The Good Hand of God

The Good Hand of God

Pastor Tom Mitchell

I am starting a new series on good and not so good people in the Bible and what we can learn from them. The Bible gives us the stories of people as examples (good and bad) to teach us.

“Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us…”

(Rom. 15:4).

“And these things happened as examples for us, to stop us from wanting evil things as those people did. “The things that happened to those people are examples. They were written down to teach us...”

(I Cor 10:6, 11)

As these verses suggest, we can learn a lot from studying the lives of biblical characters. In this series we will be looking at several characters from the Bible, both Old and New Testaments. We’ll find real people with real issues that we can learn from. The Bible presents people in all their strengths and weaknesses. Our goal is to learn from these examples and apply lessons to our own lives.

Today I want to lay some groundwork on how you approach a study like this. When you read the Bible you must NOT confuse the Prescriptive with the Descriptive.

Larry Osborne, in his Book “Spirituality for the Rest of Us” is very helpful in understanding this issue. He states: “The Bible contains many prescriptive passages – the commands and counsel that tell us what to do. But it also contains many descriptive passages that simply describe what someone did.

The problem arises when we treat every passage as if it’s prescriptive. This turns every story about a person in the Bible as a model we must follow rather than a model we can learn from. And that is a big mistake.

The descriptive passages of the Bible contain examples of people who can give us insight and principles, but they don’t necessarily insist that we do the same thing.

Take for example the story in Acts 2:42-47. “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. ⁴³Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. ⁴⁴All the believers were together and had everything in common. ⁴⁵Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. ⁴⁶Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, ⁴⁷praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

Is this passage descriptive or prescriptive? Does it simply tell us what they did in a descriptive manner or does it contain commands that tell us what we are to do? Is this passage: prescriptive and does it tell us how we ought to do church or is it descriptive and tell us how they did church and an example to learn from, but not necessarily to do exactly as they did?

It is interesting what people leave in or take out of this passage. Most people believe that the passage encourages us to follow the pattern of the apostles teaching, fellowship, breaking bread and prayer?

But most don’t encourage us to sell all our possessions, live communally, share with anyone in need, meet together every day and expect to see signs and wonders regularly?

We must be careful as we study scripture that we don’t turn descriptive passages into prescriptive passages with specific commands to follow.

With that in mind I want to introduce you to a guy named Ezra.

Years before Ezra came on the scene God had allowed the Babylonians defeat the Jews, destroy Jerusalem and take most of the Jews into exile. The Jews had repeatedly disobeyed God and served other gods and idols and God had had enough.

God had warned them a number of times but they would repent but before long they begin to worship idols again. So God allowed the Babylonians to defeat them in war and take them back to Babylon for 70 years. It was at this time that God, through the prophet Jeremiah gave the Jews hope by saying: “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”But those plans God had for them were to spend 70 years in captivity before they would be allowed to go back to their home land.

But now the Persians under King Cyrus had defeated the Babylonians. One of Cyrus’ first actions was to allow Jews to return to their homeland.

In the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, three different “returns” are recorded. The first was under Zerubbabel (Ezra 1-6). A second return took place under Ezra’s leadership (Ezra 7-10). The third was under the leadership of Nehemiah (Neh. 1-13)

When I first read Ezra I noticed a phrase was repeated again and again. Let me show you: When Ezra put together a plan of what he would need to return to Israel he presented his needs to the Persian government and he got everything he asked for. Ezra tells us how he got help. It wasn’t because he was such a good sales man or because his strategic plan or because he had a relative on the inside. Chapter 7:6 tell us: “The king granted his everything he asked, for the good hand of the Lord was upon him”. When Ezra needed special money and supplies for the trip, he got them. How? 7:27-28 tells us: “Praise be to the Lord, the God of our fathers, who has put it into the king’s heart to bring honor to the house of the Lord in Jerusalem in this way and who has extended his good favor to me before the king and his advisers and all the king’s powerful officials. Because the hand of the Lord my God was on me,….” When Ezra needed specific gifted men to go with him he got them. How? Ezra 8:18 says: “the good hand of the Lord was upon him”. When he needed protection on the journey he got it. How? 8:31-32 “On the twelfth day of the first month we set out… to go to Jerusalem. The hand of our God was on us, and he protected us from enemies and bandits along the way. So we arrived in Jerusalem, where we rested three days.”

After I read all that about Ezra I wondered if he had done something so that “the good hand of God was upon him” again and again or was it just God’s sovereign choice? I studied the life of Ezra and got an answer in 7:9-10. Let me read these verses out of the NLT: “He (Ezra) had arranged to leave Babylon on April 8, the first day of the new year, and he arrived at Jerusalem on August 4, for the gracious hand of his God was on him. ¹⁰This was because Ezra had determined to study and obey the Law of the Lord and to teach those decrees and regulations to the people of Israel.”

Notice what Ezra did to prepare himself so that “the good hand of the Lord was upon him.” He determined to do three things:

1. He “determined to study” God’s word.” He had a passion to know God’s truth. Ezra believed that God had communicated His will through His word and Ezra wanted to know and understand what God word. He believed that God’s word was his primary authority for his life so he took the time to study God’s word.

How much time should you invest in the study of God’s word? I don’t know because God has gifted each one of us differently and each one of us at a different stage of life. I don’t think God expects you to study the word as much as he expects me to.

I don’t think God expects Brian to study the word as much as He does Me. And I don’t think God expects me to study music as much as He does Brian. But what I do think God expects is that each one of us would spend some time in the word so that you can gain spiritual insight into becoming a faithful follower of Jesus.

2. He determined to “practice” God’s word. Ezra didn’t just study the word, he determined to practice it. Prov 4:18-19 “The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day. But the way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know what makes them stumble.”

What does that mean? It means I am not to be worrying about the things I don’t know. I am to respond to the light I have, and the rest will come in God’s time. It means Jesus-pleasing spirituality can happen instantly-the moment you start to follow Jesus.

Maturity and spiritual depth take time. But you can please God right away because it’s not a matter of how much you know, it’s a matter of living by the light you have. And when you live by the light you have you will continue to gain more light.

3. He determined to “teach” God’s word.

I believe Jesus desire is for us is to teach what we are learning. This is especially true of parents. When we do baby dedicate we read Deut. 6:6-7: “Always remember these commands I give you today. Teach them to your children, and talk about them when you sit at home and walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” Parents are to teach their kids. Every parent is to be a teacher.

But we read this in Col. 3:16:“Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives….” Every Christian is to be a teacher to one degree or another. How we teach and where we teach and to whom we teach will be different. But we are all to teach.

Ezra teaches that each one of us can experience God’s blessing, “The good hand of God” as we take the time to study God’s word, practice God’s word and teach God’s word in whatever setting we find ourselves in.