Taking the Long View on “Wins” & “Losses”

Posted on 2014/09/11 by Shawn Thomas

I wonder how often we are very short-sighted in what we consider to be “victories” and “defeats”? At the very end of Ezra 4, after the enemies of Israel had written to the king accusing those who were trying to rebuild the Temple, the king ordered the work to stop, and verse 24 says: “then work on the house of God in Jerusalem ceased.” But it was a short-lived victory.

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Don’t Be An Accuser

Posted on 2014/09/10 by Shawn Thomas

Ezra 4:6 says that in their attempt to shut down the rebuilding of the Temple, the enemies of Israel “wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem” and slandered them to King Ahasuerus. Zerubbabel and Jeshua were attempting to do the Lord’s work, and these enemies tried to hinder that work through their accusations. But in Ezra’s day and in ours, those who unjustly accuse God’s servants participate in a diabolical work.

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Learning From The Wicked

Posted on 2014/09/09 by Shawn Thomas

Sometimes the people of God can learn a lesson from the ungodly. In Ezra 4, the Bible tells us that the opponents of those who were trying to rebuild the Temple “hired counselors against them to frustrate their counsel all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia.” (:5) There is one thing we can learn from these people:

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“The Discipline of Ordered Prayer” (Matthew 6:9-13 Sermon)

Posted on 2014/09/08 by Shawn Thomas

(Preached at First Baptist, Pauls Valley, 9-07-14)

When our son Paul was a preschooler, we went to my mom’s house for a get-together, and we all had a good time. We ate cake, and swam and played outside, and at one point I saw that Paul was smashing some bugs on the back porch. Well, when we put him to bed that night, he prayed, and his prayer went something like: “God, thank You that we got to go to Grandma’s house; thank You for the cake and that we got to swim, and thank You that we got to smash bugs on the back porch”! At first I thought to myself, “What kind of prayer is THAT?!” But the truth is, it was a great prayer, because it came from his heart, and these were the things that he was truly thankful to God for.
But as talked about a few weeks ago, what is cute for a preschooler is not necessarily cute for an adult! Praying almost any kind of prayer is fine for a child, but as we grow in Christ, we should grow in the maturity of our prayers as well.
Jesus’ disciples could see, first-hand, the importance of the role of prayer in Jesus’ ministry, and they asked Him to teach them to pray. Many of us are familiar with the prayer that Jesus gave us in Matthew 6:9-13 of The Sermon on the Mount, which we often call “The Lord’s Prayer.” But this is not really as much “The Lord’s Prayer” as it is the prayer that Jesus gave US as a model to teach us how to pray.

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They Say All The Right Things

Posted on 2014/09/08 by Shawn Thomas

Ezra 4 opens by telling how the enemies of Judah heard of the rebuilding of the Temple, and asked to “help.” Verse 2 says they requested: “Let us build with you for we, like you, seek your God …”. On the surface, what they said sounded good — but there was something else behind it.

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Fear Can Be A Strong Motivator

Posted on 2014/09/04 by Shawn Thomas

Ezra 3:3 describes how Jeshua and the priests rebuilt the altar of God in Jerusalem: “So they set up the altar on its foundation, for they were terrified because of the peoples of the lands; and they offered burnt offerings on it to the LORD, burnt offerings morning and evening”. Though some might question the purity of their motivation, it is a common one which God often allows to draw us back to Him:

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According to Your Ability

Posted on 2014/09/03 by Shawn Thomas

Ezra 2 describes how the people of Israel came back to the Promised Land and began the process of rebuilding the Temple. Verse 69 says: “According to their ability they gave to the treasury for the work”. Here we find a good principle for us as stewards of God’s gifts in His kingdom’s work: Continue reading →

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Faith Under Trial

Posted on 2014/09/02 by Shawn Thomas

Ezra 2 gives us a list of the exiles who returned to Israel from the Babylonian captivity. While all the names and numbers may seem trivial, they are not. And verse 41 gives us a special insight when it says that there also returned “the singers, the sons of Asaph, 128 (people)”. This reveals that Asaph’s line, the leaders of musical worship in Israel, had maintained their continuity even in exile. This is significant.

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The Discipline of Morning Prayer (Psalm 5:3 Sermon)

Posted on 2014/09/01 by Shawn Thomas

(Preached at First Baptist, Pauls Valley, OK 8-31-14)

One of the best articles I have ever read is “The Tyranny of the Urgent” by Charles Hummel. In it he writes that many people often wish for a 30-hour day, so they could get more done. Hummel says if we had it, we would soon be filling it up with more of the things which are already squandering our present 24-hour day! His solution? Do what Jesus did, and get up early and spend time with His Heavenly Father in prayer to begin the day. Get HIS direction and priorities for the day, and then follow that. But the whole plan hinges on spending time with God before you get into your day.

A couple of weeks ago we started a series of messages which I entitled: “The Disciplines of Disciples.” Last Sunday we saw the importance of spending time every day in what I Peter 2:2 calls “the pure milk of the word” — just you, your Bible, and the Holy Spirit of God speaking to your heart each day, and you writing down what you learn in that time. I hope you’ve been exercising that discipline this week. Today we are going to look at another discipline, closely related to it, and that is the discipline of morning prayer. Psalm 5:3 will be our text.

“In the morning, O Lord, You will hear my voice. In the morning I will order my prayer to You, and eagerly watch.”

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Pray For God To Stir Hearts

Posted on 2014/09/01 by Shawn Thomas

In Ezra 1:1, the Bible says “In order to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia” to issue a proclamation allowing the Jews to return to Jerusalem. Then in :5 of that same chapter, it says that “everyone whose spirit God had stirred to go up and rebuild the house of the Lord” arose and went back the Promised Land from Babylon. It is interesting that in both cases, the scripture says that God “stirred” them up!

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