Ezra – Our Background Environment

Ezra 6:6-16 (NLT); Ezra 9:1-9 (NLT) 

1. Let Jesus into the foreground first because genuine change always begins with the inside first

John 14:6 (NLT) 

    Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.

Psalm 51:6 (Msg) 

    What you're after is truth from the inside out.  Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.

Romans 12:2 (Msg) 

    Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Ezra 7:8-10 (NLT) 

    Ezra arrived in Jerusalem in August of that year. [9] He had left Babylon on April 8 and came to Jerusalem on August 4, for the gracious hand of his God was on him. [10] This was because Ezra had determined to study and obey the law of the Lord and to teach those laws and regulations to the people of Israel.

2. The first background essential to guard is our consistent exposure to the Word of God through devotions

Ezra 10:11 (NLT) 

    Confess your sin to the Lord, the God of your ancestors, and do what he demands. Separate yourselves from the people of the land and from these pagan women."

3. The second background essential is a change of lifestyle, habits and the things we expose ourselves to influence us

Exodus 32:7-8 (NLT) 

    Then the Lord told Moses, "Quick! Go down the mountain! The people you brought from Egypt have defiled themselves. [8] They have already turned from the way I commanded them to live. They have made an idol shaped like a calf, and they have worshiped and sacrificed to it. They are saying, 'These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of Egypt.' "

Be constantly aware of the background environment we expose ourselves to and adjust accordingly