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this week's next steps

Trust Jesus while I am in the Ruins

Look for Jesus in the midst of my Ruins

Read Ezra 2

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This Week's Message Recap:

As we begin the story of Ezra, we see God fulfilling a promise He made to His people generations earlier. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God promised that after 70 years of exile, the Jewish people would return to Jerusalem. At the time, that promise probably felt impossible. Jerusalem and the temple would be destroyed, families would be taken from their homes, and generations would grow up knowing Babylon as their home. But God had not forgotten His people. In Ezra 1, we see that promise begin to unfold as God stirs the heart of Cyrus, the Persian king, to allow the Jewish people to return and rebuild the temple. Even though Cyrus did not know or worship the one true God, God used him to accomplish His purposes.

The story of Ezra reminds us that God is dependable and that He is working even when we cannot see what He is doing. The same God who worked through a powerful pagan king to bring His people from ruins to revival is still at work today. Our circumstances may look like ruins, whether we are facing loneliness, a struggling marriage, infertility, unemployment, or something else entirely. While Jeremiah 29:11 was originally a specific promise to the Jewish people in exile, it points us to a God who keeps His promises and has a plan even when we cannot see the whole picture. We can have hope because God is still in the story, and He is still working in the ruins.

Questions to Consider:

God promised the Israelites that after 70 years of exile, they would return to Jerusalem. Why do you think it was important for God’s people to hold onto that promise while they were living in Babylon?
Cyrus didn’t worship God, yet God used him to accomplish His purposes. What does this story teach us about the ways God can work through people or circumstances we might not expect?
We were reminded that God is working even when we don’t see Him moving.Where in your life do you need to trust that God is still working, even when you can’t see what He is doing or when His timing looks different from your own?
The message ended by asking, “What about my ruins?” What is one way this story of Ezra changes how you view a difficult or broken area of your own life?