Gospel Glimpses in Ezra: Purity & Fruitfulness

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This video concludes Kwasi’s three-part series on the Old Testament book of Ezra. The first highlighted God’s faithfulness to his promises, thus Israel didn’t remain forever in exile. In the second we saw how Ezra was a type of Christ, whose ministry anticipated Israel’s long-awaited Messiah. Finally in this, the last video on Ezra, we see how God makes his people fruitful. Crucially, their fruitfulness isn’t always in the ways one would expect; nor are they in accord with what we desire. Yet those who faithfully serve God will bear fruit. This was very true of Ezra and his ministry.

Gospel Fruitfulness in Ezra and Us

Listen to how Kwasi puts it, “Ezra’s faithful work resulted in great fruitfulness for the restoration purposes of God in Judah. This is exactly the case with Christ and the New Testament people of God. He saw how far away from God we were and full of compassion he gave up his life very painfully on the cross for us. So that we may have life and have it to the full. When we place our faith in what Christ did for us on the cross, we are spiritually united to him in his sin bearing death and our old life of sin is finished. We now have in us the very life of Christ. This is the good news we call the gospel.”

We now have in us the very life of Christ.

In other words, Ezra is not only a model of faithfulness that leads to fruitfulness but also a minor character in the bigger story about Christ. Part of his role is pointing us to Christ, to the one who was to come. So in some ways Ezra’s ministry can be likened to Christ’s work. For he gave up his life in service of God’s people. His desire was that Israel would worship God, with all their hearts and minds, souls and strength. Yet Christ did what Ezra could not; he worked both on our behalf and in us by his Spirit. Thus a life of fruitfulness is inseparable from faith in him.

Other Content On This Topic

Bearing Fruit in a Fallen World
How to Bear Fruit in Dark Times
How To Be Ineffective and Unfruitful
Three Warnings for Those Who Preach the Word

Unfamiliar with the Old Testament books of Ezra and Nehemiah? Watch an excellent video overview by the BibleProject in Kiswahili here, or in English here

Click here to get access to this teaching as well as a free study guide: https://app.rightnowmedia.org/join/thegospelcoalitionafrica

Transcript

Recap of fulfilment and faithfulness

So, in our first session, we looked at how the story of Ezra shows us God’s faithfulness in fulfilling his promises to redeem and to restore us through Christ Jesus. In our second session, we saw how the story of Ezra shows us that it is Christ through the Holy Spirit who empowers us to demonstrate the faithfulness that is required of each one of us in the work that God has assigned to us. So, we’ve covered the first and the second F’ s in the story of Ezra – fulfilment and faithfulness.

Fruitfulness

In this third and final session, we are going to reflect on how the story of Ezra shows us that in our Christian lives, it is the life of Christ in us as we prayerfully depend on him that will enable us to be fruitful in accomplishing God’s purposes for us. Ezra’s faithfulness resulted in great fruitfulness in the role that God assigned to him in the work of returning and restoring the Old Testament people of God to their land and administering their national life in accordance with the laws of God.

The 10 chapters of the book of Ezra naturally divide into two main parts; the first part is from Ezra:1-6 which narrates the story of the return of the first group of Jewish exiles to Jerusalem under Zerubbabel and the rebuilding of the temple. The second part is from Ezra:7-10 where we read about the second group of exiles who returned under Ezra and the spiritual reformation that followed.

Ezra’s spiritual leadership

Whereas the first returning exiles accomplished the task of rebuilding God’s house, upon his return Ezra focused on restoring God’s law in the hearts of the people. Upon his return, Ezra found widespread spiritual and moral backsliding among the men in Judah evidenced by their intermarriages with pagan women. Upon learning about this, Ezra was deeply grieved as a result of this, he fell to the ground in utter humility and repentance before God. In Ezra 9, we see him fervently interceding for the nation.

For example, in Ezra 9:6, Ezra prayed by saying this, “I am too ashamed and disgraced, my God, to lift up my face to you, because our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached to the heavens.” In Ezra 10, Ezra led the men in public repentance and to breaking their marriage ties with their pagan wives. For example, in Ezra 10:3, Ezra declared, “Now let us make a covenant before our God to send away all these women and their children, in accordance with the counsel of my lord and of those who fear the commands of our God.” This was because Ezra saw that these marriages had led the men to adopt the pagan beliefs and practices of their wives. Ezra’s response helped to remove sinful practices from the society. This led the people back to God and the book ends with Ezra’s spiritual leadership leading to a national revival.

In Ezra 10:12-13, we read that, “The whole assembly responded with a loud voice: “You are right! We must do as you say… Besides, this matter cannot be taken care of in a day or two, because we have sinned greatly in this thing.”

How Ezra points us to Christ

So, as you can see, Ezra’s faithful work resulted in great fruitfulness for the restoration purposes of God in Judah. This is exactly the case with Christ and the New Testament people of God. He saw how far away from God we were and full of compassion he gave up his life very painfully on the cross for us. So that we may have life and have it to the full. When we place our faith in what Christ did for us on the cross, we are spiritually united to him in his sin bearing death and our old life of sin is finished. We now have in us the very life of Christ. This is the good news we call the gospel.

Implications of our new life in Christ

Our spiritual union with Christ creates in us a new desire for holiness, a new desire for God and a new desire for heaven. It is not that we cannot sin again, we can of course. But we simply do not want to because deep inside uses everything is now different for us. As 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “… if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” Being join to Christ, the indwelling Holy Spirit transforms us from within to demonstrate the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives as he conforms us to the image of Christ. This is why in John 15:5, talking about our spiritual fruitfulness, Christ said, “… without me, you can do nothing.” What is true of our spiritual fruitfulness is also true of our material fruitfulness as we join God in his work as members of the body of Christ to build his Church.

But we do not only join the Lord to build his Church, we also allow the Lord to work through us to love and to care for his world with whatever gifts and training he has given to us: as doctors, as lawyers, as teachers, as merchants, as carpenters, as lecturers, as administrators, farmers or whatever. The new life we receive in Christ can ensure that our work is carried out not in frustrating self-dependent toil, but rather in restful God dependent trust that can result in our Gospel shaped fruitfulness as we see in the case of Ezra.

Summary of fruitfulness

So, for this third and final session, we can summarize our third and final F by saying that, in our Christian lives it is the life of Christ in us as we prayerfully depend on him that will enable us to be fruitful in accomplishing God’s purposes for the rebuilding of our lives to accomplish his purposes for his Church and his world. Think of how often your frantic efforts have been fruitless when they were carried out without reference to the life of Christ in you. It is only as you depend on the life of Christ in you that you will be fruitful in what God has given you to do.

So, I hope you see how these three F’S from the book of Ezra point us to the gospel and how the gospel through Christ enables and empowers us to be fruitful in whatever the Lord has called us to join him to do in this world.

Conclusion

I’ll end by going back to Ezra 10 to remind you about how Ezra dealt without compromise with the men who had married pagan women in violation of God’s commands. This is what we read in Ezra 10:10-11, ” Then Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have been unfaithful; you have married foreign women, adding to Israel’s guilt. Now honour the Lord, the God of your ancestors, and do his will. Separate yourselves from the peoples around you and from your foreign wives.” This reminds us that the Lord will often use such radical surgery to ensure that his people cultivate a prayerful lifestyle of repentance in their thoughts, in their words, and in their deeds. So that we can glorify him with our lives and with our work in this world as Ezra did. Repentance simply means turning away from what does not please God and returning to what pleases God.

The New Testament repeatedly teaches us that one of the reasons the Lord allows some of the hardships we experience in our lives is to correct us and bring us back to focusing on him as the real centre of our lives instead of all our other preoccupations that so easily become our idols and turn our focus away from him.

You see, the simple gospel truth is that at the end of the day we will lose anything we trust in more than God. It will fail us. The only thing we cannot lose is God and our relationship with him which stretches into all eternity. Ezra understood this and he focused his entire life on this gospel truth. He was therefore faithful and fruitful and God’s work flourished in his hands. In the power of the Holy Spirit may this be true for all of us as we join the Lord in his work wherever he has placed us. May the Lord richly bless you.

Kwasi Amoafo holds a PhD in Theological Studies from Pan Africa Theological Seminary and is a lecturer at St. Paul’s University, Nairobi, Kenya and Global University, Missouri, USA. An ordained Canon of the Anglican Church of Kenya, Kwasi is an author and a church planter passionate about the gospel. Of Ghanaian nationality, Kwasi resides in Nairobi, Kenya and is married with five young adult children.