It is always a privilege to worship together, and I always consider it a privilege when we have a few moments to share together from God’s Word. In many ways, life is a collection of moments put together through the years. Some of these moments are fairly routine and do not seem to carry all that great a significance: brushing your teeth, mowing the lawn, washing the dishes. Other moments are cherished for life: the birth of a child, a wedding day, a graduation. Life is a chain of these individual moments, linked together through the years.
In January of 2003 I left behind a seven-year career in automobile and homeowners insurance claims. Rather distressing moments in people’s lives. When you report an accident in your home or car, the insurance companies ask you to provide just a brief explanation of what happened, and the description of those moments can be quite insightful. Sometimes we would need a more detailed and thorough explanation so we would ask for further narrative from the party. Let me share with you one such description of a life moment from the insurance world.
Read “Think You’ve Had a Bad Day?” (insurance illustration)
What a moment. Let’s spend some time this morning talking about moments. The scripture I want to look at comes from my favorite book in the Bible, and even beyond that, from my favorite chapter in that book.
We had the privilege while living in Texas to visit Chuck Swindoll’s church. An excellent preacher, and he has said, “In these ten chapters, the story has all the ingredients of the traditional short story: a dramatic beginning, a suspenseful plot, a villain, a hero, a damsel in distress, and a surprising twist of events that leads to a climax where right triumphs over wrong, and everybody ‘lives happily ever after.’” To me, this is the most ready for movie, made for TV book in the Bible.
I don’t have a ton of time, so I can’t give you all the details that get you to my favorite chapter, but basically Esther is a Jewish orphan and a distant relative named Mordecai has raised her. In the mean time, Mordecai has developed a grand enemy named Haman. These dudes do not get along. In fact, to truly understand the depth of their animosity, let me encourage you to watch an excellent Biblical documentary and portrayal of their relationship in “The Girl Who Became Queen”, by Veggie Tales. Now, the fact that Mordecai and Haman do not get along is possibly a problem because Haman is the king’s right hand man.
Speaking of the king, his queen has ticked him off. So he has gotten rid of her, needs a new one, conducts an American Idol like search, finds our star Esther, selects her as queen, and brings her into his palace. In short, Esther now in the king’s palace is one of the greatest rags to riches stories ever told or imagined. She was a Jewish orphan girl. Now she is queen of the land.
When we reach chapter four, Haman has found a way to get back at his enemy Mordecai. He has managed to swing a decree by the king that has declared a death sentence on all the Jews. Follow this? The king gets upset with the queen, and so he gets a new one. Haman gets upset with a Jew, and so he has them all killed. Think these two guys need some anger management?
Now, if you are completely lost, don’t sweat it. This is all you need to know. The king is going to kill all the Jews, which would just happen to include all of Esther’s family. But the king doesn’t know Esther is Jewish, and that leaves Esther as the one with access to the king to stop it.
Sounds easy enough, right? Go in; tell the king this is bad, problem solved. Actually, there is one more thing you need to know. If Esther approaches the king to ask him not to kill all the Jews without being summoned by the king, she can be killed. This is the antithesis of Stephen Covey’s win-win model. . .this is a lose-lose proposition.
So here we go. A huge moment in Esther’s life. Decision time. Will she seize the moment, or will she hide and hope God provides another escape? That is where we are in Esther, chapter 4, verse 10 (read through 12).
Now, to understand Esther’s response to Mordecai, be sure you put yourself in her shoes. It is easy to be brave when we are secure, protected, and have nothing at stake. But personalize it. Think about your own life. Are you a moment seizer? Are you able to capture those points in time? Do you live life with a Carpe Diem attitude, ready to seize the day?
In fact, our question of the day is, what sets apart those people who can truly seize the moment?
The date, March 28th. The year, 1992. The place, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The moment seizer, and dare I say these words in a Kentucky pulpit, Christian Leattner. First ever player to start in four Final Fours. MVP of the East Regional of the NCAA tournament when he scored 31 points against our beloved Wildcats. The clock read 2.1 seconds after Sean Woods had made an awesome, if not ill advised, driving shot in the lane to put Kentucky ahead, and seemingly on their way to the Final Four. For the final three minutes of regulation, and the entire five minute overtime period, no one. . .not a single player has missed a shot. Then it happened, after already shooting 9 for 9 the ball was thrown in with less than 2 second left to play, almost the entire distance of the court, and I am confident that those in this room who care do not desire to see once again what happened at that moment. Christian Leattner became a moment seizer.
The date, November 9th. The year, 2002. The place, Lexington, KY. The moment seizer, and dare I say two more painful names, Marcus Randall and Devery Henderson. Kentucky had scored twice in the final 3 minutes to take a 30 to 27 lead with just 11 seconds left. The Wildcat players had already drenched coach Guy Morris with Gatorade. Just two seconds remained when LSU snapped the ball. Similar to in 1992, just 2 dreaded seconds. I have shouted, I have screamed, I have cried, and I have laughed during sporting events. That day, I just stared at the screen, lost in profound amazement of what had just transpired. A 75 yard touchdown pass as time expired, and as Kentucky fans flooded the field in Lexington to pull off a 33-30 victory. . .and Randall and Henderson become moment seizers.
What sets apart those people who can truly seize the moment? And not to say that basketball and football are not some form of religion, but in a spiritual sense, how do we seize the moment? Waiting on the Lord, not rushing God’s timing, but when the moment is before us. . .how do we grab hold of it?
Let me try to share with you five keys to becoming a moment seizer. Jot them down in your Bible margin, on the note page of your worship folder, somewhere. I have come back to these, my favorite verses in the entire Bible, literally dozens of times in the past few years as God has guided and directed our lives.
Number one, eliminate thoughts of an escape.
ELIMINATE THOUGHTS OF AN ESCAPE
Notice the message Mordecai sends back to Esther immediately following her response (read v. 13 through “. . .your father’s house will perish.”). This can go down in history as a turning point speech. Mordecai was saying, make no mistake about it. You are questioning whether you should approach the king. You are acting as if there is an option. You are imagining a scenario where you stay silent and everything works out fine. But you are wrong. Being a Jew like the rest of us, you and your family will die. Eliminate your thoughts of an escape.
Great moments in sports occur because coaches and players against seemingly insurmountable odds refuse to throw in the towel.
The same is true in our Christian walk and calling. It is so easy to allow thoughts of an escape to creep in and we begin trying to find our way out of God’s calling. Well God, I would do it, but I already am involved in x, y, z. Well God, I would do it, but that just isn’t my gifting. Well God, I would do it, but I don’t like who I would have to work with.
Back in 2002, just prior to our initial return to full-time ministry, I thought I could escape from God’s will for my life. I could justify my involvement in our local church. If I went into full time ministry, who would lead our small group? Who would shepherd the 3rd grade boys on Saturday night? Who would teach our Crown Ministry class?
It reaches a point where all the excuses have to be set aside, and we have to eliminate the thoughts of an escape.
The second key to seizing the moment ties very directly to the first, and was in the verse we just read. You can eliminate the thought of an escape when you realize God’s plan will prevail.
REALIZE GOD’S PLAN WILL PREVAIL.
Notice what he said in verse 14 (read B). This is so hard for so many of us to grasp. God is sovereign. His ultimate plan is going to come to fruition. The sooner we realize that, the sooner we will want to be a part of it.
People across Lexington are going to come to know Jesus, do we want to be a part of it? Lost souls are going to be found, do we want to be part of it? God’s plan for this city, this state, this country, this globe, and all eternity will prevail, do we want to be a part of it?
And this is when God starts to get very personal. When you eliminate thoughts of an escape, when you realize that God’s plan will prevail, He then personalizes the message.
The third key. . .to seizing the moment. . .
BELIEVE IN GOD’S HAND IN YOUR LIFE
The second half of verse 14 is my favorite in the entire Bible (read). (Read again).
This speech of Mordecai’s is historic! There is a whole race of people in the balance. Mordecai’s statement is like Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death.” Nathan Hale’s “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” He is saying, “This is your hour. Stand! Speak! Die! But whatever you do, don’t be silent. Believe in God’s hand in your life!”
I was born in 1969 in Grand Rapids, MI. While still just a toddler we moved to Imperial Beach, CA just south of San Diego. Before entering school we were off to McPherson, Kansas and before my first day of kindergarten ended up in Sandusky, Ohio. Five years old, four homes.
In 1976 we moved to the heart of Racine, WI. A few years later to another home, and another church in the suburbs and shores of Lake Michigan. In 1981 we loaded the family station wagon and crossed the country for Chico, CA. But the journey was still just beginning.
In July of 1987 I crossed the entire country to begin my college experience at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. As events transpired in my life I ended up back at Chico State University and eventually at Point Loma Nazarene College in San Diego, CA. With a junior college thrown in the mix, this was my fourth college. The year is 1988.
Meanwhile in Yuma, Arizona a child was born who spent the first 18 years of her life in the same home. Upon graduating from high school she became a student at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, AZ. In 1988 she decided to transfer and complete her college education at Point Loma Nazarene College in San Diego, CA. One of the best decisions of her life. Little did she know how she was positioning herself for God’s blessing.
In January of 1989 I asked that young woman out for a date, and she told me no. She said she had “too much homework.” Might as well have told me she needed to wash her hair. But I was not deterred. I did not want her to miss out on the blessing God had for her.
In the summer of 1989 we were engaged, and on June 9th, 1990 we were married. I completed my senior year, and in the summer of 1991 we loaded a Ryder truck, hooked a car transport on the back, and headed out for Wilmore, KY. We had never been to Wilmore, never seen Wilmore, knew nothing about Wilmore. In fact, the day we drove across the Mississippi River was Debbie’s first time ever to cross into the Promised Land.
Jump ahead with me just over four years to 1995. Unemployed, crushed by a negative ministry experience, lonely and isolated in northern Alabama with a 9 month old baby boy, we get in a car and head to central Kentucky. I interview on Friday for a job with Nationwide Insurance, and then we begin searching for housing.
I don’t know if you have ever tried to get an apartment, a home, any form of shelter with the wonderful application that says you are unemployed, have student loan debts up to your ears, and really can’t guarantee that you will be able to pay anything. We stop at location after location. Each stop our spirits fall further, each stop our sense of isolation and having been forgotten by God grows deeper and deeper.
Sunday is winding down, we need to begin the trip back home to Alabama, when I decide to make one more stop. Just off Palumbo Drive in a small new subdivision called Shadowwood. Debbie and Jamie stay in the car, I walk into the office, spirit broken, humbled further than I ever desired to be, and I begin begging. I tell them I have no job, we have no regular source of income, but we desperately need someone to throw us a rope. I have a wife, a young baby, and I need someone who will give us a chance to rebuild our lives.
The young lady working in that model home takes down our information, provides words of encouragement, and says she will see what she can do. A few days later she calls our home in Alabama, advises us that she has spoken with the developer, and they are ready to enter into a lease-buy agreement, with provisions to help us get our feet on the ground. No long term promises, but a window of hope.
So we load a Uhaul, hook up a car transport to the back, and head home. We are unloading boxes, unpacking, just getting things set-up when Paul Robinson from Nationwide Insurance calls, offers me the job, and says it is short notice but he wonders if I can start on Monday for $25,000/year. What do you think my answer was?
Over the next few years Satan attacks our finances, attacks our marriage, attacks our faith and confidence in God, attacks anything and everything he can take a shot at. But God begins to stir a fire.
Summer of 2000 we move to Dallas, Texas, begin attending McKinney Fellowship Bible Church, and in the fall of 2001offer to lead a small group in our home. For six years I have refused to entertain any thoughts of ever returning to vocational ministry. The first night of our small group, I share with the group a small portion of our story. Debbie gets up to go and retrieve some pens from another room. While she is gone the lady to my right asks me, “Would you ever consider returning to ministry?” I had been asked that question dozens of times over the previous few years, and had always answered with a rapid and confident ‘No.’ But before I even knew the words were out of my mouth I said, “Yea, I could see that someday.” Debbie returned to the room, and I quickly changed the subject. But the fire continued to burn.
As I traveled with Athletes In Action, preaching in a handful of states, over thousands of miles, literally weeks at a time away from my family the fire began to burn hotter and hotter. I began to feel a renewed sense of calling to be a communicator of the Word. To be a shepherd to a body of believers. To lock arms with a congregation of people desiring to seize the moment.
We made contact with Stonewall Wesleyan Church, entered into the pastoral search process, and they say the third time is a charm. . .loaded a Uhaul, hooked up a car transport, and came home.
Did you follow all that? A combined 68 years, six colleges, 12 states, the addition of two beautiful children, and throughout the consistent hand of a loving, gracious God. How could I not stand here before you today, and declare that I believe in God’s hand in my life?
If you are in a situation where you are pondering an escape, where you are fighting God’s will, it may very well be a situation where God has put you for just such a moment.
This may be huge. He may be calling you to a radical life change. It may just seem huge. . .witnessing to a co-worker, reaching out to a student, confronting the lifestyle of a family member. Whatever the situation may be, when your heart is pounding, your palms are sweating you internal flight mechanisms seem to be taking over. . .ask yourself. . .”Might God have put me in this place for such a time as this?”
But to be ready for that moment, there is something else you have to do.
Verse 15. Esther began to fast. To reject the comforts of her surroundings and to spiritually prepare for the moment. If you want to seize the moments in your life, you must do number four. . .
SPIRITUALLY PREPARE FOR THE MOMENT
For years the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ Bill Bright made it an annual part of his spiritual discipline to fast for 40 days. 40 DAYS!!! Even in 2003, practically on his death bed in the final year of his life, he sent out an apologetic email to the Campus Crusade staff indicating that this year he would have to do a Daniel fast and partake of vegetables during the 40 days. At more than 80 years old! He knows how to spiritually prepare for the moment.
It was for the first time of my life in 2001 that I accepted a challenge from our pastor at McKinney Fellowship Bible Church and decided to read through the entire Bible. And as I worked through the Old Testament, there was Joseph, who heard from God in his dreams but landed at the bottom of a well and later in an Egyptian dungeon for trying to follow God’s guidance. And Moses, hand picked liberator of the Hebrew people, who hid in a desert for forty years, hunted by pharaoh’s security guards. Eventually I came across David.
You see, prior to reading through the Bible that year, even with all my Christian College and seminary training, I never realized what a fugitive David, anointed king on God’s command, had become spending the next decade dodging spears and sleeping in caves. Three men with a vision, but finding themselves in what had to be discouraging, frustrating situations which seemed so far from that picture of their life God had given them.
The parallels to my life were stunning. But to see them, we had to spiritually prepare for the moment. We had to get into God’s Word, allow Him to guide and direct us, allow Him to speak to us.
How’s this for a Super Bowl Sunday quote, Philip Yancey writes, “We live in a society that cannot comprehend those who fast or carve out two hours for a quiet time, and yet honors professional football players who work out with weights five hours a day and undergo a dozen knee and shoulder surgeries to repair the damage they inflict on themselves in the sport.”
Fasting, praying, studying God’s Word, quiet reflection. . .spiritually preparing for the moment.
Over the next few weeks and months, you will see us as a church begin to put things in place to help us spiritually prepare for the moments of great impact that God is going to bring our way. Corporate prayer teams, unified fasts, digging into God’s Word. . .spiritually preparing for the moment.
Finally, notice how Esther grabs hold of the moment with both hands and takes it as her own (read v. 16b). “If I perish, I perish.” Esther resolved to face the challenge.
#5. RESOLVE TO FACE THE CHALLENGE
“Enough of the easy life,” declared Esther, “It’s time to put my name on the line. I am Jewish and I believe in the living God. . .I’m ready to stand alone for my people. And if I perish, I perish!”
You see, as Eugene Peterson writes, ‘The moment Haman surfaced, Esther began to move from being a beauty queen to becoming a Jewish saint, from being an empty-headed sex symbol to being a passionate intercessor, from the busy-indolent life in the harem to the high-risk venture of speaking for and identifying with God’s people.”
Don’t you want to do that? I want to move from being another Joe walking through life to the ‘high-risk venture of speaking for and identifying with God’s people.’ I don’t want to be a pastoral symbol of the church when I can be a passionate intercessor for the kingdom.
You will hear this from me over and over again. Last week we talked about 100% commitment. In a few weeks we will look at “Launching Out Into the Deep”. Over and over again I will bring us back to this idea of selling out to the cause of Christ. No bargains. No “if-then” clauses. Full-out resolve to face the challenge that is before us, and seize the moment.
In a moment we are going to sing. We are going to voice those words again to God, “I give You my heart, I give You my soul, I live for You alone.” And I want to open this opportunity, open this moment to anyone here who has been pondering an escape, who has been questioning God’s hand in your life, who has been wavering in the face of challenge.
If you have never truly given your heart, your soul, your very breath to God. . .voluntarily submitted to His will for your life. Do not delay another day. Seize this moment. If you have been walking with God for years, but have just been going through the motions. Do not delay another day. Seize this moment. If you have been sensing God about to do another radical work in your life, turning your very inclinations from the things of this world to the things of His kingdom, do not delay another day. Seize this moment.
As we sing, come, pray, receive all that He has for you. Seize this moment.
