Esther 5:1-14
Problems, Prayer & Pride
Woodlawn Baptist Church
August 22, 2004
Introduction
As we get started this morning, we’re going to take a quick poll. I am looking for people who have problems or difficult challenges facing them. It may be a health related problem, finances, family, work, church or some other thing. If you are one of these people, please raise your hand.
You know, I can’t think of anyone I know who doesn’t have problems of some sort. From leaky roofs to arthritis, bald tires or misbehaving kids, everyone has problems. Sometimes you may feel like the men I read about on a sinking ship. Left on this ship were the captain and three sailors. The captain spoke first. "Men, this business about a captain going down with his ship is nonsense. There’s a three-man life raft on board and I’m going to be on it. To see who will come with me, I will ask you each one question. The one who can’t answer will stay behind. Here’s the first question: What unsinkable ship went down when it hit an iceberg?" The first sailor answered, "The Titanic, sir." "On to the next question: How many people perished?" The second sailor said, "One thousand five hundred and seventeen, sir." "Now for the third question," and the captain turned to sailor number three. "What were their names?"
When we left Esther in chapter 4, you will recall that Mordecai had challenged the queen to exercise faith and fulfill her purpose for being raised to this position by going to King Ahasuerus and pleading for the lives of her people. She rose to the challenge, but not before asking the people to pray for her during a three day fast, during which they would neither eat nor drink. She said that she and her personal attendants would do the same.
Up to this point in her life, we can safely assume that Esther had enjoyed relative ease, living a life with the normal challenges of growing up. She was separated from her immediate family somehow, a common occurrence among the Jewish people during these times of conquering. However, things are different now. The Scripture states so clearly that “to whom much is given, much is required.” Many people naturally want to be in positions of influence, and others are effortlessly thrust into such positions by what some see as chance, but we as Christians know there is no such thing as chance. It is an unbiblical word, for what we ignorantly call chance is really God at work behind the scenes. God has brought Esther to the top, but it is a lonely place, a lesson Esther has quickly learned now that she has to put her own life on the line in going to the king. She is afraid for her life, and is not completely sure of what to say if she does win an audience with him.
I think of the countless times throughout our lives, when faced with life’s difficulties that we fear or grow unsure about what to do or how to react. So often there are no clear-cut choices to be made, times when we hesitate or hope the problem will go away. There are times when our challenges threaten our security, or our comfort levels, and we fear making the wrong decision – challenges that some of you face even today. The fact is that what we really want is some guarantee of success before we choose, some sign from heaven telling us that we are headed in the right direction. “Am I marrying the right person?” “Is this the right home to purchase for our family?” “Is this college going to take me where I want to go?” “Do I really want to remarry?” “Should I really take on this new challenge?” “Should I venture into this new business?” “Should I retire now?” “Do I really want to take this gamble with my life’s savings?” “Is this the church God wants me to be a part of?” “Should I go and speak to my boss about this issue?”
You see, in each of these challenging situations and countless others, what we are looking for is some measure of success, some confirmation from God that what we are doing is right. We all want success. No one comes to a problem in life and says, “I hope I fail at this!” But what you have to do is be willing to redefine what success is. For the Christian, success is coming to the end of your life, having fulfilled God’s will for your life. That’s it – nothing more; nothing less. That is what Mordecai told Esther. He said, “You have to do this thing. Who knows whether this is your life’s purpose?” Regardless of the outcome, Esther was fulfilling God’s purpose for her life, and that is success!
Let us read our text this morning, then I want to challenge you to do two things in regard to the challenges you face. If you want real success in life; if you want to be guaranteed some level of assurance that you are doing the right thing, then you will need to practice these two biblical teachings.
“Now it came to pass on the third day, that Esther put on her royal apparel, and stood in the inner court of the king’s house, over against the king’s house: and the king sat upon his royal throne in the royal house, over against the gate of the house. And it was so, when the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, that she obtained favor in his sight: and the king held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand. So Esther drew near, and touched the top of the scepter. Then said the king unto her, What wilt thou, queen Esther? And what is thy request? It shall be even given thee to the half of the kingdom. And Esther answered, If it seem good unto the king, let the king and Haman come this day unto the banquet that I have prepared for him. Then the king said, Cause Haman to make haste, that he may do as Esther hath said. So the king and Haman came to the banquet that Esther had prepared. And the king said unto Esther at the banquet of wine, What is thy petition? And it shall be granted thee: and what is thy request? Even to the half of the kingdom it shall be performed. Then answered Esther, and said, My petition and my request is; if I have found favor in the sight of the king, and if it please the king to grant my petition, and to perform my request, let the king and Haman come to the banquet that I shall prepare for them, and I will do tomorrow as the king hath said. Then went Haman forth that day joyful and with a glad heart: but when Haman saw Mordecai in the king’s gate, that he stood not up, nor moved for him, he was full of indignation against Mordecai. Nevertheless Haman refrained himself: and when he came home, he sent and called for his friends, and Zeresh his wife. And Haman told them of the glory of his riches, and the multitude of his children, and all the things wherein the king had promoted him, and how he had advanced him above the princes and servants of the king. Haman said moreover, Yea, Esther the queen did let no man come in with the king unto the banquet that she had prepared but myself; and tomorrow am I invited unto her also with the king. Yet all this availeth me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate. Then said Zeresh his wife and all his friends unto him, Let a gallows be made of fifty cubits high, and tomorrow speak thou unto the king that Mordecai may be hanged thereon: then go thou in merrily with the king unto the banquet. And the thing pleased Haman; and he caused the gallows to be made.”
Elevate Your View of Prayer
I can’t tell you how many times I have heard the phrase, “Pray for me.” Almost every day, someone says that to me. We put together our prayer lists; we say our mealtime prayers, our bedtime prayers, our morning prayers, our opening and closing prayers, and any other kind of prayers we can fit it, but do we really have such a lofty view of prayer?
When Esther told Mordecai to pray, and to have all the people pray, she wasn’t asking as a formality or to sound spiritual. She knew that all her earthly success depended on the divine intervention of heaven. How often we are asked to pray, and yet we do not think enough to remember what we are to pray for, or we simply do not pray as though we were absolutely dependent on the God of heaven for an answer.
Author Richard Foster has said that “Prayer catapults us onto the frontier of the spiritual life.” In other words, when we are not praying, we are walking in the flesh, settling for carnality, destined for only what we can do. Listen, there is nothing that I can do that is worth anything. If I can do it and I don’t need God for it, then it was a very small and insignificant thing to start with. But when I pray for that which I cannot do, for that which is greater and higher and grander than me, I am compelled to throw myself at the feet of the Father and beg in earnest that He will do through me what I cannot do myself.
We must elevate our view of prayer – it is no little thing. It is not a habit to be taken lightly or to discard as either a formality or an inconvenience. Prayer is not one of the things we are to do, it is the main thing. Moses was a prayer warrior. So was Samuel, and David and Paul and Jesus. They spent hours in prayer pleading for God to do great things. I read about men like Martin Luther, who prayed up to three hours a day. John Wesley prayed for two hours a day. It is said that the missionary Adoniram Judson made it a habit to withdraw from everyone and everything seven times a day in order to pray. He began at dawn; then at nine, twelve, three, six, nine, and midnight.
It is not my purpose this morning to berate you over the amount of time you spend in prayer. However, I would venture to say that most of us do not spend much time pouring our hearts out to God in fervent, heartfelt prayers for divine intervention.
Only a man or woman with a lofty view of prayer would do without food or water for three days. Only a man or woman who believed in the practice of praying would lay aside all other activities to devote his time to pleading with the God of heaven. In a country where we worship at the altars of the Golden Arches and receive our filling from the buffets of our favorite restaurants, there is little use for or little value placed upon the disciples of prayer and even fasting.
Fasting has become so taboo today that relatively few believers will venture to practice it. Some believe it to be bad for their health. Others think they will somehow starve if they are not fed a steady diet of three meals a day with snacks in between. Christians today have fallen victim to the western belief that every human appetite must be satisfied. Listen, fasting is not bad for you. Done properly it will not destroy your body. It will not keep you from being able to work or think or play. It will however drive you to the cross as your flesh wars against the spirit, leading you to seek your sustenance from a source beyond the fridge.
It is not necessary to make prayer difficult. Prayer does not have to be complex or poetic. In simple childlike faith we are taught in the Scriptures to come to our heavenly Father and ask Him to meet our needs, in faith, believing that He can and that He will answer our prayers. You should have such an elevated view of prayer that you ask for your daily needs to be met. Plead with God for our children. Pray for marriages. Pray for me and for one another. Pray for your church, and for anything else that the Spirit brings to your mind.
And I might add one other thing: if we would have a higher and loftier view of prayer, we might not be so fatalistic about people and life in general. We should never find ourselves saying that this thing can’t be done, or that person will never change. To say that there is no hope is to deny the power of God working through the life-changing prayers of His people. There is so much to say about prayer in so little time – so let me just plead with you all to be people of great faith and people of great prayer, and let us watch how God does great things through us as a result. If you want real success in the midst of your troubles; if you want to see God work great change in your life or your home or your church, then pour out your hearts to God. Some of us can be a lot like the hound I heard about sitting in a country store and howling as hounds do. In comes a stranger who says to the storekeeper, "What’s the matter with the dog?" "He’s sitting on a cocklebur." "Why doesn’t he get off?" "He’d rather holler."
Recognize The Destructive Nature of Pride
A young woman asked for an appointment with her pastor to talk with him about a besetting sin about which she was worried. When she saw him, she said, "Pastor, I have become aware of a sin in my life which I cannot control. Every time I am at church I begin to look around at the other women, and I realize that I am the prettiest one in the whole congregation. None of the others can compare with my beauty. What can I do about this sin?" The pastor replied, "Mary, that’s not a sin, why that’s just a mistake!"
I hope that you can see the two great opposing character traits at work in this chapter. On the one hand you see Esther and the Jewish people in prayer. Do you know what prayer is? Prayer is simply the result of a heart that has been humbled before the God of heaven, making known the needs of a person or a people who have no ability to help themselves. If prayer is the result of humility, then boasting is the opposing trait. Boasting is the result of pride, and rather than being driven to a cross, boasting seeks a crown. Prayer is the result of humility. Prayer is saying to God, “I am nothing.” Boasting is saying to God and everyone else, “I am everything.”
Haman was so proud of himself and what he had done that when he got home that day he invited all his friends over so he could tell them all about himself. Verse 11 says that he “boasted to them about his great wealth and his many children. He bragged about the honors the king had given him and how he had been promoted over all the other officials and leaders.”
Have you ever noticed that pride is the only disease that makes everyone except the person who has it? Two things here – first, pride is not a disease; it is a sin, and it is probably one of the most prevalent sins you face. The worst thing you can do if you struggle with pride is to allow people to stroke you or for you to seek the praise of any man. “There is perhaps no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive. Even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.” Secondly, not only do most other people hate pride in our lives, the more important thing to remember is that God hates it. In fact, James says that “God resists the proud.” When pride is in your life, then fellowship with God is not.
Pride is destructive – it blinds you to the truth: the truth about yourself and about others. Haman was so infuriated that he couldn’t even enjoy his good fortune. He told his friends and family that he couldn’t enjoy what was happening to him so long as Mordecai was alive, and though Mordecai was to be killed in just a few months by the king’s decree, Haman wouldn’t wait. He had a seventy-five foot gallows built, for all to see what Mordecai’s fate was for not bowing in the presence of Haman. It was madness. He was infuriated, driven to an extreme because of a heart of pride – pride that would ultimately lead to his demise. Solomon said that “pride goes before a fall…”
Conclusion
Now let’s get back to where we started: with problems. Both Esther and Haman had a problem. Both were closer to the king than anyone else, and both had a great deal of family and friends supporting them, but they responded differently to their problems, and that response made all the difference in their success. Esther humbled herself, Haman elevated himself. Esther prayed; Haman boasted. Esther pleaded; Haman plotted.
What do you do when faced with life’s troubles? Whether you realize it or not, every problem is an opportunity to prove God’s power. Every day we encounter countless golden opportunities, brilliantly disguised as insurmountable problems, and each of them reveal what you are really made of. Here’s the funny thing – everyone else already knows. We are the last to see what or who we really are.
Some of you today struggle with pride. You may have great talents and abilities. Perhaps you have a better education than most, or you’ve been blessed with a great family. It may be your looks, or the number of some thing that you own. “I’ve got more, or bigger, or better.” “I could have done that better. If you would have let me do it, it would have been done right.” “My kids make better grades…” I would have never done that.”
Do you see it? Is it there? The question now then is what are you willing to do with it? “Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord,” the Scriptures say, “and He will lift you up.” If you want real success in life, if you want to come to the end of your life, having fulfilled God’s purpose for your life, then it starts with humility, humility driving you to the foot of the cross, pleading with God to meet your every need.
Your greatest need today is to know God, but too often we allow our pride to get in our way. We think we somehow don’t need God, or don’t need Him right now. We can’t admit that we’re sinners, or that we’re living in sin. We can’t bring ourselves to admit that we don’t have it all together – and it is perhaps the chief sin that leads a person to ultimately reject the wonderful offer of the God of heaven.
http://www.christianglobe.com/Illustrations/theDetails.asp?whichOne=c&whichFile=challenge
Foster, Richard. Celebration of Discipline (Family Christian Press: Grand Rapids, MI) 1998
Bits and Pieces, May, 1990, p. 20.
http://www.christianglobe.com/Illustrations/theDetails.asp?whichOne=c&whichFile=pride
The Message
Benjamin Franklin, from his autobiography
