Building a People of Worship: People of Repentance Ezra 9-10

Imagine your boss is going to visit your house. You spend all day cleaning and making sure the house is presentable. Then you notice mud, and it's everywhere. You try to clean, but all you do is spread it out on the floor and the walls. Nothing makes the mud go away. Even worse, you notice new muddy spots where you just cleaned. How could your house, which you’ve spent so much time cleaning, be so dirty? What will your boss think? This is how Ezra feels in chapters 9-10.

We desire to give God holy worship. He is worthy of such devotion. However, we often present unclean worship. Sin creeps into our hearts, minds, and lives. The world doesn’t tempt you completely to stop worshipping God. Instead, the enemy so often tempts us to add other idols. We think, “It's not that bad.” “I know God said that, but…” But adding a hint of idol worship is like adding a drop of ink to a glass of water. It may be a small drop, but it spreads and pollutes the whole glass. This is what we do every time we worship other things alongside God.

As a people of worship, we are called to worship God truly. This means with our whole lives and full selves. When we sin and pollute our beliefs, we must repent. It should bring sorrow when we see the people of worship dabble in sin. Like Ezra, we must mourn over our sin. The main idea of our sermon today is that God’s people are holy and therefore must worship with holy lives devoted to God by repenting of sin. As people of worship, we must recognize sin, repent, and seek full restoration.

Recognizing Sin

9:1-4

Some may be confused as to what the problem is in Ezra 9-10. Some say the sin was intermarriage with the surrounding people. This is a very superficial view. We must ask why Ezra was so upset over the exiles marrying people from the surrounding land. What we will discover is that it had nothing to do with race and everything to do with faith.

The returned exiles married women of other faiths, verse 1. These people had not separated themselves from their practices. The result is that all who were in these marriages were polluting the worship of God with the worship of the gods of their spouses. This included the leaders. When we put it in these terms, it makes more sense why Ezra is so upset. The exiles were doing the very same thing that got them exiled in the first place. They were again polluting their faith.

They also knew the command of Moses in Deuteronomy 7, not to marry the surrounding people. The people of Israel were called to be a people of faith, who were separate from the surrounding nations. Even in the wilderness, God was showing them that He desired wholehearted devotion to Him. The land, by contrast, was filled with people who worshipped perverse things in perverse ways. This could not be so for God’s people.

Likewise, we are called a holy people. As the church, we are to be separate from the surrounding nations. We are a people who wholly belong to God. Therefore, we must not pollute our worship with other beliefs. We bring mud into God’s house when we do. Imagine being covered in mud, while cleaning the mud you spread. It would never work. It would be silly. That is what we do every time we worship worldly things.

So often, we fail to recognize sin in our lives. We try to clean ourselves up, while still being covered by the sticky mud of sin. Beloved, as a people of worship, let us recognize our sins and false beliefs when we see them. Let us search our hearts and see what we, like the exiles, have allowed and accepted into our lives and worship.

The leaders who reported these things to Ezra rightly call out what is happening as ‘unfaithfulness.’ When Ezra hears all of this, he is torn. His tearing the tunic and pulling the hair were outward signs of intense mourning and disgust. He is devastated to return to Jerusalem only to find the people are doing the same things that got them exiled and their city destroyed in the first place.

Oh, that God would give each of us a heart that recognizes and mourns our sin. Let us call out to Jesus, from the pit of brokenness, and latch on to His forgiveness. Our sin had separated us from God completely. But Jesus’ blood wipes our sin and shame clean. Therefore, we can approach God today because of the work of Christ on the cross, and that’s good news, the best news. Therefore, Beloved, seek Jesus daily through praying for forgiveness and mercy. I often pray the words, “Christ, have mercy on me.” We are now the people of God; therefore, let us separate ourselves, recognize what God calls sin, and repent.

Take some time daily and let God search your heart. Pray that God would reveal sin in your lives. It’s not always obvious. At times, sin lies buried deep within. If you were checking to see if you had something in your teeth, you would use a mirror. Beloved, use the mirror of God’s Word. Let it reveal sin. And when you do, pray for God to remove it and then repent.

Repenting through Prayer

9:5-15 (5-10),

Ezra’s response to the recognition of sin was a prayer of repentance. Ezra lies openly in the courtyard, praying. This was not a private prayer. People gathered as he cried out to God. They saw this priest lying out in a posture of humility and desperation. He cries out to the Lord because there is nowhere else to turn. The first part of repentance is acknowledging sin.

This was a prayer of deep sorrow and of God’s grace. Ezra calls out the depth of their sin. He is not trying to downplay or minimize their sin. After all, this is the same sin that their ancestors did. This was why they had been exiled.

God’s grace is also on full display in this prayer. God preserved a remnant. He would have been right to destroy them all. Through His deep mercy, God kept His people together. Not only that, He brought them back to their homeland. He is again calling His people to worship Him. Let us not miss the grace of God in this chapter.

In verse 9, Ezra rightfully calls their relationship with God a ‘wall in Judah and Jerusalem.’ Their relationship with God was to be their wall of protection, separating them from worldly powers. As we pray for repentance and seek God, let us call out sorrow over our sin. Let us be rightfully broken over it. Also, let us latch onto the grace of God. Though our sin separated us, God’s grace came through Jesus. We were still in open rebellion against God. He stepped in and took our shame and bore it on the cross. In doing so, we are welcomed into a relationship with Jesus. This relationship is like a wall around our hearts and minds, protecting us from the sin of the world.

Israel’s sin had torn down that very wall. Ezra recalled Deuteronomy 7. God called His people to tear down the altars and idols in the land that He gave them. Why? Because those very same altars and idols would become stumbling blocks. But I want you to see the heart of this call. It was because God had chosen them (Deut. 7:4-6). They were holy and separate. God made them holy because He loved them. Therefore, worship was akin to faithfulness in a marriage. It is because we love our spouse that we are faithful to them. The same is true with God and our worship. He loves us. Let us love Him through repentance and obedience.

Set time aside this week to pray. You may have some tension with someone in your life. Set aside time to pray over that situation. Pray that you may recognize your sin in the matter and seek repentance. I like to have some time at the end of each day and pray over my day. One of the things I do is ask God to reveal where I have polluted my worship and sinned. I then confess sin and seek ways to repent. I commend this practice to you. Pray over your days.

Restoration Through Renewal

10:1-17 (1-2, 4, 6, 9-12)

As we repent of sin, we seek restoration through the renewal of our relationship. Repentance is never simple sorrow, but sorrow that leads to action. In this chapter, our exiles proclaim that they will separate themselves from the people of the land and their beliefs. To do this, they sent their foreign wives away.

Note Ezra’s posture in the first few verses here. It is humble, but so are the people. They gather around a weeping and praying Ezra. They are moved by Ezra’s care and emotion over their fallenness. The people recognize their sin and confess it publicly. However, repentance doesn’t stay here. It moves to restoration.

Look at Shecaniah for an example of this (v2). He confesses to Ezra their sin, but calls Ezra to hope. What hope? Their hope is in the grace and mercy of God to restore a repentant people. They will act in obedience to God’s command. Shecaniah knew, through godly wisdom, that as they separate themselves from sinful beliefs and practices, God will restore them to Himself. So in verse 4, he told Ezra to get up and go. The time for action is now.

We will struggle with sin for our whole lives. It is a part of being a fallen creation. Our hope is in the gospel. God, who could have left us in our sin, calls us to be with Him. He restores us to Himself. The heart of the gospel is the relationship that we enjoy with God. We see this yearning for restoration and renewal as the people gather.

Let us, like these exiles, weep over sin and take it seriously. Ezra fasted out of deep grief. Are we grieved at our sin? I know so many times this does not reflect my heart. This passage has challenged me to take sin seriously. This includes my sin and the sin of the church. Let us weep over brokenness and sinfulness. And as we do, let us act in obedience and repentance. Then we will be able to enjoy and embrace the restoration that God provides.

Toward the end of the chapter, the people sit listening to Ezra. The scene is somber. It’s raining, cold, and sorrowful. Picture this moment. People huddled together, wet from rain, weeping over sin. After recognizing and repenting, they move to action. They will do as Ezra has said. It is a word of hope and obedience. They will do the work of separating themselves from the false worship of the land.

Beloved, may this scene be the one of our hearts as we weep over our sin. Let us, with the people of Judah, separate ourselves from the culture’s beliefs. Let us not be found picking and choosing beliefs like a spiritual buffet. We are called to holiness. We are called to be the people of God. We are chosen and loved by God! We are a people of worship, true worship. Therefore, let us also be a people who repent so that our worship can be true and our relationship restored.

Conclusion:

We end this book with a mixed scene of repentance, sorrow, and brokenness. It’s okay to be a bit uneasy. The people say they will repent. A list is made of all who acted in unfaithfulness. And women and children are sent away. And that’s uncomfortable. I don’t think God delighted in the women being sent away. This was a scene that should never have occurred, as God’s people were never meant to marry them. Sin leads to pain and brokenness.

This scene leads us to lift our eyes to a greater restoration. One that Jesus would bring. We couldn’t reach God, so He came to us. He died for us. He bore our shame. He did what we, in our disobedience, could never do. He brought us back to God, clean.

This last scene also shows us the seriousness of our sin. It is not a small thing. It isn’t a speck of dirt; it covers us like mud. It dirties the People of God. Take sin seriously. Be broken over it. Seek God and restoration with Him, which He provided through Christ.

Finally, we long for a greater day of restoration. For our returned exiles, we leave with this broken picture, a possible repentance. But what we find in the gospels, roughly 400 years later, is that sin is still there. It looks different, but sin remained. The house of God was still ‘muddy’. Jesus cleaned it. He promised that one day, the whole of creation, He will restore. And the stain of sin will be removed forevermore. Long for that day as you recognize sin, repent of it, and seek full restoration. Beloved, let us be a people of true worship today, this week, and for eternity.

“Father, You are holy. You love us and have called us out of this world. Forgive us for when we have worshipped the things of this world. Cleanse us. Let us weep if need be, over our sin. Let us repent and seek restoration with You and each other. Let us be a true people of worship. Amen.”