SERMON BRIEF
Date Written: November 11, 2012
Date Preached: November 11, 2012
Church: Oak Park BC (AM)
FOUNDATIONAL ELEMENTS
Series: A Series On Thankfulness (Book of Esther)
Title: Thankfulness in General
Text: Esther 2:17 [NLT] READ NOW!!
17The king loved Esther more than all the other women. She won more favor and approval from him than did any of the other young women. He placed the royal crown on her head and made her queen in place of Vashti.
ETS: Even though Esther’s life may seem difficult and with problems, Esther had much for which she was thankful.
ESS: Even though our own lives may seem difficult or fraught with problems, we have MUCH for which we should be thankful!
Introduction:
We are entering into the Harvest season of the year and it is also the time when we focus on being thankful!
Far too many people today focus on what is wrong and what they believe to be hardships in their lives, and they miss out on the basic thankful opportunities they have each and every day!
This morning we read about a young lady who has known nothing but exile and captivity her entire life. She has probably cannot remember her homeland from which she was taken…
She has lost her parents, has been taken in by her uncle, and now has been taken away from him by the king to become part of his harem… a concubine. NOT by her own choice, but because the King could do these things!
There are so many things that Esther had to fret over and be anxious about, but we do NOT see Esther fall prey to this attitude of doubt and despair, but what we do see is a young woman who was thankful for what God was providing for her…
Like Esther there are many of us here this morning who have had a life that was far less than what we had dreamed about or maybe life has just ganged up on you and beat you up and left you bloodied and wounded…
The point of this story from Esther is that even when the picture painted for our lives seems grim and dark… We can and should be thankful!
In looking at the life of Esther I can see three general areas where we can find thankfulness, even when all else points toward pain and hardship, we can find thankfulness!
The first area is a general thankfulness for our general physical blessings…[Esther 2:5-8 HCSB]
5In the fortress of Susa, there was a Jewish man named Mordecai son of Jair, son of Shimei, son of Kish, a Benjaminite. 6He had been taken into exile from Jerusalem with the other captives when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took King Jeconiah of Judah into exile. 7Mordecai was the legal guardian of his cousin Hadassah (that is, Esther), because she didn’t have a father or mother. The young woman had a beautiful figure and was extremely good-looking. When her father and mother died, Mordecai had adopted her as his own daughter. 8When the king’s command and edict became public knowledge, many young women gathered at the fortress of Susa under Hegai’s care. Esther was also taken to the palace and placed under the care of Hegai, who was in charge of the women.
When we look at Esther, we find that even though she was a captive in a foreign land… even though she had lost her parents and now had been taken away from her uncle’s family and was taken into the King’s harem… Esther still have many things to be thankful for…
Esther was blessed by God in her captivity… she had air to breathe, she had water to drink and food to eat. Esther was blessed with shelter and good health…
I know you may discount all these things… but I want us to take stock of these things and understand how important these things are to our lives today!
It is said that the human body can do without oxygen/ air for a maximum of 3-5 minutes… God has seen fit to place you on a planet that is just far enough away from the sun and just close enough TO the sun that our atmosphere creates the conditions for the production of Oxygen… God provides you with the very air you breathe!
The water you drink… do you know that you are blessed to be able to walk to a sink and turn on the water and drink that water! MOST countries throughout our world do not have drinkable water available…
Water is a commodity and is fought over and hard to obtain! OR it is something you have to search and work for… but here in America you live in a country where the water is not just plentiful but it is drinkable and safe! For this we must be extremely thankful!
We have food to eat, food that is easily available. We may not have ALL the food we want, and there are some of us in our country that don’t get enough food… but food is available on a MUCH wider scale than in most other parts of the world! For this we must be thankful!
You have a job! AND if you don’t have a job… you have the opportunity to seek for a job. Most complain about no job, but the fact of the matter is that there are no jobs to their liking… there are countries in this world where there is NO opportunity for jobs… NO HOPE! We live in the land of opportunity…
Shelter and your health… you may not like your house/ home…you may have some health issues, but let me share something with you! There will always be someone who is worse off than you believe yourself to be…
We need to be focused on what we DO have and be thankful for it… but so many times we focus on what we do NOT have or what we CANNOT have and we become UN-thankful in our hearts!
I want us to focus on Esther this morning. She had every opportunity to fret and whine about her situation, but instead she decided to be thankful for what she DID have…
She had been exiled from her homeland, but she had a home!
She had lost her parents, but she had family that loved her and took her in…
She was taken away from that family by the king to be part of his harem, but she understood that it was also an opportunity to become queen…
She was placed in a situation that COULD have been disastrous, but she was willing to look to God and trust her family!
No where do we find Esther complaining, but we find her seeing the positives in each situation… We must be about a thankful attitude!
The apostle Paul spoke about this in Philippians 4:7 when he wrote:
6Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 7Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
We are NOT to be anxious about life, but we are to be thankful in our approach to life and when we do have a petition, we are to bring it to God… when we live our lives this way, God has promised a peace that defies our understanding!
Do you want to experience a peace that you cannot explain… first you have to stop worrying and fretting over things and you have to get into an attitude of thanksgiving… then God is going to bless you with a peace that will calm your soul!
We should be thankful for the little things in life, our air, water, food, shelter and even our health… you may have physical troubles… but you are alive… you are here today… you have reason to be thankful… and it is for the little physical things of this life!
However, there are other things that we should be thankful for… another one is we need to be thankful for our country!
Thankfulness for Your Origin – Esther 2:10
10Esther did not reveal her ethnic background or her birthplace, because Mordecai had ordered her not to. Now Mordecai was a devout Jew, and an honorable man. Even though he had been taken captive and sent into exile… He chose to save the life of the king, but he also refused to bow down to the tyrant… Haaman (2nd in Kingdom)
Mordecai lived in a foreign land where he and his family had been forced to live… exiled from his own country, Mordecai could have been bitter about that… but instead he began to serve where he was planted… He began to serve the King!
Now today, we live in the USA and our country is a great country. Regardless of how many are trying to rewrite the history books… I believe that our nation is great because it was founded on godly principles and Christian values! The Founding Fathers pointed to God in the founding of this nation…
Our forefathers were NOT perfect men… some of them were not even good Christians, but all of them understood the importance of God in the life of the nation!
When our forefathers came to this country, it was to escape persecution and tyrannical rule over their lives! They came so that they could be free to worship and live as they chose…
Our founding fathers believed that a country founded on anything other than God was a waste of time… so they founded our nation with godly principles and a Christian worldview.
They established freedom to the everyday man… something that was very rare in the old world… but here the promise of freedom was what drew people to our shores!
I want to share with you that freedom… in the sense that our founding fathers wanted us to all experience it… FREEDOM is NOT a guarantee for us in this world.
Freedom is available to us because of the sacrifice of many who came before us… We have freedom because many were willing to pay the price for that freedom!
Tomorrow is Veteran’s day and there are many who have served in our nation’s military who have given the ultimate sacrifice by laying down their lives… all to bring and preserve the freedom ALL of us enjoy!
But freedom is not something to be treated lightly… freedom does not mean that you can do whatever you want and it is guaranteed for you… Freedom is about CHOICE!
In our nation we have the joyous freedom to pursue life, liberty and happiness… this does not mean that we will obtain these things! With freedom comes risk and with risk come failure!
So many in our world want total freedom, but then they want a guarantee! But freedom does not come with a guaranteed result… the only guarantee freedom in our nation gives us is that we are guaranteed the opportunity to achieve!
AND that is not even a guarantee… some will have MORE opportunities than others. Some will succeed far more than others…
Freedom is but a choice to move in your own direction. Freedom does not guarantee any results NOR does it guarantee that people will like or agree with your choices!
Too many people today want TOTAL freedom to live however they desire and they want the world around them to accept them and like them and treat them as ‘normal’… but freedom does not guarantee acceptance!
We are free in our country… we live in a great country! Esther was proud of her heritage even though she had to make the choice to hide her true identity until the right time…
We live in a nation where we can live free and worship as we choose! We live in a country where Christianity, although under attack today, is still practiced by a great many of our people!
We must be thankful that we live in a country where we are free to worship… instead of focusing on how awful things are, we should rejoice and be thankful that we can gather in a place as beautiful and public as this sanctuary…and we can openly and publicly WORSHIP God!
Esther had to keep her heritage and worship secret, but God enabled her to reveal it in due time… and that is what I want to speak about next…
The Thankfulness of This Time – Esther 4:13-14
13Mordecai told the messenger to reply to Esther, “Don’t think that you will escape the fate of all the Jews because you are in the king’s palace. 14If you keep silent at this time, liberation and deliverance will come to the Jewish people from another place, but you and your father’s house will be destroyed. Who knows, perhaps you have come to your royal position for such a time as this.”
In Esther 4:13-14 her uncle Mordecai told Esther that she had been brought to where she was and this was happening to her for a time such as this…
There was a man named Haaman who was intent on destroying all the Jews in the Kingdom and he had devised a plan to do so…
Mordecai, who refused to honor Haaman, had found out about this plan and he went to Esther and told her to go to the king and plead for the lives of her countrymen…
Esther knew that the law stated that if you were NOT called to the king’s chamber by the king that the sentence for walking into his chamber unannounced was death…
Mordecai was urging Esther to go tell and not wait for the king to call her… Esther was afraid, but Mordecai told her… THIS is why God has placed you in this situation, FOR A TIME SUCH AS THIS…
Esther does NOT seek for a guaranteed success, but instead she trusts God and goes into the King! God honors her faith and the King welcomes her and hears her plea and because of Esther’s bravery, she saves her people!
For YOU today… you live in a nation where you are free to worship, but you also have been born into this country for THIS TIME… not 50 yrs ago… not 50 yrs from now… BUT THIS TIME!
But preacher, I can’t step out like Esther… I might fall flat on my face… I might FAIL! Well I want to tell you this, success (at least success as the world sees it) is NOT guaranteed in our lives, BUT success in God’s eyes is always guaranteed when we obediently follow His calling on our lives!
There are many people today who profess Christ with their mouths, but who are UNWILLING to ‘get in the game’ when it comes to serving the Christ they profess with their mouth!
I have heard some even wonder what benefits does it have for them to serve, when they can simply sit and absorb… but we have to understand it is NOT about benefit to ourselves BUT it is about obedience to our Lord!
Jesus said when he was preaching… TODAY is the day of salvation! What he meant there was that TODAY is the day to act, TODAY is the day to obey, TODAY is the day to submit to God!
This hold true to our service to God as well… we were not saved to sit… but we have all been saved to SERVE! We are called to serve, but not in some distant future… but our calling is to serve in the HERE and NOW!
Our nation is NOT doing well on the spiritual front. We have an administration that is bent on taking the freedom of worship out of our hands, and placing restrictions on how we worship and how we express our faith…
YOU have been called by God FOR a time such as this! We are not called to sit on the sidelines… but we are called to GET IN THE GAME! And today you should be thankful that you have been called to a time such as this!
There is NO greater time to serve God than in the present! He does not want us to wait for a better time, His desire is that we serve Him NOW!
CONCLUSION:
So we must be thankful that God has placed us on a planet and in a country where we have clean air, clean water… where we have food, shelter and opportunity for a job…
We must be thankful that God has placed us in a country where men and women have sacrificed to provide us with great freedom… freedom to worship God as we see fit!
But finally we must be thankful that God has placed us in a TIME such as this… a time where we are called to NOT be on the sideline but to get into the game!!
Today, you have a lot to be thankful for… the physical, your country and the time to which you were born… Today the question is ARE YOU THANKFUL? Today I call on you to come and be thankful in prayer to God for what He has provided for YOU…
GIVE EVANGELISTIC INVITATION HERE…
