Lists of names in the Bible can be challenging to read, and even more challenging to preach. However, the presence of these names reveals something about God’s heart to us. He cares about his promises, and he cares about his people. However, this list represents more than just a census; this is a list of people who are part of God’s covenant community that exists, not for itself, but to reflect God’s character to a spiritually darkened world.
Introduction
• When we first hear the phrase, “we the people,” many of us may still be able to recite what comes after those three words.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
• Written in 1787, ratified in 1788, and in operation since 1789, the United States Constitution is the world’s longest surviving written charter of government. Its first three words – “We The People” – affirm that the government of the United States exists to serve its citizens.
• The Constitution forms the basis of our government and fundamentally defines what it means to be a citizen of these United States.
• It just goes to show, any nation, organization, church, family - if it is going to be successful - it must know who it’s members are.
• As we get into Ezra 2, we find the exiles working to define their community by way of a list or a census.
• Their constitution was written a long time ago by Moses in the Wilderness…but fresh off their 70 years of exile, it was important for the renewed people of God to know who was part of the community and who was not.
• The bulletin says that I’m preaching from Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7 today for a total of about 137 verses.
• Since its a mouthful, let’s go ahead and stand so I can get this read before it’s time to go to lunch.
• I’m just kidding…
• First of all, both Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7 are very similar, I wouldn’t have to read both chapters.
• Secondly, both of these chapter contain lists of names.
• And while you would probably think it is pretty amazing if YOUR name were in this list.
• When we are reading through the list of names, it is kind of easy for our eyes to glaze over.
• It’s okay to acknowledge that some parts of the Bible are more difficult than others to read, teach, and preach from.
• These two lists in Ezra & Nehemiah are particularly difficult because there are no names that stand out.
• It’s not like the genealogy of Jesus where you’ve got interesting little nuggets scattered throughout, like the names of some of the women who are in the list.
• But what we have here is a list of around 125 names.
• There are a couple of names that I want to point out just because they seem familiar…
• Jeshua is another spelling for Joshua but this is not the same Joshua that led the nation to conquer the promised land. If they were the same, Joshua would be somewhere around 900 years old by this point.
• Nehemiah is familiar because that’s the next book in the Bible, but that Nehemiah is not the same as this Nehemiah.
• Then there’s a guy named Mordecai who is a key figure in the book of Esther - but that’s not the same Mordecai as the one listed here.
• If you’re frustrated by that, just remember there have been a lot of George’s and Richard’s throughout our history (we just have surnames to help keep things straight)
• In a lot of ways, this list would be like taking the membership roll of a random church and reading the list aloud.
• Without knowledge of the people or place, those names don’t have much significance.
• However if you were reading through the roll of a church you and your family have been a part of for multiple generations, then that list of names helps preserve your heritage from generation to generation.
• For those who were reading Ezra, that’s what this list is.
• And while there’s not a lot of devotional value in deep diving 2172 sons of Parosh, I do think this list has tremendous value as a whole.
• And I would also say this - this list of names may seem foreign, but let’s make sure we are reading this with sound doctrine in mind.
• As Jesus followers, we have been grafted into the tree of Israel.
• So it’s not that these are random names, these names represent OUR spiritual heritage.
• These are not just Jews from a long, long time ago, these are the people of God to whom we belong today.
• That being said, I want to read just a few verses at the beginning of the chapter and a few verses at the end of the chapter.
Scripture Reading
Ezra 2:1–2 ESV
1 Now these were the people of the province who came up out of the captivity of those exiles whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried captive to Babylonia. They returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his own town.
2 They came with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Reelaiah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispar, Bigvai, Rehum, and Baanah. The number of the men of the people of Israel:
Ezra 2:64–70 ESV
64 The whole assembly together was 42,360,
65 besides their male and female servants, of whom there were 7,337, and they had 200 male and female singers.
66 Their horses were 736, their mules were 245,
67 their camels were 435, and their donkeys were 6,720.
68 Some of the heads of families, when they came to the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem, made freewill offerings for the house of God, to erect it on its site.
69 According to their ability they gave to the treasury of the work 61,000 darics of gold, 5,000 minas of silver, and 100 priests’ garments.
70 Now the priests, the Levites, some of the people, the singers, the gatekeepers, and the temple servants lived in their towns, and all the rest of Israel in their towns.
Prayer
• One of the things we saw last week in chapter 1 was how God stirred King Cyrus to authorize the construction of the Temple.
• But we also saw he God stirred his people to come and be part of that work.
• What we see as we get into chapter two is that there were actual people involved.
• There is an actual community of people who had this shared commitment to be part of restoring the proper worship of God.
• That’s what this list is.
• We all know when we see a red hat with MAGA embroidered across the front what that hat stands for.
• We might call this the MIGA crowd as they represent this shared commitment to restore the nation of Israel
• But remember - this is not the work of some political activists, Jewish nationalists trying to rebuild a Jewish state, this is a movement of God among his people.
• With that being said, I do think that there are some important lessons in this list, even if we don’t take the time to read the entire list.
• The first thing I hope you recognize is this
God knows your name
• I was talking about my mentor a couple of weeks ago and one of the great gifts he had was the ability to remember names.
• He could meet you once and he had it locked in the database.
• I’ve tried to develop that skill, but I’ve found that I need to see names in writing in order for them to stick.
• I think we all recognize that it makes us feel really special when somebody remembers our name.
• Obviously, Ezra doesn’t list every name here - if you do the math throughout this chapter, there are about 50,000 people represented by this list.
• But this list is representative of the whole community and it is a powerful reminder that God knows his people.
• Our name gives us our first sense of identity.
• In some cultures, names are withheld until a child demonstrates some kind of personality trait that would help to define his or her name.
• Our naming conventions in America aren’t quite so thought-provoking
• We usually go with something that sounds good first and then we might try to add significance second.
• But regardless of how we get our names, our names identify us even if no other part of our story or character are known.
• So to know a name is to know the very basis of who we are.
• When we introduce ourselves to someone knew, we begin with our name.
• We don’t begin with our affiliations or our professions or our birthdate. We start with our name.
• If you’re ever in a place where you feel lonely or isolated or abandoned, you need to know that God knows your name.
• Jesus talked about this very thing in the Gospel of John.
• Listen to John 10
John 10:1–3 ESV
1 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber.
2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
3 To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
John 10:14–15 ESV
14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me,
15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.
• The shepherd knows his sheep by name.
• But this is a reciprocal relationships.
• The sheep know the shepherd’s voice.
• The implication is that when the shepherd calls your name, you are able to differentiate between competing voices.
• Do you know the Shepherd’s voice when you hear it?
• One of the Devil’s strategies is to make us doubt God’s care and his knowledge of us.
• If he can fill us with self doubt, then we find ourselves doubting God’s care for us.
• I love how the prophet Isaiah spoke to this.
Isaiah 49:14–16 ESV
14 But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.”
15 “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.
16 Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.
• He knows your name, he knows your sin, and when the nails were sent through his hands, your sin was engraved upon his palms, but still he knows you, still he loves you, still he cares for you.
• A second principle we see at work here is yet another important reminder in our crazy times…
God desires rightly ordered families
• If you go read through all of chapter 2, you will be confronted with refrain after refrain of “The sons of…”
• That phrase is on repeat throughout this chapter.
• These aren’t just individuals coming back to Jerusalem, these are families.
• The years of idolatry committed by the people of Israel had taken quite a toll on their families.
• The pagan idols that they worshipped were very sensual in nature.
• There were all kinds of different forms of prostitution involved.
• Some of the idols they worshipped even required child sacrifice.
• Obviously, that’s not in alignment with creation order.
• The order of creation is husbands and wives entering into covenant faithfulness with one another.
• Out of that covenant faithfulness comes the blessing of children.
• This is how God has designed the family.
• The further we get away from that order, the messier things become.
• Israel had experienced generation after generation of deviation from God’s standard.
• One of the things we will see in Ezra and Nehemiah is God’s call to the people to restore the basis of their community - the rightly ordered family.
• We live in a culture today where we took the biblical notion of the family and ran a truck right through it.
• And it’s so messy. The consequences are immense.
• God very much cares about your family and wants to see your family thrive in faithfulness.
• Malachi was one of the prophets whose ministry took place during this time in Israel’s history.
• In Malachi 2, the prophet is rebuking the people for breaking their marriage vows and pursuing immoral relationships.
• He said starting in v. 14:
Malachi 2:14–15 ESV
14 …The Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.
15 Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.
• The prophet here reminds us that the Holy Spirit is involved in sealing the union between husband and wife.
• And what does God want out of Godly marriages - Godly children.
• This community of people who are committed to God’s plan for rebuilding the nation must also be committed to rebuilding Godly families.
• I think it’s important to say that this is true for us as well.
• You need to know that God cares about your family more than you do.
• God wants your family to succeed more than you do.
• God wants your children to walk in faithfulness more than you do.
• Husbands, wives - you’ve always got work to do.
• This week, I listened to Charlie Kirk’s widow share a little bit on his podcast.
• She said, “He made sure I knew that every day. Every day he would ask me, how can I serve you better? How can I be a better husband? How can I be a better father?”
• Men, you might not ask it in the same way, but you should be striving in the same way.
• The same is true for wives as well. You should be asking the same kinds of questions.
• Our goal as husbands and wives is to work to build a marriage that endures all of the ups and downs.
• Our goal as moms and dads is to not just raise smart kids or athletic kids or well-adjusted kids.
• Our goal must be to see to raise faithful kids.
• I’ve heard parents say before, “I want my kids to figure it out on their own.”
• And I want to tell you that isn’t what God wants.
• God wants you to teach your children, disciple your children, show them the way that they are supposed to go.
• Not so that they have options to turn to one day so that they recognize that there is only ONE way for them to walk and that is to walk faithfully with Jesus.
• And I think that transitions really well into the next principle we see at work in this list:
God is looking for faithful leaders
• A huge section of this chapter - roughly vv. 36 - 58 - describes priests and Levites and those directly involved in the religious life of the nation.
• This is important because the primary goal of the restoration is to restore proper worship to the nation of Israel.
• Later on in the book of Nehemiah, the nation comes together and they have this all-day, public reading of the Word.
• While the word is being read, there were numerous leaders who were responsible for explaining what the Word meant.
• Godly families tend to produce godly children and godly children are important in providing faithful leadership.
• I can’t tell you how much of an impact this is having in the church today.
• There is a HUGE leadership hole in the church.
• Our seminaries are shrinking.
• I have a diploma on my wall from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth Texas.
• Back in the early 90s, that school had over 3,000 full time students.
• In recent years, enrollment has been as low as 750.
• That’s one of the most dramatic examples, but school after school is facing lower enrollment.
• Many seminaries will close in the coming decade if this pattern doesn’t change.
• We’re just not seeing as many students called to serve in ministry leadership.
• And the church is going to suffer in coming years.
• A Barna survey from 2022 found that one out of four pastors plans to retire in the next seven years. Now it’s 2025, so make that the next four years.
• That same report said:
As of 2022, only 16 percent of Protestant senior pastors are 40 years old or younger, and the average age among pastors is 52. As a generation of clergy ages and prepares to step down, it is not clear that churches are prepared for the transition. If this trend goes unaddressed, the Church in the U.S. will face a real succession crisis. Further, considering that younger pastors are already struggling with burnout at higher rates than their older colleagues are, the crisis is compounded and accelerating.
• And I know just from anecdotal evidence, conversations with other pastors and church leaders - it is becoming more and more difficult to find qualified church staff to help lead.
• Ezra 2 shows us that they understood it was going to take a lot of godly leaders if they were going to pull off this restoration.
• We know it to still be true - we need godly families raising godly children who will become godly leaders and can help overcome the challenges that we are facing as a consequence of our current leadership vacuum in the church today.
• I’m thankful that our church has seen a good number of young men who have felt called into vocational ministry.
• But one good year doesn’t turn the tide.
• There’s one last point that I think needs to be considered before we move on from chapter 2…
Invitation - Finally, this list compels us to remember another list.
• We just finished the book of Revelation last month, but Ezra 2 ought to compel us to reflect on one of the main things we talked about in that study.
• We just took a high-level overview of a list with about 125 names and about 50,000 people referenced in total.
• We know just working through the names that are listed takes a while - imagine if all 50,000 were listed.
• But there is a book in heaven that contains the names of all those who have put their faith in Jesus Christ.
• It shows up in a couple of references.
• Revelation 3:5 “5 The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.”
• But it’s not just Revelation
• In Luke 10, Jesus sends out a large group of his followers on a mission trip.
• When they come back, they were kind of excited about what they had experienced.
Luke 10:17–20 ESV
17 The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!”
18 And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.
19 Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.
20 Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
• You can’t take a look at the list in Ezra 2 and not ask the greater question, is your name written in the book of life?
• Most of us gathered here today would readily acknowledge that our name is written in that book.
• But what if it isn’t?
• Last week we talked about what it means to be part of the people of God.
• Ezra 2 gives us the list.
• But there’s an fairly important part of this list that is relevant to the current question.
Ezra 2:59 ESV
59 The following were those who came up from Tel-melah, Tel-harsha, Cherub, Addan, and Immer, though they could not prove their fathers’ houses or their descent, whether they belonged to Israel:
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• These were people who were close to the community, but they didn’t really know who their father was.
• Therefore they couldn’t really claim that they were part of the community.
• Please hear me today - If you are unsure, I can tell you who your Father is.
• And you need to know he already knows you.
• And he wants to have a right relationship with you.
• This community that came back from Babylon would become the community into which Jesus would eventually be born and do his ministry.
• Therefore this community is also our community.
• Let me invite you today, if you aren’t part of this family, let today be the day that you repent from your sin and place your trust in Jesus Christ.
• Let me invite you to have your name added to the most important list ever compiled.
