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February 9, 2025
The Story | Could God Still Love Me? | Chapter 19
Hope: The Return of the Exiles
The book of Ezra tells the story of the return of God’s people from exile. The account details the extra care that was taken by the returnees in doing their best to reproduce what they once had. Very quickly they got the old altar operational and began to rebuild the temple. Our story is about what they chose to do on the day the foundation of the new temple was in place. There was a party that didn’t feel like a party for everyone and that’s just honest!
Songs for this week: Spotify
Chapter 19: Ezra 3:10-13
- Share one picture on your phone and tell the story behind it.
- The people of God were already offering sacrifices, why did the Temple matter so much to them?
- Their song of choice was “God is good, his love endures forever.” Explain that. What might your life’s theme song be? Explain your choice.
- The story records that on that day some shouted for joy and others wept loudly. God welcomes both. How comfortable are you with your emotions? How comfortable are you when other people express their emotions?
- What do you think the greatest challenge is for St. Paul’s Leaskale right now?
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Recent Sermons
Luke 15:11-32 - Jesus tells a story about a father with two lost sons. The rule-breaking younger son was lost in self-indulgence, and the rule-keeping older son was lost in self-righteousness. The father loved both generously and even recklessly. Both needed to be found. Were they?
John 4:4-26 - Jesus announced that the Kingdom of God had arrived and everyone wondered what that would look like. Would it mean swords and fighting or a political takeover? John records a couple of one-on-one conversations that Jesus had. What an interesting Kingdom! It turns out that each person matters in the Kingdom of God, each woman and each man matter eternally.
John 1:1-14A - The story of the Bible is the Story of Jesus, God’s plan all along was to come as one of us to rescue us from sin and death and to reset us to live radically different lives. Today’s passage offers a different (still true!) beginning to the story of Jesus' life on earth.
Esther 4:10-17 -The story of Esther is surprising—not once is God mentioned. Yet God’s silence is not the same as his absence. He works for good, even through ordinary events and with flawed people.
Daniel 6:1-24-The book of Daniel is all about the Sovereignty of God. The God of Israel proves himself sovereign even in faraway Babylon: boys receive foreign favour and are released from having to eat rich and potentially unkosher food. Young men are saved from a fiery furnace, and old man Daniel doesn’t get eaten by a den of hungry lions. God proves he’s not limited by international borders, arrogant kings or wild beasts. All of this points forward to Jesus, who demonstrated his sovereignty (he is God, after all!) in different ways.
Ezekiel 36:22-28- The people of God deserved to be in exile in Babylon. They had betrayed their relationship with God by worshipping idols and committing horrible acts of violence. But instead of giving up on his people, God goes with them into exile. He shows up with a message of hope: he will bring them back, clean them up, and make them new. It was good news for the Israelites, and it’s good news for us today.
