In 458 BC, Ezra the scribe sought the permission of Artaxerxes, the king of Persia, to return to Jerusalem to assist in settling and establishing the returned captives who had rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem. For decades, they had lived in captivity in foreign territory. And that had followed generations in which the people had barely paid lip service to the God of their fathers. And so there was a desperate need for the people to be taught the will of God so that they might live under the blessing of God. Ezra's move from Persia to Jerusalem had at its core the aim of restoring the knowledge of God's will to revitalise the worship that was taking place at the temple and to stir the people up to holy service for God day by day. And in this chapter we continue to see a pattern that had begun to develop in chapter 7, that the hand of God was upon Ezra. He was blessing him in this endeavor to lead the people of God in the service of God. Now, as we consider this chapter together this evening, there are three things that I want to draw out. The first is the need to see the good hand of God. It's evident from Ezra's own testimony, for this is written firsthand by Ezra, that he was observing what was going on as he gathered the people and as he led the people to Jerusalem. And it wasn't simply a matter of people gathering together at the river Ahava and then beginning on their way and completing their journey to Jerusalem. But Ezra saw the good hand of God in these events. We first see this particularly emphasized in the gathering of the people. If we were to go back into chapter 7 and the closing paragraph, he declares, 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, and who extended to me his steadfast love before the king and his counsellors, 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. Now as he gathered the leading men of Israel, and chapter 8 opens up, he tells us who those leading men were. For the most part, there's a repetition in this list of the households who had gone up earlier at the beginning of this book of Ezra. Of course, they had gone up under different leaders and for a different goal, that of rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem. But it's interesting to note that it is evident that not all of the families, not entire families, had gone before, that there were remnants left. And now it's these remnants who are stirred up to go with Ezra and to travel to Jerusalem. But not only is that the case, but it is evident too that Ezra saw God's hand at work in this. It was because the good hand of the Lord was upon him that these people gathered together with him to travel to Jerusalem. In other words, just as it was God who had stirred Cyrus to decree the return of the people of Israel to rebuild the temple, so it was God who stirred up the hearts of these people now to return with Ezra. Just as God had stirred in the hearts of their family members under Zerubbabel to return 70 years or more earlier, so now it is God who is stirring in their hearts to go with Ezra to Jerusalem to do this work of establishing the worship of God in the temple. Not only is he stirring up these leading people, the heads of the father's houses, but also we see Ezra viewing God's hand at work in gathering together Levites. When he had initially brought together, we may assume that these are people who have come from different parts of Persia, as he gathers them at a declared meeting place near the river Ahava. And when they're all gathered together there on the first day of the month and he looks at them and he takes an initial reckoning of who is there, it is evident that there's a significant and important group of people who are missing. These are the Levites. They were crucial to the temple worship. They had responsibility for various aspects of the worship. Now it was the priests who conducted worship, we might say, but it was the Levites who ensured that everything was in place for worship to take place. And in addition to that, since the temple that Solomon had built, the Levites had particular responsibility for leading the people in worship, in the singing of psalms to God. And so the absence of Levites was a significant omission in this group. And so Ezra seeks God's help and God blesses him. The good hand of our God was on us, he says, and they brought us a man of discretion, Mahali the son of Levi, and others along with him. And so God's good hand is being seen by Ezra in the gathering of the people, stirring them up to action. This was the action of serving God. But it wasn't just in that that Ezra saw the good hand of God. He saw it also in the journey that took place and in the fact that God overruled and protected them on that journey. We have the description of the dangers that were before them. In verses 31 and 32, we departed from the river Ahava on the twelfth day of the first month to go to Jerusalem. The hand of our God was on us and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from ambushes by the way. We came to Jerusalem and there we remained for three days. And so Ezra sees God's hand protecting them. There were real dangers along the way. They were carrying significant amounts of wealth with them. We have the tally of the gold and the silver and the bronze basins that were delivered into the hands of the Levites to take up to Jerusalem. And that would have been a very tempting price for any bandits along the way. Now it's difficult for us to ascertain from the language that's used here whether they encountered any trouble along the way. It could be that the hand of God was on them so that they didn't encounter any problems, no one came against them. Or it might be that they did encounter enemies in the way, they did encounter ambushes along the way but God delivered them from those ambushes and they were brought safely to Jerusalem. When we come to the book of Nehemiah in a few weeks time and Nehemiah made the same journey about 1500 kilometers or so from their location in Persia back to Jerusalem. Nehemiah had the benefit of a king's guard, soldiers travelling with them as a security force for them. But here, Ezra has specifically chosen not to request a guard. He says, I was ashamed to ask the king for a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us from against the enemy on our way since we had told the king the hand of our God is for good on all who seek him and the power of his wrath is against all who forsake him. And so Ezra perhaps just in conversation with the king who perhaps had asked him about his God and what kind of God he was and why it was that he wanted to travel to Jerusalem and how it was that he was going to make that journey. that perhaps Ezra had perhaps casually expressed his confidence in God and then when it came to the crunch and they were about to depart on their journey and he realizes the dangers that faced them he also realizes that well he's he's put his confidence in God and now he has to follow through with that And so at the end of the journey, that four-month journey, over 1,500 kilometres through many dangers, Ezra is able to see the good hand of God upon them. So the hand of God is working, God is working, stirring up the people to action, stirring them up to have this heart to return to their homeland and to undertake the work of the temple. God is also protecting them and guiding them, strengthening them and giving them courage for this journey and for this task. And in all of this, Ezra sees the good hand of God. But I want you secondly to observe, not only that Ezra is recognizing God's hand, Perhaps it would have been easy just to have simply accepted that things had gone well, people had gathered together and they had a safe journey. But Ezra not only saw the good hand of God and observed it in in these events, but he also sought the good hand of God. He sought the good hand of God. We see it perhaps most clearly expressed in verse 23. We fasted and implored our God for this, for what? For God's protection upon them. And he listened to our entreaty. Ezra didn't take it for granted that God would protect them upon the way. With prayer and fasting, he sought God's blessing. his protection, his help, his guard, his power to be working for them. He prayed to God. But that wasn't the only way in which Ezra sought the good hand of God. Yes, we can pray to God for all kinds of areas of our lives and seek his help, seek his wisdom, seek his protection, seek his blessing in different ways. But Ezra didn't just then sit back and say, well, God's going to stir up the people and gather them together. God's going to have his angels watching over us and keep us safe. No, Ezra also acted. We see that perhaps most clearly in verses 16 and 17. For when he realized that there were no Levites among those who had gathered together at Havah, he sent for some leading men. He gave them wise counsel and he sent them to Ido, a leading man of the place Cassiphia. Now we don't know where that place is and we don't know who this man was but it's suggested that Most likely this was a reasonably close place where there were known to be Levites. There may even have been a place of worship where the Jews gathered together to pray to their God and to praise him in Psalms. And so there was an expectation that in the place Cassaphia there would be Levites and servants who would be able to come with them and to minister to God in Jerusalem. And so calling upon the leading men and giving them wise counsel he sent them to Edo and we're told and by the good hand of our God on us they brought us a man of discretion together with his companions. And so Ezra sees God's good hand, Ezra seeks God's good hand but Ezra also acts so that in his acting God's good hand may be seen. It was because Ezra did something that God's action could be observed. It was God blessing, as it were, Ezra's actions. And that would be true, too, even of the journey that they departed from the river Ahava. And they went on that journey to Jerusalem and in the going God's good hand was upon them. And so we must observe in our own lives the need to pray and the need to act. We need to seek God's help. We need to ask for his protection. We need to ask for his blessing upon our efforts. And then of course we need to act. We don't simply sit back and let God. God blesses the actions of those who seek to serve him with wisdom and courage. And we see that then reflected in Ezra, he is an example to us of seeing the good hand of God because he sought the good hand of God. And then as the chapter concludes, in the third place I want you to observe Ezra celebrating the good hand of God. for here they had come safely to Jerusalem. They had brought all of that wealth along with them. It was measured out before the high priest and the Levites in the temple in Jerusalem and we assume since nothing to the contrary is stated, that everything that had been counted at the river Ahava was now present when they arrived in Jerusalem. Nothing had been lost on the way. And then those who had come from captivity, the returned exiles, offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel. They offered these burnt offerings as thank offerings, giving thanks to God for what he had done for them. And along with those burnt offerings there were sin offerings because none of the works that we put our hands to do are ever untainted by sin. There are often sinful motives in our acting. There are often sinful attitudes displayed in our actions and so there is always a need, not only to celebrate the good hand of God, but to seek the forgiveness of God in all that we do. This is true worship, when we humble ourselves before the God upon whose good hand we depend, for all blessings in our lives, and most of all, for the blessing of the forgiveness of our sins. In all of this, God's purposes were being fulfilled. He was restoring the Jews to Jerusalem and its surrounding territory. Why was that? Why was God so concerned that the Jews should be brought out of captivity where they were well settled and prosperous and comfortable and to a large degree happy? Why is he so concerned to bring them back to Jerusalem and to re-establish worship in the temple? Well it is because this is the scene into which the Messiah would come to accomplish the work of delivering his people. not delivering them from the Babylonians, the Babylonians well they're already finished by the Persians and not to deliver them from the hands of the Persians because well the Persians are going to be overwhelmed by the Greeks and the Greeks are going to be overrun by the Romans and by the time Jesus comes into the world it is the Romans who are the oppressors of the Jews but it's not that oppression that Jesus came into the world to save his people from, rather it was the oppression of sin. And so he didn't come into this world to set up a political kingdom, as he said to Pilate at his trial, my kingdom is not of this world, otherwise my servants would fight. No, his kingdom transcends this world. It isn't limited by the geographical boundaries that this world knows but it encompasses the whole world as he delivers sinners from the chains of sin and the influence of Satan. to bring them into his kingdom, a kingdom of light and a kingdom of life, free from the oppression of sin, free to serve God. And so in a sense Ezra's move from Persia to Jerusalem to re-establish the worship of God in Jerusalem is something of a faint shadow of what was to come through the Lord Jesus Christ who would deliver his people to serve and worship God. Christ accomplished that work. when he lived his perfect life in this world and died that sacrificial death upon the cross of Calvary, he cried out from that cross, it is finished. His work of redemption was finished, his work of deliverance was finished, he broke the power of sin that chained his people in captivity, he set the prisoners free to serve God. And that happened 2,000 years ago. So we may say, well, it's good for Ezra that the good hand of God was upon him because Ezra was doing a necessary work. He was reestablishing worship in Jerusalem at the temple to which the Savior would come. and how needful that was that the the setting for the Savior should be should be right to fulfill the prophecies of the Old Testament and the plan and purpose of God but here we are all of that's done all of that's finished as Christ said from the cross so what about us? Where do we see God's good hand? we see his good hand upon us to bring Christ's work to the attention of the world, to make him known and to extend his kingdom under God's blessing in this world, that's why we're here, that's why the church exists today, that's why God doesn't simply save Christians from their sins and immediately take them out of this world and into heaven. Because it is through their testimony that others come to know Jesus Christ. It is through their lives, through their words, that others hear of their need for deliverance from the bondage of sin, to have peace with God through the death of Christ upon the cross. And so we can look for, we can seek the good hand of God upon us in our daily lives. We need to have our eyes open to observe his good hand at work in them. Whenever we undertake God's work and we do it in dependence upon him, then we can expect to see his good hand at work in our lives. So what does that look like? Well it's being who you are, where you are to the glory of God. Are you a child? Then you can see God's good hand at work in your life when you do what a child is supposed to do. To obey your parents in the Lord. You're a parent. You can expect to see God's good hand at work in your life when you do what a parent is supposed to do. to bring up your children in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord, not provoking them to anger. You're a husband, you're a wife, you can expect God's good hand to be observable in your life as you do what a husband or a wife is supposed to do. To lead with love, to submit with grace, You're an employer. You're an employee. You can expect to see God's good hand at work in your life when you do what an employer or an employee is supposed to do. To be an employer who is gracious and kind. To be an employee who is faithful and dependable. These are the These are the everyday situations in which we live our lives. There's nothing remarkable about these things. But these are the circumstances and these are the relationships that Paul highlights in his letters. Children. husbands, wives, masters, slaves. These are the people he addresses and he calls them to honour God, to serve God in those situations. Why? Why is that the case? Because in every one of those situations we can further God's work in this world. We can make Christ known. as children, in relation to our parents and others in authority, as husbands, as wives, as employees, as employers, in every situation of our lives, we can live in such a way that we further the kingdom of God. We make Christ known. Peter highlights that, particularly for wives, in relation to unbelieving husbands. Paul highlights that in various aspects of people's lives of slaves to their masters and masters to their slaves and so in all of these situations we can seek the good hand of God in prayer. And as we act upon what God expects of us, we can expect to see his good hand at work in our lives. And as we observe his good hand in serving God in those everyday situations, our daily routines, We celebrate the good hand of God by coming together and worshipping our God, whose goodness we have experienced in the days of the week. And we give thanks to God that his good hand was upon us in the challenges of our everyday lives, so that we, like Ezra and the leading Houses of Israel and the Levites saw the good hand of God upon them and his blessing in their lives. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we confess that when we think about serving you in this world, we often think in terms of some some special ministry that we should be engaged in, some special work that takes us out onto the streets to speak to people, or special meetings where people are brought in and where we serve them in various ways. And we forget that the greatest testimony to your grace in our lives is seen in the everyday ebb and flow of our lives, from our waking to our sleeping moments. And so help us, Lord, to to seek your good hand upon the mundane aspects of our lives and to see that good hand at work, blessing us in our relationships, blessing us in our everyday endeavors, opening up doors of opportunity for us to make Christ known in our homes and in our workplaces and in our neighborhoods and to support the words that we speak with lives that are consistently lived before our God. And so we pray that we may, week by week, gather together and celebrate the good hand of God that has brought us once again through another week, affording us so many opportunities to trace your loving hand at work in our lives. Forgive us, Lord, for being so often blind to your goodness at work in us. Forgive us for being so often indifferent. Forgive us for being so prayerless and inactive in pursuing that which we know is right and true and noble and good. We ask that the blood of Jesus Christ may cleanse us from all our sins and that his spirit may help us in the days that lie ahead so that we may seek and see and celebrate the good hand of God in our lives. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.