God Will Get This One

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Don Filcek; Esther 6 God Will Get This One

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We're going to jump back into the book of Esther here, and I like to give an introduction to the text before we come to worship every
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Sunday. And we're going to be in Esther chapter 6. If you want to, you can go ahead and get a head start. I'm not going to read it right away.
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I'm going to set the stage for you. But you can start turning there in your Bibles, Esther chapter 6. That's page 356 in the
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Bible that's in the seat back in front of you, page 356. And if you don't own a Bible, I say this every week, but you can take that one with you.
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I think I just looked it up this week, and in the last year, we've given away about 65
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Bibles. So that's pretty amazing. I don't know if people are selling those on eBay or if they're taking those home to read them, but please don't sell them.
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Take them home and read them. But as we get into this text this morning, the reality is we all face trials in life.
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How many of you would raise your hand and say, I've faced a trial sometime in my life that's been challenging or difficult?
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I think probably most all of us have faced some kind of a trial. And in a broad sense, if we think about that, we can think about that individually, but we can think about that as the church of Christ, the people who are followers of Him.
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And down through the ages, the church itself, in a bigger picture, has faced various trials, various persecutions, various difficulties.
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And here in chapter 6 of Esther, we're going to see God in His sovereignty, working through some very amazing and even ironic circumstances in order to preserve
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His people through a difficulty, through a significant trial, through ultimately a edict of genocide that has been cast upon the
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Jewish people in Esther, in the book of Esther. And it's as if God is saying, don't worry, folks.
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I've got this one covered. Don't worry about it. I'm going to prove how in control
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I am of the situation, and don't worry. But if you're anything like me, and I'm guessing that somebody in the room is a little bit like me, maybe, but sometimes we tend to look at God as plan, or we treat
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God like He is our plan B. Like, we'll go it alone. We'll try it. We'll carry it on our shoulders.
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We got this one. But finally, sometimes we come up, we hit the wall, we fall over the edge, whatever, and then it's like,
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OK, now it's time to call in the big gun for support, right? Now it's time to talk to God about it.
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Now it's time to give it over to Him. Anybody kind of relate to that? Am I alone in that, or do some of you struggle with that same notion of,
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I'll just keep doing what I do, and then if I need Him, if I need
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Him, then I will put it over on His shoulders. But here in Esther, we see the unfolding of God's plan to preserve
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His people, God at work, and the way that people are working to do things to preserve the people of God as well.
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And it's these two coming together. And so it would be wise for us to start with as the place of starting in our lives with trust and dependence on God.
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A hardship comes our way, a trial, some difficulty that we're facing. Start with God. Start there and then work.
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And that's going to be the point of the message this morning, to work in the process with trust and dependence upon God and to leave the results up to Him.
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He is sovereign. He is gracious. And He is good. And our desire this morning is to worship this
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God who never leaves us to walk alone. And so we're going to sing that song again this morning, kind of a song that I asked
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Dave and the band to learn, because that really sets the stage for the book of Esther, that when we look back in our lives, we can see.
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Sometimes, has anybody ever felt like God's left you alone? And then, you know that old, I think it's probably maybe the timing that I first saw it or whatever, but it can tend to be a little bit cheesy.
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But the footprints, anybody ever heard the footprints or seen the footprints picture? And when you look back, you're like, there's only one set of footprints in the sand.
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Why, God, did you leave me alone? No, those are the times that I carried you. Have you ever looked back at your life in that way and seen that, to be real?
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Like, in the moment, you feel alone. But then, in retrospect, hindsight is 20 -20, and you look back and you see
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God's hand working. And that's the book of Esther. That's what this book really is about.
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So let's go ahead and read this, Esther chapter 6. Follow along. Again, that's page 356, if you didn't get there earlier.
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But let's dive in. On that night, the king could not sleep, and he gave orders to bring the book of memorable deeds, the chronicles, and they were read before the king.
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And it was found written how Mordecai had told about Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king's eunuchs who had guarded the threshold, who had sought to lay hands on King Ahasuerus.
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And the king said, what honor or distinction has been bestowed on Mordecai for this? The king's young men who attended him said, nothing has been done for him.
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And the king said, who's in the court? Now Haman had just entered the outer court of the king's palace to speak to the king about having
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Mordecai hanged on the gallows that he had prepared for him. And the king's young men told him,
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Haman is there standing in the court, and the king said, let him come in. So Haman came in, and the king said to him, what shall be done to the man whom the king delights to honor?
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And Haman said to himself, whom would the king delight to honor more than me? And Haman said to the king, for the man whom the king delights to honor, let royal robes be brought, which the king has worn and the horse that the king has ridden, on whose head a royal crown is set.
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And let the robes and the horse be handed over to one of the king's most noble officials. Let them dress the man whom the king delights to honor, and let them lead on the horse through the square of the city, proclaiming before him, thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor.
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Then the king said to Haman, hurry, take the robes and the horse, as you have said, and do so to Mordecai the
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Jew, who sits at the king's gate. Leave out nothing that you have mentioned.
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I'm glad that you guys get that. So Haman took the robes and the horse, and he dressed
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Mordecai, and led him through the square of the city, proclaiming before him, thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor.
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Then Mordecai returned to the king's gate, but Haman hurried to his house, mourning and with his head covered.
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And Haman told his wife Zeresh, and all his friends, everything that had happened to him. Then his wise men and his wife
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Zeresh said to him, if Mordecai, before whom you have begun to fall, is of the
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Jewish people, you will not overcome him, but will surely fall before him.
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Let's pray. Father, as we gather together in your name this morning, and we hear from your word, an ancient text that still can bring about a change and a transformation in our lives, our hope for change comes ultimately from your
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Spirit's power through the text to change us. And so,
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Father, I ask, I recognize that we are coming from different weeks and all different kinds of things going on in our lives, and our minds can be confused and kind of muddied with different thoughts, and we can be easily distracted this morning.
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So, Father, I pray that you would focus our attention, that you would grab ahold of our hearts by your
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Spirit. And as we contemplate and consider your sovereign hand and the way that you work,
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God, that you would be honored and glorified in the transformation and the changes in our hearts and in our lives.
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And Father, as we come to worship you through song now, I praise you for the work and the time and the effort that the band have put in, but I know it's their desire to step aside and allow you to receive the honor, the glory, the praise this morning.
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So I pray that you would help us to focus our hearts, focus our minds, focus our emotions towards you and you alone this morning.
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I ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Shift gears from singing some songs here and worshiping
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God to worshiping Him through hearing from His word. I think a question that I often ask myself before I go to the text of Scripture, before I hear it, and that is, am
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I ready to hear from God? Am I ready to listen to Him and actually hear what
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He has to say? And another way to think of that is, am I ready for Him to correct me?
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Because I think sometimes we have our preconceived notions and we look to Scripture for what we want to see or we think we know
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God as, you know, and so we have to try to fit Him to the text.
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But let's work this morning to allow the Holy Spirit to open our hearts and minds to see God as He truly is and not as we thought
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He was when we walked through the door. Does that make sense? That we let God's word transform us and change us. And I'm gonna let you know that there's some cultural things that the world would tell us that this book doesn't agree with.
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Would you agree? I mean, are you getting me? So we come to the text and that's one of the primary reasons we make this the main focus here at Recast Church.
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But right away then, verse one begins with the phrase, on that night.
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And on what night? You know, I mean, some of you have been here for the entire series of the book of Esther and you're kind of caught up and you know what's going on, but I want to take just a moment to define what is that night as we get down to the text here.
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So central to the book of Esther is the understanding that the Old Testament people of God, the Jews, have been threatened with extinction.
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That's the centerpiece of the book is that there's this threat, a real serious, credible, significant threat against the existence of the
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Jewish people as a whole. We're talking about genocide here. Haman, who has been raised up to the office of prime minister over the entire empire of Persia, has issued an edict for genocide against the
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Jews. Are you getting me on that? Extinction, they are being threatened with, the edict actually read, to kill, to destroy, or to annihilate, used all three words just in case you didn't get it the first time.
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So they are completely to be obliterated on the 12th, yeah, the 13th day of the 12th month, the text told us.
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But God raised up Esther, a Jewish lady who is now in the position of queen when we come to our text.
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And last week we saw that she risked her very life. She said, if I perish, I perish, but she came into the king's presence uninvited, which was part of the strategy, part of the necessity.
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He had not been inviting her in for over 30 days when we got to the text last week.
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And so she went to him and risked her life. And then we saw last week that she even invited him to a banquet to pique his interest about the request that she's going to make for her people.
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But when we come to our text this morning, she still has not told the king that she is a
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Jew. She has still not made clear to him what the request is. And as a matter of fact, she invited at that banquet that we read about last week, she invited the king and Haman to come back tomorrow for another banquet.
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And all that served to help him to see how serious it is without even knowing what the request is.
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And I mentioned last week, I mean, if somebody came to you, one of your kids or a family member or somebody, a neighbor, somebody said,
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I have something I wanna ask, but I don't wanna ask it today. I need to ask it tomorrow. I just don't have the nerve to quite ask right now.
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And I just, I want you to, how many of you, that would, you'd be like, what is going on? Would you maybe lose a little bit of sleep that night wondering what in the world is going on?
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What is it that they're so nervous about that they're not gonna ask me right now? They're literally setting this up and planning this out.
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And that's what we see when we come to the text this morning. Haman left that first banquet last week with the one with Esther and the king, and he was pretty happy with himself that he had been invited.
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But then he ran into Mordecai. Now it's a little bit tricky because it's hard to tell and scholars back and forth, who's the main character of this book?
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Well, the book is named after Esther, right? But you've got Mordecai and you've got Esther and the two of them figure pretty prominently in this,
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Mordecai being the adopted father of Esther. Okay, and so he ends up running into Haman that night as Haman is leaving the banquet and it boils
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Haman's blood. He is enraged with fury because Mordecai refuses to bow or to worship him or to pay homage to him.
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And so he had plotted against him. And so that night, when we talk about that night in the text, on that night, the king could not sleep, that night,
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Haman is plotting the murder of Mordecai. That night,
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Haman's wife and friends advised him to build a gallows. Now, when we think of gallows, we're thinking something to hang somebody on.
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This is actually a spike that was 75 feet tall that had a hinge at the bottom and it was for the purpose, yes, gruesome, for the purpose of impaling a person.
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And that's what the intention is here. So he is going to go to the king the next morning. All of his friends, his wife advised him, say, go to the king the next morning and tonight, have this thing built.
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And then in the morning, go and ask that the king would kill Mordecai on the stake and be done with him. And so on that night,
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Haman is planning that murder. On that night, the king is considering another banquet and wondering what
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Esther's request might be. And on that night, God is granting insomnia to the king.
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And my podcast wasn't around yet, so the king had to depend on something else to put him to sleep that night.
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So he orders one of his servants to read the royal records. Now, the king, kings in that ancient time had a scribe, had multiple scribes recording from all different kinds of angles their life, the edicts, all that stuff.
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I bet it made for really riveting reading. Like, you'd just be like, wow, this is good stuff. Probably not.
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So he has them, a scribe, pull out the royal records and begin to read.
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And there are some apparent coincidences in the text.
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And I'm gonna use the word coincidences loosely. So bear with me as I use that word this morning.
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The first coincidence that we see is that the king can't sleep, right? He just happens to have a rough night's sleep.
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The second is in the passage that, the passage to which the scribes turn.
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So the scribes are gonna open up the book of records and it's gonna be significant where they turn because the scribes are gonna read to the king from a section about Mordecai.
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Are you getting that? I mean, coincidence? Seems kind of crazy in the timing that he opens up to a text about Mordecai the
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Jew. And not just about Mordecai the Jew, but we saw back in Esther chapter two that Mordecai had actually foiled a plot to assassinate the king.
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Now I use the word King Xerxes, King Asurus, the same king historically. The Jews called him
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Asurus, but everybody else knew him as Xerxes. And there was a plot against him and somehow
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Mordecai found out about this plot, disclosed it and the king's life was spared. And that is the record that is opened that night to read to the king to try to put him to sleep.
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But I don't think it effectively put him to sleep because it got his wheels spinning. And we're gonna see him still awake come morning.
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Okay, he doesn't get to sleep on this. And how many of you know that if somebody saves your life and you're a king in ancient times, you want to reward that kind of behavior, right?
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You don't want that to go unrewarded. You want to make sure that that's highly rewarded, publicly rewarded because you want people to like you.
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Because assassination was probably the number one cause of death for a king. That's actually how
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Xerxes is going to die. Few years down the road, about 15 years from the events of the book of Esther, King Xerxes is assassinated by Eunuch and the military leader.
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So you're kind of like, okay, yeah, this is for real. This is a genuine problem. But the king is troubled because he finds out that there was no reward given to Mordecai.
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And that's shameful to the king. And so he's like, what are we gonna do about this? Now, if you go back through Esther, if you were to just study it and look at one character at a time, one thing that you would notice about King Xerxes is that he doesn't make his own decisions.
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Do you see that? He's always constantly asking somebody else's opinion. What do you think I should do?
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And then usually running with that. We don't really see a unique idea that he comes up with in the text.
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It's always, so he says, who's out there in the court? He's, I get the impression, I think he's in his jammies.
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Okay, and he's like, who's out in the outer court that could come in and give me some advice?
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Okay, and who happens to be walking in at that time?
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Haman, with a plan, right? Haman happens to be there.
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Now, it's implied that morning has dawned and the reading has brought the king through the night and Haman has showed up bright and early, ready to suggest to the king that he execute
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Mordecai. Now, look at verse four with me for a second here. And the king said, who is in the outer court?
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Now, Haman had just entered and we're gonna see Haman's heart here. We're gonna get a glimpse at what's going on in his mind.
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Now, Haman had just entered the outer court of the king's palace to speak to the king about having Mordecai hanged on the gallows that he had prepared for him.
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What is Haman there for? To kill somebody. He's planned murder and he's gonna get this done.
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And it even was suggested to him by his wife and friends, well, you'll have a joyful day if Mordecai's killed.
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You can go to the banquet tomorrow with Esther and the king and it'll be great because you'll have your enemy out of the way.
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And so that's what's going on here. And that really is the third coincidence in the text.
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Haman shows up just when the king is ready to reward Mordecai.
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Pretty ironic timing, wouldn't you say? So Haman is invited into the king's presence. King's there in his jammies, propped up with some pillows in bed or something.
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Guy's standing around reading stuff to him. And the king asks exactly what's on his mind. He doesn't disclose what he's thinking about.
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He just asks what he's thinking. And so Haman has no clue why this question to him early in the morning.
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He just knows he's there to get Mordecai dead. So the king asks what should be done to the man whom the king delights to honor?
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And of course, another ironic twist. Haman in his pride and arrogance cannot imagine that the king could be speaking about anybody but him.
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Right? He's just like, he's ready to accept the reward right then and there, okay? It's amazing that Haman restrained himself and didn't just say, well, thank you for honoring me,
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O king. What I would like is... He at least has some level of self -restraint, but in reality, his pride is nearly boundless and very blinding.
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Do you see how his pride has blinded him to what is really going on in life around him?
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Now we know that Haman was extremely wealthy. So he doesn't suggest wealth because he really believes thoroughly that he's gonna be the beneficiary of whatever this reward is.
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He's the one who's going to be honored. And actually we saw that for the bribe price to pass the edict of genocide to all the
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Jews, he paid the king 2 3rds of the gross domestic product of the entire nation, the entire empire of Persia.
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Haman, out of his bank account, wrote a check to the king for 300 tons of silver.
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The guy doesn't need money. He doesn't want money. He's coming out of his ears. He doesn't know what to do with all of it.
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He's writing checks to have people slaughtered. He's just got money to burn. You get that?
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So he doesn't ask for money. Wealth isn't the issue. But what he suggests, and hear me carefully on this, what he is going to ask for, for somebody else, of course.
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I mean, if he were to ask for it for himself, if he were to stand in the presence of the king and ask the king for these things for himself, he would probably be dead by nightfall.
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Because these things are association with the king. These are the things that are gonna, that basically in their culture would make you a peer with the king.
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To wear the king's robe. To ride on the king's horse with the king's royal crest.
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These are things that are associating yourself with royalty, with the king.
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If he were to ask the king, hey, hey dude, can I borrow your robe? The king would be like, off with his head.
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Okay, done. Are you getting what I'm saying? So these are significant things that maybe don't register so much.
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Like what's the big deal about wearing another dude's clothes than riding on his horse? I mean, come on. Is that a big deal? But in that culture and in that time, the robe, by the way, is a very, it's like kind of a caste system kind of thing.
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What you wore, you weren't allowed to wear certain things. Certain colors, even. So to wear the color of royalty and the robe of royalty was a very significant request.
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But of course, Haman isn't asking that for himself. At least the king doesn't think he is. The king believes he's just making a suggestion.
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And that is acceptable to the king. So picture Haman standing there. I heard you guys kind of chuckle while I was reading it, so you must have been picturing it to some degree.
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He's there and he's ready to receive this honor when the bomb drops in verse 10. And I love the way that it's stated.
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Basically, it says, hurry, rush, get a move on,
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Haman, commands the king. Gather the robes and the horse, and you go and do these things for Mordecai the
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Jew. You be the one to lead him through the city. You be the one to dress him up in royalty. And you be the one to lead him throughout the city, shouting, this guy is awesome, okay?
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Pretty funny. Imagine being Haman in that. And he says, by the way, carry it out to the fullest.
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Make sure you don't leave out a single detail. Haman, I love this plan that you've come up with. This is great.
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Make sure you do it to the fullest, man. Do it up for Mordecai. What a reversal.
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Haman came to the king to have Mordecai put to death, and instead he's gonna spend the day leading
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Mordecai around the city in robes, proclaiming at the top of his voice, thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor.
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Thus shall it be done for the man who the king thinks is cool. The king loves this guy.
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This is a really great guy. Now, I've had some rough days, but this really has to rank up there with some of the most dramatic turn of events in the entirety of history, and certainly in the text of Scripture.
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But I've wondered, can you imagine what's running through Mordecai's mind, the guy on the horse, who's being led around in royalty?
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Like, there's nothing implied in the text that he rubbed Haman's face in it, right? And as a matter of fact, what we're gonna see is,
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I think, at the end of the text, we're gonna see Mordecai just go back to his job. He's gonna get down from the horse, take off the royal robes, that's kinda cool, that's fun, and head back to his job, where Haman is gonna go in mourning and cover his head and go basically slinking through the shadows, trying to get home as quickly as he can for his humiliation.
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Once again, Haman's friends are gonna weigh in, and his wife is gonna weigh in on the situation.
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And they now have a different message for Haman than they did the night before. The word if, by the way, in the text can be translated since.
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So if you look down at the text, and if you think about the word since there, instead, there's a little bit of a nuanced meaning.
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But we already know that Mordecai is a Jew, right? So where it reads, if Mordecai is a
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Jew, then you're going to be in trouble, and you're gonna be busted, you can also translate that since Mordecai is a
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Jew. Did we already know that Mordecai was a Jew? Okay, anybody reading the text knew that already?
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So it's better translated since Mordecai is a Jew. You will not overcome him, but you will fall.
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Now some have interpreted Zerash and his friends' words as prophetic. Have any of you heard that before? That like they had some kind of a special insight or something like that?
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I've heard people suggest that before. But I think it's more likely that she just is following the lines of common sense and logic.
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I think she just made the connection. And those of you who are married know that oftentimes your wife catches the logic of social interaction before you do, right?
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Has anybody here kind of experienced that in your family? That's, Zerash is getting it.
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She's already making the connections before he has even gotten what's going on here.
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So here's the logic. Haman has set himself against the Jewish people. Mordecai is a
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Jew. Haman has equally set himself against Mordecai therefore. And Mordecai has proven himself loyal to the king and the king has rewarded his loyalty.
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Are you tracking with me so far? So to be an enemy of Mordecai is to prove yourself to be an enemy of someone who has the king's favor, who is foremost in the king's mind as somebody worthy of reward, worthy of honor.
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And you want him dead. Is that a bad place to be? That's a dangerous place to be.
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Zerash is smart enough to see the trouble coming, which really ultimately is not that difficult of a connection to make, right?
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Something's not gonna go well for Haman. So while they're talking through these things, another kind of element of foreshadowing in the way the story is told, but it's the way it went down, it's just amazing.
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While they are talking through these things, two of the king's eunuchs show up at the door, there's a knock, and they whisk
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Haman away to the second banquet with Esther. Haman has been swept up in some crazy events that are just, that everything starts to move in this text, and it's like he's rapidly approaching something, right?
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It's moving quick, and he is swept away to the second banquet. One wonders if he was even able to get ready for the banquet before, was he able to shower and shave before this happened?
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First thing in the morning, he had gone out and went to see Mordecai dead, ends up spending the entire day walking around the city with him, comes back, has a little conversation with his wife and friends, and boom, he's swept away to the banquet that we're gonna see next week.
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Haman has ultimately found himself in direct opposition to the plans of God, and Haman's plans are quickly failing in light of who he is opposing.
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Now, some crazy and ironic twists are found in the coincidences of this text, and I wanna point out
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God's hand because the word coincidence doesn't really cover what's going on here, right? Is that a little bit of a cheap word in light of what's going on here in Scripture?
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Would you agree with me on that? So let's consider the first coincidence, that the king happened to have a sleepless night.
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And I wanna just ask you this general question. Who grants us sleep? Have any of you been through a time where you couldn't get to sleep?
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Has anybody struggled with that before? That can be a horrendous thing. That can be extremely difficult. And the king is granted a restless night.
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Now, some could easily argue that Esther's plot and plan to schedule another feast for the next day is keeping the king awake, and I think that that likely has a part to play.
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I think he is kind of wrestling with this, going, what does my wife want? What is it that she's so desperate that she prepared this feast?
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She was willing to come into my presence and really risk her own life by breaking court protocol. What is the scoop here?
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What's going on? And I think there was some of that, that's the sleeplessness. But the timing on this night shows that God is not just in charge of the big things, but even the small things, like a restful night's sleep.
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He's orchestrating this. He's working a plan here. The second coincidence that's found in the text is that the scribes turn to a passage about Mordecai.
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Now, before we draw too many conclusions, I would not recommend what I remember people doing sometimes in Bible college, or sometimes it was a joke, sometimes it wasn't, of people would take their
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Bible like this and then let it fall open and then read it and be like, that's what
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God wants me to do today. Have any of you ever heard of that? This is not a Christian horoscope, okay?
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Just want to clarify that. That's not how you should use this. This has text, it's flow, it's content, it's written.
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There's letters in here, there's history, there's all kinds of different types of writing that you need to understand, you need to study, you need to dig in.
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If you just open it up and just read a verse, be careful, because there's some kind of dicey verses in here to apply to your day, okay?
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Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you die. I hope that's not, you know, you open it up to that, it's like, oh no!
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I mean, if you open your fortune cookie and it says that, wouldn't that be kind of scary too, okay? Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you're gonna die.
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I'm not sure you can trust that that way. Okay, so that's not the point, but God is working his plan in Esther, and he even guides the scribes to the text that will remind the king to reward
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Mordecai. He's working in this. And the last coincidence is Haman's arrival. And I mean, you just gotta ask this question.
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Who's in charge of Haman's schedule? Like, who was in charge of that? Well, I mean, did he decide to go to the king's court early in the morning?
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Yeah, he did, right? Are you guys okay with that? He made a decision. He said, I'm gonna go into the king and make this, you know, let's get rid of Mordecai.
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But did God have a plan for the timing of his arrival? Yeah, yeah, yes he did.
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And these are meant to be read as, are these meant to be read as just crazy coincidences?
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Is that what's going on here? Just, wow, how did, you know, how unlikely is this all to just come together?
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Like, this is just amazing. Well, some will say that truth is stranger than fiction. And I agree, because truth is being authored.
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Truth is being written by a great and powerful God. It's being written.
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There's an author to it. But to what end are all these movements of God? So if God is concerned about these kinds of things, like why give the king a sleepless night?
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Why lead the scribes to the right text? Why time Haman's arrival for maximum humiliation?
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Why? All that we are seeing is God working on behalf of his covenant people to preserve them and to bring them through one of their darkest moments.
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Again, as I've highlighted in the past, Esther exists in the pages of Scripture because the very promises of God are at stake here.
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God is proving himself on the side of his covenant people to preserve them and to protect them and to keep his promises.
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God promised his Messiah would come through the line of the Jews. If this edict is carried out as written on paper, the annihilation of the
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Jews, destroyed, killed, annihilated, Jesus does not come as a
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Jew. God is proven to be a liar. He didn't even get done what he said he would, what he promised to Abraham, what he promised to David.
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And so that is the central importance of the book of Esther, showing God to be faithful to keep his promises, showing
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God to be faithful as a covenant God. But there's a contemporary application for this text that is something that we need to consider where we live here today.
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God is working on behalf of his people to preserve them and sustain his work in the world, what he's doing.
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And here in 2012, we live under a new covenant. It's no longer just the
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Jews who are the covenant people of God, but it is the kingdom that has been expanded to include people from every tribe, tongue, and people and nation.
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When we gather together on Sunday morning, we are a small sliver, a small piece of the pie of what
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God is doing globally. We are gathered together as a portion, but we are tied in and tapped into something that is so much greater than us, so much bigger.
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I spent some time this morning just praying for other churches in our community that some are struggling, some are going through some hard times, some are doing great, but just praying and saying,
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God bless them. Would you let the word go forward with power from them as well?
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And we are a part of this great thing that God is doing, God is doing it.
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And just as God was working to preserve his people in Esther, he is working to preserve his people now. Jesus told his disciples that he would build his church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
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And every once in a while, I hear an evangelical fundamentalist author, preacher, radio personality, you name it, suggesting that we are a generation away from the church being destroyed or being gone.
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Have any of you heard that before? Heard that kind of preaching? Heard that kind of talking? We're just one generation away. If we just don't do things right, if we don't have the right programs for our youth, if we don't evangelize in a certain way, if we don't sing the right songs in the right style, if we don't, just fill in the blank.
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If we don't, then we will die. So who is right?
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All the doomsayers or Jesus Christ? Who's right?
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Thank you for answering that. Jesus is right, absolutely. He said the church will continue on and he is the one building his church.
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Who's building the church? Jesus is building the church. It's his.
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My suggestion is that we look at what's going on in Esther to make sense of this. How does this work? Like, shouldn't we be working hard?
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You might say, Don, you're kind of demotivating me right now. Is this a demotivational talk?
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Jesus will do it and you don't need to worry. Is that what this is about? Well, earlier we saw
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Mordecai working to convince Esther to take action. He worked to convince her to approach the king and try to save her people.
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Last week, we saw her take action and even lay her life on the line for people saying, if I perish, I perish.
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She is working the whole banquet gig trying to get the king's full attention. Are Mordecai and Esther being faithful to try to preserve their people?
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Absolutely. They're doing what they can. They are active. But in the end, where is their faith? Where is their trust?
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Esther requested the Jews in Susa to fast for her. And who is really getting the job done in the text?
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Who's the one who is really in charge? God is doing things that Esther and Mordecai could never accomplish to save his people.
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The timing, they weren't gonna be able to give the king insomnia. They weren't gonna be able to get the scribes to turn to the right text or to even will the king's heart to reward
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Mordecai that morning. But God is working. So do
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I believe that we should do all we can to reach out to our community, our friends, our relatives, our neighbors with the good news of Jesus Christ?
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Absolutely. Should we be diligent about it? Yes, we should be diligent about it.
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But am I afraid that our inactivity is going to result in the destruction of the church 30 years from now?
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I'm not. I'm not. Because my trust for the future work of God rests squarely on His shoulders.
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Now we might cease to be able to be a part of what God is doing based on the decisions that we make, right?
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We might remove ourselves from the table and say we cease to have the privilege and the joy and the honor of working with God in this endeavor.
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But His work's gonna go forward. Are you hearing what I'm saying? I rest well as a pastor knowing that this work, knowing that recast is not ultimately mine.
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And on a personal note, this has been a journey for me. It's not been an easy journey. I used to own too much.
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Can anybody relate to that? Maybe we should have just an own too much anonymous and hi, I'm Don and I used to own too much.
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I don't mean stuff. That would be a different group. I used to believe that it was all up to me.
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And if I didn't do it, it probably wasn't gonna get done. I was fresh out of college. I was gonna save the world.
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But I've come to realize and I've come to a place where there's an amazing and restful joy where I've realized that God is there doing
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His thing. And He has allowed me to be a part of that. He's given me a role.
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He's given me gifts and skills and abilities to use in His kingdom for His honor and for His glory.
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And He's doing it. It's Him. It's not me. There's a relief in that.
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Can you understand what I'm saying? A restful joy in the work of God doing what He has asked us to do and doing it diligently.
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But recognizing the results are His. If we're faithful to do what He's called us to do based on our gifts, talents, abilities, resources, all the things that He's given us, we're faithful to step out.
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It just leaves the results up to Him. Are you getting that? Is that making sense? You see, here's the thing though.
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There are really two opposite errors we can fall into after hearing this text. We can sit back and relax and say,
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God is going to do what He's going to do with or without me. Why should
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I do anything? We could just head off to Margaritaville, okay? And just kick back and relax and just say,
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He's gonna do what He's gonna do. And I have to say that particularly here in West Michigan with the significant level of Calvinism that is out in churches in West Michigan.
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Are any of you familiar with what I'm talking about? When I say Calvinism, just God's gonna do what God's gonna do. And by the way, just a little side note,
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I am a Calvinist. I believe that God is completely sovereign. I believe He's in control and that's where I stand. But that can be abused, right?
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To say, to just to sit back and say, you know what? God's got it under control and we're just gonna sit back and watch.
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To take this attitude is to disobey the clear teaching of Jesus that He wants us to go and make disciples.
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He commands us to go and make disciples. And so how can you justify sitting back and just taking it all in rather than going and making disciples which is what
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He's told us to do. And so therefore I'm convinced that some of us need to repent of a spiritual laziness that in some cases comes out of a faulty theology.
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That comes out of a theology that says, I don't have to do anything. And there's laziness, spiritual laziness in our hearts.
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You might be there and that might be something you need to repent of this morning and say, God, I'm sorry, I haven't taken this seriously.
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But the opposite side of this is to hoist the church, to hoist our community on our shoulders and attempt to carry a load that we were never meant to and cannot carry.
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Some of you can relate to that side of the equation all too well. Where you bear burdens that you were not made to, meant to or capable of bearing and you will crumble under it.
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If I try to bear the weight of recast church and what God is doing here on my shoulders, it will crush me.
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And whatever God has put in your life, if you carry that alone, it will crush you. And some of us have been to that breaking point, right?
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Have you been there? If you have, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Some of you are nearing it now.
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Some of you are owning too much and holding on and saying, if I don't get it done, it's not gonna get done and so it's all on my shoulders and I just have this burden to bear.
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Some of you cannot say no to things and work as though God is there as your backup.
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Plan B. Let me say definitively that God does not need a single one of us to get it done and I don't care what it is.
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It doesn't even matter what it is. And you know, you might say, and some even take this over to the extent of the family and say, well,
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I can be the only father for my kids, right? Is that right? I mean, have you ever heard that? Or I can be, you can be the only mother for your children.
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And you know what, I grew up without a father. And you know what? I think it's worked out okay.
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Doesn't even need me in that sense. Are you getting what I'm saying? I mean, even in most extreme cases that you think about and it's like,
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I mean, he doesn't need us to do what he's going to do. So the balance is.
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Here's the balance in obedient ministry to God.
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Obedient ministry to God using the gifts, talents, abilities, resources, circumstances in our lives to diligently serve him with prayerful dependence upon him, resting fully in him for the results.
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That make sense? This is his church. That's his community. If you love it, trust me, he loves it more.
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If you've sweat for it, he has sweat for it more. And if your heart bleeds for it, he literally bled for it.
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He loves it more than us. Why not put it in his hands and trust him with it?
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Like Mordecai and Esther, encourage all of us. Obey God and trust
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God. And in doing so, you'll place yourself in the situation to see
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God say, step aside for a second. Your part in this is done. Step aside and watch because I've got this one covered.
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Let's pray. Father, I recognize that I'm speaking to a group of people here who some
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I know, some I don't. Some I know their tendencies and some I don't. And I recognize that some of us in this room are carrying heavy burdens.
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Some of us are just weighed down almost to the breaking and buckling point. We're about to snap.
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And Father, then there are others here who are kind of sitting in the wings, just kind of taking it all in. And we have been for years and we're just not quite sure what you've called us to do yet.
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And we're just wrestling through that. And ministry is clear and there's opportunities around us.
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And so Father, I pray that you would help us in this place and in this body of believers to come to balance.
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Father, that we would recognize your hand in ministry. Ultimately, even in prayer, that it's ultimate trust in you for what you're doing.
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But Father, to actually to do. To follow your command to go and make disciples and to be diligent.
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To work in those relationships in the sphere of influence that you've given us. To shine your light, to be salt and light in our community.
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To leave the results up to you and to rest in you knowing that it is your work that you are doing through us.