Levites.
• In verse 55, Solomon’s servants.
• In verse 58, the temple servants.

Notice that none of these roles is the really sacred, important work, while the other stuff is merely the work that “has to be done.” To accomplish the mission, all these people had different jobs. Some were keeping sheep, while others cut those sheep up as sacrifices. Some grew crops. Some cooked the food. Some taught the people the law. Some mended clothes and wove new ones. Some beat iron into tools and weapons. They all had a different role toward the same mission. And no one’s role was more sacred than another’s.

So it is for us. The work of reformation is not the work of a few super-Christians. It is not mostly the work of your pastors. In fact, Ephesians tells us that it is the job of pastors to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. All of life is fundamentally sacred, which means all honest work can be done to God’s glory.

But that does not mean all work is equally effective. Jesus says, “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit.” Not all work produces the same amount of fruit. I am not talking about one profession versus another. And I am certainly not saying that pastors produce the most fruit.

Here is what I mean. If you are working in a standard secular workplace, bogged down by bureaucracy, so that your work is nothing to you but a paycheck, look for other work. It is a good thing to provide well for your family. But you do not want dollar signs and commas, as important as they are, to be the only outcome of your work. You want to work at something that is personally meaningful to you as a Christian. And that does not mean it all has to be missions work. Let me give you an example, to make this concrete.

My dad has run his own business for a long time now. I am privileged to work in it a little on the side. His company produces software that lets their client manage a large fleet of power-sports vehicles and lease them to small and medium-sized businesses, which rent them to customers. My dad is a committed Christian, and he runs his company like one. He does his work with integrity and excellence. He puts the client’s needs before his own. He is consistently humble, helpful, and great to work for. He takes care of those who contract through him. He is a thoughtful leader. He does not demand that everything go his way, and he does not abdicate his responsibility to lead. He develops the people who work for him, so that they gain real skill and experience, and if they leave, they leave better than when they came. Over a dozen households find their main source of income as a direct result of working for him. In addition, his software enables his client to do business, helping provide for many dozens of jobs in that corporation, not to speak of the hundreds of businesses and thousands of employees who use the software to run their own businesses. That is creative, all-of-life, city-of-God building. It is a household with Jesus’ flag over it, expanding its influence into the dark world to shine the light of Jesus.

If someone said to him, “You should really direct your efforts to where it counts most. Go back to seminary and be a pastor, or be a missionary, or set the business aside and just evangelize downtown every day,” they would be utterly missing the point. If you have a burden to build the kingdom, then receive your calling from God and do it with all your heart. If you are a mom of young kids, do not feel guilty for not evangelizing the Somali population downtown. I hope God will call someone to that, but it is not you. You are called to those kids, and that house, and your husband. Receive your calling from God and do it with all your might.

If you find yourself at work thinking, “If you pulled me out of the company, I don’t think much of anything would change in the real world,” you should look for something different. And you have already been feeling that, wanting more meaning in your work. That is not because your field is unimportant. It may be that the company is structured poorly, or that team dynamics keep you from making much of a contribution, or that you are simply not well suited to the role you are in. That is fine. Go find someplace to bear much fruit.

In 1962, JFK visited NASA for the first time. During his visit he asked a janitor walking the hallway with a broom, “What do you do here?” The janitor replied, “I’m putting a man on the moon, sir.” He knew his mission, and he knew how his part fit.

If I found you tomorrow morning, as you start another work week, and asked, “What are you doing here?” what would you say? I hope you will say, “Building the city of God.” Building the city of God one diaper change at a time, one email at a time, one article at a time. Learn to think this way as you do the laundry: “I’m clothing the citizens of the city of God.” As you start or expand your business: “I’m expanding my little section of the city of God.”

Men, that is what your household is. It is a little unit of God’s big city. How much can you expand yours? How much can you take dominion over for God? Especially for the next four years. This is the time to build like mad while you have the chance. The current political climate gives you the air cover you need to build, build, build, until the work is put to a stop again. If you work in HR, now is a great time to get rid of those bad DEI policies. Now is the time to make money and start a side hustle. Position yourself for the next phase of the battle. Go for the promotion. Start the company. Whatever opportunities you have to take dominion, do it. That is what God made you for.

They built God’s city with brick and mortar. We build it out of family dinners and ruckus singing and healthy churches and profitable businesses and clean kitchens and just cities. We build it by doing whatever we do as unto the Lord and not for man.

The people hear Cyrus’s decree and they respond, because God stirs their hearts too. Do you see that in verse 5? God stirs up the heart of his people to follow the decree of this pagan king, whom he had stirred to make the decree.

Our call to rebuild comes in much the same way. God stirs our hearts. He sovereignly calls us out of exile by his long-foretold decree, and sets our hearts to do his will.

Stop there a second and consider the power of God over you. God controls your will, what you want, what you feel like doing and not doing. God is in charge of that. And when he wants to, he changes it. That is why it makes sense to pray, “Change their mind. Soften their heart.” God does that. We do not have the control we might think we have. Our minds and hearts are not some sanctuary that God refuses to enter. He is the Lord of everything, so he comes in and commands us to do what he wants, whether or not we are aware of it. Humble yourself before the God who holds your heart in his hands and directs it where he will.

I do not think Cyrus, or these people, had some especially emotional experience, and that this is what “stirred their heart” meant. I think it is a way of saying that God set the direction of their desires.

So pray that God would change your heart. Are you envious? Self-righteous? Prideful? Fearful? Pray for God to help you. In my box of prayer cards at home I have one from 2021, asking God to help me love two people who were hard for me to love. And by God’s grace he has helped me, as I keep asking him. Especially pray that God would give you a heart wholly devoted to the mission he has called you to.