We’re going to open up our Bibles together to Ezra chapter 7. In this book of Ezra, we’ve considered this theme of revival. We’ve really encouraged every one of us to pray that God would bring about a spiritual revival in our own hearts during this series. We pray that God would give us an awakening to the goodness of God, the holiness of God, the glory of God, the love of God for us. We also consider as we seek the Holy Spirit to light a spark within us and humble ourselves before Him, seeking His face, that God has made so many promises. He fulfills every promise every time. That sort of ignites our hearts to being revived because we’re being revived toward a God who is faithful to every promise every time. Today we’re going to talk about the favor of the Lord and how much we need that and how abundantly God supplies it when we humble ourselves and when we seek Him and when we believe and trust in Him. So that abundance of His favor is available to all of us.

Just by way of context, when we end Ezra 6, the temple has been finished. The Passover is celebrated. There is an amazing worship service. Then in between the last verse of chapter 6 and the first verse of chapter 7 is nearly sixty years. During that sixty years, the people began to drift in their zeal. They needed revival. So God sends a guy by the name of Ezra. So Ezra appears for the first time in the book called Ezra, in Ezra 7. Up to this point, Ezra has been in Babylon. He has not been down in Jerusalem. He has not been part of the story. Now he appears on the scene.

1 Now after this, in the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, Ezra the son of Seraiah, son of Azariah, son of Hilkiah, 2 son of Shallum, son of Zadok, son of Ahitub, 3 son of Amariah, son of Azariah, son of Meraioth, 4 son of Zerahiah, son of Uzzi, son of Bukki, 5 son of Abishua, son of Phineas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the chief priest—6 this Ezra went up from Babylonia. He was a scribe skilled in the Law of Moses that the LORD, the God of Israel, had given, and the king granted him all that he asked, for the hand of the LORD his God was on him.

7 And there went up also to Jerusalem, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the king, some of the people of Israel, and some of the priests and Levites, the singers and gatekeepers, and the temple servants. 8 And Ezra came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, which was in the seventh year of the king. 9 For on the first day of the first month he began to go up from Babylonia, and on the first day of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem, for the good hand of his God was on him. 10 For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the LORD, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.

11 This is a copy of the letter that King Artaxerxes gave to Ezra the priest, the scribe, a man learned in matters of the commandments of the LORD and his statutes for Israel: 12 “Artaxerxes, king of kings, to Ezra the priest, the scribe of the Law of the God of heaven. Peace. And now 13 I make a decree that anyone of the people of Israel or their priests or Levites in my kingdom, who freely offers to go to Jerusalem, may go with you. 14 For you are sent by the king and his seven counselors to make inquiries about Judah and Jerusalem according to the Law of your God, which is in your hand, 15 and also to carry the silver and gold that the king and his counselors have freely offered to the God of Israel, whose dwelling is in Jerusalem, 16 with all the silver and gold that you shall find in the whole province of Babylonia, and with the freewill offerings of the people and the priests, vowed willingly for the house of their God that is in Jerusalem. 17 With this money, then, you shall with all diligence buy bulls, rams, and lambs, with their grain offerings and their drink offerings, and you shall offer them on the altar of the house of your God that is in Jerusalem. 18 Whatever seems good to you and your brothers to do with the rest of the silver and gold, you may do, according to the will of your God. 19 The vessels that have been given you for the service of the house of your God, you shall deliver before the God of Jerusalem. 20 And whatever else is required for the house of your God, which it falls to you to provide, you may provide it out of the king’s treasury.

21 “And I, Artaxerxes the king, make a decree to all the treasurers in the province Beyond the River: Whatever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the Law of the God of heaven, requires of you, let it be done with all diligence, 22 up to 100 talents of silver, 100 cors of wheat, 100 baths of wine, 100 baths of oil, and salt without prescribing how much. 23 Whatever is decreed by the God of heaven, let it be done in full for the house of the God of heaven, lest his wrath be against the realm of the king and his sons. 24 We also notify you that it shall not be lawful to impose tribute, custom, or toll on anyone of the priests, the Levites, the singers, the doorkeepers, the temple servants, or other servants of this house of God.

25 “And you, Ezra, according to the wisdom of your God that is in your hand, appoint magistrates and judges who may judge all the people in the province Beyond the River, all such as know the laws of your God. And those who do not know them, you shall teach. 26 Whoever will not obey the law of your God and the law of the king, let judgment be strictly executed on him, whether for death or for banishment or for confiscation of his goods or for imprisonment.”

27 Blessed be the LORD, the God of our fathers, who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king, to beautify the house of the LORD that is in Jerusalem, 28 and who extended to me his steadfast love before the king and his counselors, and before all the king’s mighty officers. I took courage, for the hand of the LORD my God was on me, and I gathered leading men from Israel to go up with me.

May God encourage us through His Word!

When I was a child I was captivated by the story of the boy who finds a lamp on the seashore, rubs that lamp, and out pops a genie. The genie says, “I will grant you three wishes. You can wish for anything.” My friends and I would sometimes talk about this story and we would talk about what we would wish for. My first thought right away went to the obvious. I’d say, “I wish for infinite wishes!” (Laughter!) Of course my friends would roll their eyes and say that’s the one thing you can’t wish for. Then we would have this discussion about what we would wish for. Why does this story spark the imagination of so many people? I think it does so because it gets to the question of the deepest values of our heart. What three outcomes do we believe would bring us the most joy? What three gifts would provide the most meaning to us and to the world in which we live?

As we open up our Bibles to Ezra 7, I ask you to think about this question. If you were offered three wishes, what would you wish for? There are a lot of unselfish answers that people give to that. Some say, “I wish for world peace and an end of war. I wish for an end of disease, a cure for cancer. I wish for elimination of poverty and that everyone is wealthy. I wish for an elimination of crime. I wish for an elimination of broken families and broken human relationships.” Some of you may remember that God appeared to Solomon at night as he became the king. God gave Solomon a wish. He said, “Solomon, what do you want? Ask and I’ll give it to you.” Remember that Solomon asked for wisdom. The Lord was pleased with this request. So we couldn’t go wrong with wisdom being one of our wishes.

As I reflected upon Ezra 7, the Lord gave me some clarity about the wishes that I would make if I were offered the opportunity today. Here is what they are. Wish number one, I would ask for God’s favor. I would ask for God’s favor upon my life. Wish number two, I would ask for God’s favor. Wish number three, I would ask for God’s favor. It’s sort of like the old rules of real estate; location, location, location. The rule of life is God’s blessing, God’s blessing, God’s blessing.

If we have God’s favor, we have an abundant life, regardless of the suffering and deprivation that a broken world presses into us. However, if we do not have God’s favor, we have an empty life, regardless of the abundance of temporal goods. If we possess God’s blessing we can endure any earthly loss, knowing that there is a day when God will make all wrongs right and will bring an abundance into an eternal life with Him. If we possess God’s blessing we experience true abundance. It’s an abundance that will never vanish from us. It can never be taken from us.

All through the Word, God teaches us that obtaining His good hand of blessing is the key to life in a broken world. You remember in Genesis 1, God created Adam and Eve with a life of amazing favor, amazing blessing. Adam and Eve were favored with happy fellowship with God Himself. They walked with God in the cool of the day. He favored them with a happy marriage. They never had any strife, any conflict that brought brokenness. He favored them with happy work in the garden. It was meaningful and fruitful. There weren’t any thorns or frustrations. He favored them with abundance of food and abundance of beauty. They were favored with a happy future. They were promised children and grandchildren and great grandchildren. Theirs was an abundant life.

But then they lost God’s blessing. They sinned by eating of the fruit that God forbid them to eat, of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. On that day, the curse of death fell upon them. The Bible could have been a very short story. It could have ended at chapter 3 and God would have been just. But that’s not where it ends. Instead, God in grace offers these two sinners a way back to a blessed life, an abundant life, through the promise of an offspring. An offspring would come and be born of a woman and He would crush Satan’s head.

From that point on in the human story, all humanity is divided into two groups. There is much said about the division of peoples into various groups today, but there are two groups that the Scriptures divide. There is one group that receives the grace of God, the blessing of God. Then there is another group that remains outside of God’s blessing. That really is the dividing point which will divide all humanity at the end of time. Are you among those who are blessed by God? We receive God’s blessing as we humble ourselves before Him and believe and trust Him, trust in His Son. Or are you among those who are still outside of God’s blessing? On the day that we die, there is an unalterable course that keeps us outside of His blessing. Up until that day, there is an opportunity if we’re still in the group that is not blessed by God, to become part of that happy family.

As we open our Bibles to Ezra 7, the main truth we track through this chapter is that God freely gives His favor to all who humble themselves before Him and trust in Him. That’s the main idea I want to trace for us. It’s the thing that captured my attention because of this little phrase “the good hand of the LORD.” The favor that this story has carried of God’s blessing upon a people who didn’t deserve to be blessed has captured my attention. The first idea that we want to trace here is

The Delighted Heart of God

When you think about God, do you think of Him as a Person who is eager to bless or a Person who is eager to curse? What is His disposition? What is His bent? In Scripture, God describes Himself over and over as a God who is quick to bring His favor and a God who is very, very slow to bring His displeasure. He is righteous, but He is slow. He is longsuffering. He is patient. He is enduring.

Remember when Moses cut the second set of the Ten Commandments. He is on the mountain. He is cutting the Ten Commandments in stone once again, and God meets him. God reveals His glory as He had to Moses on other occasions. God wants Moses to remember at the second writing, the second cutting of these Ten Commandments, who He really is. Is He a God who blesses or is He a God who curses? What is His disposition? Here is what God says.

Exodus 34:6 The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD,

That’s His covenant-keeping name.

Exodus 34:6-7 …a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty,
God wants to be clear that His longsuffering is not softness toward unrighteousness. This very description that is found here in Exodus 34 will appear eight more times in the Old Testament. God says it over and over and over and over again. God really wants us to know that He is the blessed God. He is the God who is happy, the God who is generous. He is predisposed to bless us. In other words, God is not a stingy God who is reluctant to give blessing. He is not a grumpy God looking for someone on which to take out His displeasure. He is content. He is satisfied with Himself. He is a God of peace and He is a God who actually takes pleasure in being generous. In order for us to experience His displeasure, we have to act against God with persistence. We have to be hard-hearted and hold onto our willfulness.

The Lord’s happy nature must not however be taken for carelessness regarding righteousness. God says He will not allow the guilty to go unpunished. The fact that He punishes sin however, does not communicate that He is frustrated or He is mean. God’s first response to mankind, to these creatures created in His image, is blessing. The story of Israel is a story of God’s gracious disposition towards sinful people. It’s a story of God’s generous, happy heart. How so?

Think of this. In grace God makes a covenant with Abraham to bless him by creating a nation through him and by blessing that nation so that the nation becomes the means by which God blesses all the nations of the world. That’s grace. In grace God sends Moses to deliver Israel from slavery in Egypt. In grace God gives sacrifices to Israel, a system of worship so that they could draw near to Him, so they could have a covering for sin and worship. In grace God sends Joshua to defeat the Canaanites so that they would have a land, a land promised, a land flowing with milk and honey. In grace God sends a man after His own heart, David, to be their king, who defeats enemies and brings peace. In grace God sends Solomon to build a beautiful Temple in Jerusalem, God’s city, where people would approach God and thrive as a worshiping community. God would be the center, but love for God and love for one another would strengthen and grow through this community. All this is a story of God’s favor. It’s a story of God’s generous blessing upon a people who had done nothing to deserve it.

As I think about the rebuilding of the Temple in Ezra 6, I think back to God’s words to Solomon after he had just finished building the first Temple, which was glorious. In 2 Chronicles 7, Solomon finishes the house of the Lord. Then the Lord appears to Solomon at night. Listen to what God says to Solomon.

2 Chronicles 7:12-13 Then the LORD appeared to Solomon in the night and said to him: “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice. When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people,

This is going to happen because the people are going to reject God. They’re going to stand outside of the path of His blessing through willfulness and through pride, through an unwillingness to simply humble themselves before God and trust Him. He says when that happens, let those things be a sign that
2 Chronicles 7:14 if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways,

Even though they deserved my displeasure and they were receiving my displeasure, if they would humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways,

2 Chronicles 7:14 …then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

That’s my nature! God goes on to say to Solomon,

2 Chronicles 7:19-20 “But if you turn aside and forsake my statutes and my commandments that I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will pluck you up from my land that I have given you, and this house that I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight, and I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

That’s exactly what happened. That’s the whole context of Ezra. God’s people did forsake the Lord and the Lord did send strong discipline through the Babylonians. The Babylonians, in 586 B.C. just destroyed the temple that Solomon built. This prophecy or this word that God gave to Solomon as a caution was not adhered to by the people and God was consistent in removing His blessing.

2 Chronicles 7:22 …Therefore, he has brought disaster on them.’”

So what is the path to blessing? The path to blessing is not something we do to earn God’s favor. The path to blessing is a posture toward God where we humble ourselves and say I need God’s blessing and I humble myself before the Lord. I can’t go on my own way and live the kind of life that I need to have. I need to humble myself before God. He is the author of life. He is the only one who can bring blessing that is true, that is lasting, that is deep and purposeful. Then I’m going to pray to Him because He is the kind of God who will actually listen to me when I cry out to Him. Then I need to turn from my wicked ways because it’s these wicked ways that are keeping me from God. They are keeping me from this path on which God says “I’m going to bless you as you walk with me and worship me.” He says this is what’s going to happen every time there is a humble heart, a contrite heart that trembles before God’s Word and that in mercy seeks God’s grace, His forgiveness. He says

2 Chronicles 7:14 if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

How often will that happen? It will happen every time. God keeps every promise every time. So God’s heart is a heart that is predisposed to bless us. When we open the book of Ezra, we see God continues to have this happy disposition to bless His people. In grace God turns the heart of the pagan Persian king by the name of Cyrus to make an edict. God does that. God turns his heart so that the Jews could return to the land and begin rebuilding the temple. That’s how Ezra opens up. Then in grace God turns King Cyrus’ heart so that Cyrus gives back to the Jews all the vessels that had been taken away from the first Temple that Solomon built. That’s in Ezra 1:8-11. Then in grace God blesses 50,000 Jews with faith to return to Jerusalem and He gives them good success in beginning to rebuild the foundation of the Temple. We read about that in Ezra 3.

Then in grace God sends the prophets Haggai and Zechariah to convict the Jews. When opposition came, they stopped building. They stopped building for fifteen years. They had lost the mission of why God sent them. Now they are on their own mission. They’re building their own houses that have nice paneling. All they care about is this temporal world. Haggai and Zechariah are sent by God in His grace to give them a word that convicts them of their sins so that they humble themselves before the Lord and then they reengage with the mission of God. They reengage with their purpose to be a worshiping community. When they begin to rebuild the temple, God in grace leads King Darius to find Cyrus’ original edict and then to add Persian money and to add legal protection to help the Jews complete the Temple. In grace God works within the Jews so that the Temple then is completed and sacrifices are restored and there is this huge party. All of that is God’s favor. All of that is God’s goodness. Ezra acknowledges that over and over again. He says

Ezra 6:14 …They finished their building by decree of the God of Israel and by decree of Cyrus and Darius

In other words, he knows that it’s God’s hand that is first turning the hearts of these kings. It’s God’s favor that they are experiencing.

Ezra 6:22 …for the LORD had made them joyful and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria to them,

Over and over we see this acknowledgment that God is sovereignly working to bring blessing. That’s why they’re experiencing the goodness that they are.

I want to pause and think about this practically for us. Do you see God’s heart of grace to bring favor upon your life and favor upon the community which He established here and anywhere the Gospel is proclaimed? Do you see that God has a heart, a predisposition to bring His favor?

I talk often about my grandchildren. This past week, I went over to their house and I was spending some time with Malakai and Aleksi. Last year, I gave Malakai a fishing rod. He was somewhat interested, but not that much. So in the spring, he became really interested and he started talking to me about how he is casting it and how much fun he’s having and how he is looking forward to the time we go fishing. I went over to his house last week and he said, “Grandpa, I can’t use my fishing rod. The line is all wrapped up.” He was describing how it is just in knots and it doesn’t work anymore. So then he asked me if I could fix it. Well, what did grandpa say? “How dare you ask me that! Don’t you know I’m a busy man? I have a lot of things to do.” No. Of course not! That would be crazy. When you hear a grandchild ask a request that is good and that brings life, I couldn’t wait to sit down there and help him. I had to cut and eventually got it all working again and he was happy. The disposition of a grandpa’s heart is toward hearing requests and then just taking great delight.

If that’s true on a human level, how much more does our Father love to give good gifts? He just loves it! He’s not reluctant. He’s not saying, “How dare you ask me for these things!” He loves to hear us share the heart of our need. He loves to make promises. He loves for us to ask Him to fulfill and be faithful to His promises. He says, “I will be faithful to every promise every time.”

Every promise every time is not a maxim that God chafes under. It’s not as though, “Well, I guess I promised, so I guess I have to.” Every promise every time is a maxim that God delights in. That’s His nature. We sometimes bless another person out of a sense of obligation rather than joy. We sometimes make promises to bless someone and then we realize it’s going to cost us more than we originally thought. Esau gave his blessing to Jacob. I’m sure that Esau wasn’t happy when he had to give his blessing, but he made a deal. God always blesses out of a delighted heart. He is never reluctant to give us His favor. He is the ultimate cheerful giver.

We see God’s happy heart as we open up Ezra 7 with this little phrase, “the hand of the LORD his God was on him.” It is after this, God brings His favor to the nation of Israel, who is spiritually dull and they need a guy like Ezra. They need someone qualified. They need someone with a bloodline that runs straight to Aaron, who was the chief priest, in order to have someone who would represent them and revitalize the worship in Jerusalem. They need someone like Ezra.

6 this Ezra went up from Babylonia. He was a scribe skilled in the Law of Moses that the LORD, the God of Israel, had given,

He is able to teach. He is able to live it out with integrity first and then to teach it throughout all of Israel. It says

and the king granted him all that he asked, for the hand of the LORD his God was on him.

This phrase “the hand of the LORD” appears a number of times in Ezra. Look down at verse 9.

9 …for the good hand of his God was on him.

28 …I took courage, for the hand of the LORD my God was on me,

Ezra 8:18 And by the good hand of our God on us,
What do we make of this idea that God delights to bless us and that’s His disposition? I want to share three applications. First, let’s be encouraged. God loves to bless His people and nothing can keep God from blessing a people that He wants to bless. Nothing! Not anything happening in this world. So let’s be encouraged. Regardless of some of the trials we may be going through, some of the hardships, some of the concerns we have about culture, about politics, whatever, let’s be encouraged. We have a God who wants to bless us and He will bless us if we simply humble ourselves. Be encouraged! Let’s not get discouraged, brothers and sisters.

Second, let’s be prayerful. God loves to bless His people and He hears us. It’s not because we have somehow earned a right to be heard. We’ve heard that you haven’t earned the right to be heard among people. I guess in some ways, there is some legitimacy to that. But no one ever earns the right to be heard before the Lord. Yet God says “If you really are humble and you seek my face and you’re broken, you’re contrite and come to me, I will hear from heaven.” What an amazing God we have! Let’s be prayerful. We often have not the blessing of God because we ask not. I think it’s right to be very specific, even, in seeking God’s blessing.

Third, let’s be thankful. Over and over again, God is acknowledged in Ezra as being the one who blesses people. Yes, there are human elements like Cyrus giving an edict and Darius opening up treasuries and bringing protection, etc. But over and over, God is the one who is thanked. Sometimes we experience the blessing of God through the horizontal and we fail to recognize that this is upward. This is from God. Let’s acknowledge Him. God has a delightful heart of blessing. Secondly I think on this issue of obtaining the favor of God, we need to consider

The Desperate Need of God’s People

This story of Ezra is one of desperation from the beginning all the way to the end. The book opens up with the Jews being away from their land, away from the Temple, away from sacrifices, away from any future as a nation. They know that their fathers had angered God through their idolatry. They admit that in Ezra 5:12. They’re desperate. When they do finally get back to Jerusalem and they begin to rebuild the foundation of the Temple, they are confronted by really strong opposition that causes them to be super fearful and they stop working on the temple. They are desperate in their need.

Then they begin living for themselves and not for God for those fifteen years. They are now on a mission to have their best life now. They are no longer on the mission that God gave them. Thus they were outside of any purpose, any eternal meaning. Then in their desperation, after Zechariah and Haggai preach, they begin the work afresh, only to be opposed by a governor named Tattenai. Then after finishing the temple, now after nearly sixty years, they begin to grow spiritually dull and they need an Ezra to bring about spiritual revival.

You see over and over and over, there is this theme of this people’s desperation. They never become self-sufficient. They’re not meant to. It is self-reliance that leads to spiritual death. Instead, we need to be God-reliant. A God-reliance comes through this recognition that we will absolutely make a mess of our lives if we are guiding our own lives. We actually will enter right into utter disaster if we seek to go our own way. If we are like sheep, each one of us turning to our own way, if we continue down that path, it is a sure path to disaster and death.

Look at verses 7-9. Earlier, there were 50,000 Jews that came out of Babylonia down to Jerusalem. Now with Ezra, there is about 1,500. It’s a second group to have returned. I want you to think about this 1,500 for a moment and think about Ezra, here. The text tells us

Why does it say that? Well, think about this journey for a moment. Imagine for a moment that you’re moving your family. Some of you have experienced moves and you know how tough moves are. You’re moving your family 900 miles away. So it’s not a close move. It’s not moving the next neighborhood over. It’s moving 900 miles. By the way, you have no way to communicate with the place where you’re going. You can’t look up on the internet what Jerusalem is like, the real estate, some jobs. You have no real information, no great information other than maybe some stories or reports of people who have been there.

You have to travel 900 miles through really tough terrain. There are marauders about. There is a desert to cross. There is no McDonald’s. There are no rest stops. There is no air conditioning in your car. There are no cars. You have some animals and you’re on foot. You’re taking your children and 1,500 other people are coming with you, and you’re responsible for them. Do you think there would be any stress over this? When you get there, it’s not like you did a hotel.com and figured out where you were going to stay. You don’t know. What kind of stress might be upon you? That’s why it says when he arrived the good hand of the LORD was on him. He got there. It was a journey that was dangerous. It was a journey that was filled with potential disaster, but the Lord says, I’m with you. The Lord provides and they get there. When they get there, He continues to provide.

When I look at the Jews from over 2500 years ago, I ask the question: Am I any less desperate than those folks? The answer of course is no. Every person’s life story is a story of desperation. It’s a story of desperate need. I don’t know your desperate need. I just know you have it. For some, there are physical elements this day. For some there are emotional elements. For others, there are relational elements and financial elements. For all of us at all times, there is a spiritual element that is the most central. It’s the most profound desperate need that we have. We don’t stand a chance to live out an abundant life apart from God’s blessing, but that’s what we need.

If I had three wishes, what would I wish for? God’s blessing, God’s blessing, God’s blessing. That’s what I need more than anything else. If I have that, there is nothing else that can go wrong in this world that could assail and keep me from having an abundant life. If I don’t have that, there is nothing that I might obtain, no promotion, no bit of wealth, no bit of health, no bit of accomplishment that could keep my life from being sucked dry of any bit of real joy, lasting meaning, real peace.

We ask y’all, every week is an opportunity to turn in prayer requests and answers. These cards tell us a little bit about the desperation that people have. All of us are desperate. That’s why we want everybody to turn in a prayer card. We’d love to pray for you and enter into your desperation by asking the Lord. Two weeks ago, a nine year old girl in our church filled one of these out. This is what she wrote. “God, thank you for keeping us safe from the flight from Arizona.” So there is a physical thank you. Then she says this. “Please I want your hand on me on my walk with Christ.” It brings me to tears to think of a little girl’s heart like that. She’s nine years old and she is desperate. Unbeknownst to her, she actually used language that is right here in the text two weeks later in Ezra 7. She writes, “Please I want your hand on me on my walk with Christ.”

How is revival to come to us? It will come to us when we have that expression of this little girl every day. God, I’m desperate! I know the Bible. I know some prayers. I know some practices and how to live. I think I’m obeying the law okay. If I trust my self-sufficiency to walk with Christ today, the moment we become self-sufficient and self-reliant is the moment we lose spiritual life and revival. Everyday we come before the Lord and say, “God, I want your hand upon me. If you don’t bless my soul, I don’t have access in myself to gain spiritual blessing. None!”

So what’s the application? Let’s seek God’s blessing. Let’s do it humbly. Let’s do it with a contrite heart. Let’s do it with repentance from our sin. We don’t dishonor God by seeking His blessing upon our lives. We dishonor Him when we act as though we can make it through life without His blessing. Sometimes we think, is it selfish to ask for God’s blessing? No. It’s actually the most God-centered thing to do to believe that God is a God who blesses and that He wants to bless and that we need His blessing and to ask Him. That’s the most God-centered thing we can do. That’s how all of us came to salvation, by the way. If you have Jesus Christ as your Savior, that’s how you came. It was by realizing I need something that I can’t provide for myself. God has it and He wants to give it to me. I’m opening up my life and I’m believing.

The Diverse Expressions of God’s Blessing

I’m going to stop with this and just touch briefly on the last piece. We’re going to spend the rest of the time next week talking about the doorway. But I want to touch on that because it’s obviously a matter. We have to ask, how can I get God’s blessing? We’ve talked about it a little bit. But we’re going to talk now about the diverse expressions of God’s blessing.

If you read through verses 11-26, you would see, I looked and considered at least six different kinds of blessing that God gave in just this one little passage. God is infinitely creative. Think of the world and the creativity that is on display every day in little bugs and birds and animals and plants and the sky and the planets. God’s abundance of creativity is on display all throughout His natural creation. God uses His infinite creativity to provide blessing upon blessing to His people to supply favor in too many ways to mention. But here in this passage, there is a list of blessings. What are they?

God blesses by turning a pagan king to be kind to the Jews. He blesses by turning his heart. God blesses by opening the invitation to worship to anyone who wants, anyone who desires. God blesses by making financial provision for the Jews to accomplish God’s will. God blesses by making legal protection for the freedom to worship. That’s God doing that. God blesses by giving freedom to the Jews of self-governance. God blesses by bringing honor to His Word among pagan rulers. Pagan rulers recognize the importance of God’s Word. What was Ezra’s response to all these blessings? His response was praise.

27 Blessed be the LORD, the God of our fathers, who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king,

He knows God is the one who does it. Let’s praise God! God is the one who put it in the heart of the king.

to beautify the house of the LORD that is in Jerusalem, 28 and who extended to me his steadfast love before the king and his counselors, and before all the king’s mighty officers. I took courage, for the hand of the LORD my God was on me,

That’s why I took courage. That’s why I could stand up. I knew that regardless of what happened, it’s the Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego kind of courage. I don’t know how God is going to bless me. He might bless me by preserving me through the fire. He might bless me by taking my life. But God is going to bless me. It gave him courage to act in faith rather than act in fear in a fallen world.

What can I expect for God to do if His hand is upon me? Blessings are so many, but I know all of them find their focal point, all of them find their center in the person of Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 1:20 For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.

Jesus becomes the center. God blesses us financially. He blesses us physically in our physical bodies. He blesses us communally. He establishes a church and a love within the family. He blesses us legally so that we would have legal protections. He blesses us emotionally so we have inner strength to overcome discouragement. At the heart of all of it is spiritually, He draws us near to Himself so that we as sinners can worship Him. What do I need more than anything else? I need the blessing of God. Worshiping people desire God’s good hand of blessing to be on their lives and on their spiritual family. We know that God is honored when we seek His favor on our lives. That’s what worshiping people do. The one thing I want is God’s good hand of favor. If I have that, regardless of what else is happening in my life in this broken world, if I know I have that, I have courage. I have confidence to move forward.

So the applications are, let’s bless the Lord. Let’s not forget any of His benefits. Let’s take time and name them. Spend time with your family this afternoon. Spend time in your own prayer journal. Spend time with your Christian friends. Name the blessings. Start naming them off so that God would receive the glory for every one that we could possibly consider.

Secondly, and this has been really helpful to me this week. Relax! Don’t fret about the downward spiral of our culture. Truly! If we have the favor of God, why would we fret about the downward spiral of our culture? Is our blessing dependent upon what Congress, a President, an electorate, judges, anyone else does? That’s not to say it’s meaningless. It’s just to say we ought not to fret.

This week, I was fretting. I was doing some consideration. I was thinking of my little grandkids. I thought it’s likely they’re going to grow up in a world where they’re not blessed like I was blessed with freedoms and with a lot of spiritual blessings around that our culture had. It’s not that our culture was Christian or perfect, but I’m just concerned. I don’t know what the future holds. That might be true, but here’s the thought that came in from Ezra 7. God’s blessing upon my grandchildren is not dependent upon secular government. God’s blessing upon my children and grandchildren is dependent upon God’s grace and His grace never changes. He is a generous God. Here’s the truth, and it’s the truth in times of prosperity and freedom or in times of great difficulty as a nation. Here’s the truth that God’s people know. If I have God’s favor, nothing outside of me can rob me of life. Nothing! On the other hand, if I don’t have God’s favor and I have all the freedoms and all the prosperity and all the peace of a world that is sort of set right, then it’s total disaster for us and for our kids and our grandkids. So let’s focus on the thing that is right to focus on. Let’s teach our kids the Gospel, which is the last thing. I’m going to close rather quickly.

The Doorway to God’s Blessing

The good hand of his God was on him. We’re going to talk more about this next week. What puts a person in a position of being blessed by God, of having God’s good hand upon them? What causes us to receive God’s good hand of blessing? Here is the answer over and over and over again in the Scriptures. It’s faith. Believe in God. Be humble before Him. Turn from sin. Don’t believe that sin has an answer to our life’s problems. Instead, turn to God. Life is bound up in God. If I believe in Him and am contrite and humble before Him, God promises to grant us life. Jesus said, “I have come that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly.” God loves you so much that He sent His Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but would have eternal life.

Last week, I was able to sit in the back and listen to Pastor Josh share so wonderfully a message that just encouraged my soul. I looked over at the backs of your heads as we were worshiping God together. There was a joy in my heart and there was a prayer in my heart. I said, God, allow each person who is here today to leave with your favor on their life. Allow each person to experience what it is for your good hand to be upon them. Then I reflected though on the reality of the church, of the gathered community. Some of us leave every Sunday with God’s good favor because our hearts received the Gospel, received God’s Word, received prayers of the saints, received the praises by faith. Our faith was engaged. However, there are some of us who leave on a Sunday without God’s good hand on us. It made me both happy and sad as I thought about that. I prayed, God, open our hearts. Revive us so that more and more of us would walk out on a Sunday with hearts filled with faith, receiving your good favor. That’s what we need.