For Such A Time As This
Esther 4:12-14
October 2nd, 2005
Beartown Road Alliance Church
Intro:
I cannot tell you how excited I have become about this ministry in the few short days that we have been here. We have had an opportunity to meet many of you and are overwhelmed with the expressions of love that we have received from you. One of the things I remember the elders telling us when we first visited back in June was how wonderful the people here were and we would definitely have to agree to that.
I can’t really describe what this week has been like other than to say that I really feel that I am doing now, what God has created me to do. There’s still nervousness, there’s still some uncertainty (and those are good and healthy) but more than that there is a quiet assurance that comes from knowing that God has me where he wants me to be.
And this is what I have been looking forward to since the day that I talked with the elders and accepted their invitation and God’s call to come and be the pastor of Beartown Road Alliance Church. All of the packing, the good-byes, the unpacking, and the preparation have been leading up to this point, when a pastor gets the privilege of doing what every pastor loves to do, opening up the Word of God with his congregation and beginning the process of learning and growing together. I had to pace myself this week. I’m used to only having the opportunity to preach once in a while and so I would try and get in as much Truth as I could into my message because I knew it would be a while before I got to speak again, I had to keep reminding my self this week that I get to do this again next week and the next week so I can slow down a little and just enjoy the process of teaching God’s Word. It’s a big task to try and figure out what text to use for your first sermon in a new place. As I prayed and asked God to lay something on my heart that would allow me to share His word as well as my heart to you this morning, I kept coming back to the story of Esther.
We’re going to look at the book of Esther this morning and I want you to turn to the 4th chapter and verses 12 -14. Keep your finger in that passage, we’re going to come back to it in just a moment. First, I wanted to give you an overview of the story that brings us up to the point we want to look at in chapter 4.
This is a story that has it all, good guys, bad guys, kings, queens, treachery, deception, and heroism.
- King Xerxes is the ruler of the Persian Empire.
- Throws a Party with the express purpose of showing off the extent of his riches and wealth. 180 DAYS!
- At the end of this time He sends for his wife to show off her beauty for all to see. She refuses to come and Xerxes has her banished from the Kingdom. In that day and age you did not approach the King unless called, and once you were called you didn’t dare refuse.
- A king must have his queen so the best and the most beautiful of all the women in the land were given beauty treatments for a year and brought before the King. 6 months of oil and myrrh and six months of perfume and cosmetics, ladies, how would you like to spend a year being pampered like that? If you’ve seen the show American Idol, that’s the kind of contest this was, you start with hundreds, they show their stuff and are eliminated one by one until only one remains. The prize was much better in this case though, it was a kingdom.
- One of these girls was Esther. Esther was a Jew who was under the care of her cousin Mordecai, and following his instructions, was keeping her identity as a Jew concealed.
- Just a quick note to catch you up on Old Testament History, the Jews were taken into captivity by the Babylonians and the best and brightest Jews were taken to be retrained and reprogrammed in Babylon. Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were among those exiles. Babylon was defeated by the King Cyrus the Persian and the kingdom was passed to his son Darius. This is the King who threw Daniel into the Lions Den. Darius passed the Kingdom to Xerxes and the Jews, though many had returned to Jerusalem, were still under the reign and control of Persia. That’s how Esther came to be in this situation.
- Esther pleased the king and was made the queen of Medo-Persia. God had placed one of his children in a position to save his people from what came next.
- Here we meet the bad guy, Haman. Haman is a close official of the King and everyone bows down to him except one man. Esther’s cousin Mordecai. This infuriates Haman. He plots to not only wipe out Mordecai but the entire Jewish race as well. He convinces the king that the Jews should be eliminated because they are different and don’t obey the laws of the King. Xerxes issues a decree that on a certain date at a certain time, all the Jews are to be destroyed. This decree was posted throughout the kingdom so that everyone, including the Jews, knew it was coming.
And now Esther has a choice to make. Mordecai has sent word to her begging her to intercede on behalf of the Jews to the King. The only problem is that she faced almost certain death if she approached the King unannounced. Verse10-11. And this brings us to the passage I want to look at this morning.
EST 4:12 When Esther’s words were reported to Mordecai, 13 he sent back this answer: "Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. 14 For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?"
Mordecai understood and trusted that God would deliver his people. He knew the history of the Jews and the faithfulness of God. If Esther did not act, Mordecai was certain that help would come from another place. However, he also knew that God was constantly working, setting things in motion for the good of his people and he points out to Esther that her new found royalty may in fact be the reason that she was created. It may have been the reason for the events that have unfolded throughout her life to bring her to this very moment to be used by God for the deliverance of her people. Esther was created, for such a time as this.
Look at her response, I think that in her answer to Mordecai, we can see three things that set Esther apart as a servant. These things set Esther apart as a vessel that God could use to further his purposes on Earth and as we, as a church body, seek to move forward and answer the call that God has for this ministry, these are three things that we must have in our lives as well.
1) First, Esther sought God.
Most of us have never faced a life and death decision before. Many of us, however, have had to make tough decisions that affected not only us, but family and friends as well. We may have agonized over the decision, lost sleep, looked at every possible outcome and every possible angle before we made up our mind and then, more often than not, we second guess the decision that we do end up making.
Esther gives us a good look at the proper way to take a big step, to make a big decision, it starts and ends with earnestly seeking God.
If you look at the first part of verse 16: Esther instructs Mordecai to begin to fast and to instruct the other Jews to do the same. While they were doing this, Esther and her maids would be doing the same thing. Before Esther acted, before she moved, she sought God. What she was about to do could have resulted in the sacrificing of her very life and she made certain that she was right with God and in tune with His ways and will before she stepped out in faith. She ends that verse by saying, If I perish, I perish. This was not a fatalistic view of life, the way some people see life today, where she felt her life had no meaning and if she died, oh well. Instead, it was a declaration of her complete trust and faith in God. If this is what God wanted and she was to die in her efforts, so be it. She would follow where she felt God was taking her.
It’s the same mindset that Christ had in the Garden when he asks his disciples to pray and he goes off to pray and says those words, “Not my will but yours be done” knowing that death would follow. He was willing to proceed because he knew it was the will of his Father. Esther has that same determination and like Christ, before she took that step, she sought God and had those around her do the same.
Having sought God, and knowing that He is leading can give us tremendous confidence to go forward.
2) Second, Esther understood Her Role in God’s Plan
Esther lived a comfortable life. She was the Queen of an Empire. She lived in luxury and anything she could dream or desire would be hers. She had kept her nationality a secret so there is a good chance that her life would have been spared when the edict against the Jews was carried out. Esther could have chosen to sit in silence and comfort while those around her died and she could have justified it in her mind as not really being any of her business, after all, who was she to question the commands of the King.
Instead, she understood the unique role that she could play. She saw that God had put her in a situation where she could help. She had an advantage, being a Jew and also being the Queen that put her in a position to serve God that no one else had at that time. Esther understood that her own comfort and her own lifestyle took a backseat to the needs of the people around her who were about to perish.
Do you see the parallel here to our lives?
We may not live like royalty as Esther did, but we live in comfort and security. Our needs are met, we have a place to live, food to eat, family and friends to care for and to care for us. We have built nice lives and don’t like controversy or confrontation and we could easily go through our days and turn a blind eye to those who are perishing around us saying that it’s none of our business. Who are we to interfere in the lives of others? But if we understand our role in God’s plan we know that he has made it our responsibility to share life with those who are dying, to share hope with those who have none, to give comfort to those in need. We are the ones who are to Go into all the world and preach the gospel. All the world is not even a reality if we won’t even go to our own neighbors.
RO 10:14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?
If we understand that God has provided, in Christ Jesus, a way to spend eternity with Him, and that those who don’t know Christ will spend their eternity entirely apart from the presence of God.
The Bible says in Romans that all have sinned and that the wages of that sin is death and separation from God. Thank God, it doesn’t stop there. We are told that the wages of sin may be death but that the free gift of God is eternal life found only through a belief and relationship with God’s Son Jesus. We no longer have to fear death, we no longer have to wonder what comes next, we no longer have to be alone, God promises life, he promises, life eternal, and he promises to be with us always as we go through this life on Earth.
If we understand that and we believe that, then our comfort would take a backseat and we would embrace our roles as God’s spokespeople and share the life giving truth that we have been entrusted with.
3) Thirdly, Esther Acted in Boldness
This is the action step. It validated the other two, these first two things would have been worthless if not accompanied by this last one. We can seek God and we can say we understand our role in His plan, but until we act, we haven’t done what God has called us to do.
In verse 16, Esther concludes her message to Mordecai by saying; “When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish."
And she followed through. She approached the King and God had gone before her and softened his heart towards her so that she found favor in his eyes. He agreed to grant her request. Long story short, Haman was hanged on the gallows he built for Mordecai, the Jews were saved and their enemies were destroyed. The Jews ended up in a better position and in better circumstances as a result of God’s deliverance than they would have been if none of this had ever happened to them. Deliverance came from God, but he used Esther, a willing vessel whom He had placed right where He wanted her for such a time as this.
I think that the reason this passage was impressed upon my heart these last few weeks is obvious. I believe with all of my heart that God has been molding this church for such a time as this. All that you have gone through together, both good and bad, has brought us here, to this point. We have an opportunity to impact the community around us for God’s kingdom and to rescue the people from the death sentence that has been handed down to them. In new and exciting ways if we step out in faith.
