Esther ASK's
Notes
Transcript
Last week we began to speak about prayer and action. Today you will often hear those seemingly benign words “Our thoughts and prayers” are with them. But are they benign? Are they empty words that don’t mean anything?
The answer is “Yes”, they are absolutely meaningless if
We don’t believe there is a God who will answer our prayers.
We don’t complete the action of prayer as I described last week.
As we read through the Scriptures we see again and again the biblical characters praying and then doing. It’s not simply lifting up our words to the ceiling without anyone there to hear, and it’s not simply saying words and that’s it, that truly would be empty.
In the Sermon on the Mount there is much said about how we should pray. It is the source of the Lord’s Prayer. Just prior to that magnificent prayer Jesus gives some instructions around prayer: Matthew 6:6-8
But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
Those multiple words are words of emptiness.
Later in the Sermon on the Mount, the next chapter we read these words we talked about last week:
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
And I shared with you these are not just empty words but action:
A • Ask - pray to God asking for you need
James tells us we don’t have because we don’t ask.
A • Ask - pray to God asking for you need
S • Seek - seek out the alternatives to bring glory to God
As we’re seeking, we’re reminded of other words from the Sermon on the Mount to Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness. What is it that will honor God?
A • Ask - pray to God asking for you need
S • Seek - seek out the alternatives to bring glory to God.
K • Knock - this is action, you have to act.
You can’t just sit there, you have to do something.
Jesus then gives this promise: Matthew 7:8
For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.
So as we return to our story of Esther we know that Queen Esther has learned from her Uncle Mordecai that one of the King’s closest advisors, Haman, is plotting to wipe out the Jews. In fact he has convinced the king in this, and the king has sent an edict throughout all the provinces of Persia and Media.
The king does not know that Esther is a jew.
Yet she is in a dilemma in that she has not been summoned to the king’s court for some 30 days.
In verse 14 we get perhaps the best known phrase from the book of Esther:
“For such a time as this.”
“For such a time as this.”
It comes from verse 14 of chapter 4 in Mordecai’s warning to her:
For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
So now we’re going to see what Esther does. In verse 16.
“Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.”
Fasts in the Old Testament were only required once per year on the Day of Atonement, though fasting is probably implied by the command to “afflict yourselves back in Leviticus 16:29-34, and 23:26-32. Some of the practices of fasting in addition to abstaining from food were:
People were to humble themselves by praying, mourning and wearing sackcloth. This is precisely what Mordecai was doing that brought Esther’s attention to this situation.
So Esther tells Mordecai to gather all the Jews and hold a fast on her behalf, this is the Asking of prayer. Seeking, we knew she had one option to go to the king, and from there we’re not sure what the alternatives will be. But it starts with that “Ask”.
“Seek” - Then, I will go to the king.
“Knock” - she’s going to the king and doesn’t know what will happen. But there is an action needed.
On the third day she puts on her royal robes and stands in the inner court of the king’s palace. The king sees her and extends his scepter to her inviting her in.
If there were any doubt that Esther still had favor with the king verse 3 of chapter 5 seems to do away with that: Esther 5:3
And the king said to her, “What is it, Queen Esther? What is your request? It shall be given you, even to the half of my kingdom.”
Esther understands she needs to get the king where they can talk and at the same time does not want Haman to escape, so she plans a banquet for the two of them, and invites them both to it:
And Esther said, “If it please the king, let the king and Haman come today to a feast that I have prepared for the king.”
Apparently it was a good feast because again the king responds:
And as they were drinking wine after the feast, the king said to Esther, “What is your wish? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? Even to the half of my kingdom, it shall be fulfilled.”
All of this just continues to feed into Haman’s ego. After the feast he goes home and recounts to his friend and wife about the feast, about how rich he is, the number of his sons, and how important he is to the king, so much so that he’s been advanced above all the other officials and servants of the king. He even takes pride in the fact that Queen Esther has invited him yet again with the king to another feast. Still he is stewing about Mordecai. Esther 5:13
Yet all this is worth nothing to me, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate.”
His hatred is not just contained in himself though. It’s become contagious. Note what his wife and friends say to him.
Then his wife Zeresh and all his friends said to him, “Let a gallows fifty cubits high be made, and in the morning tell the king to have Mordecai hanged upon it. Then go joyfully with the king to the feast.” This idea pleased Haman, and he had the gallows made.
So we see the tensions building between the two. Esther the salvific figure in our book and Haman the one who is out for the destruction of God’s chosen people, the jews.
In the midst of it all Esther, though queen does not work from a position of great power and pride, but instead a position of humility. Haman on the other hand continues to prop himself up in his own sense of self worth.
When you and I journey through this world we will run into people who are arrogant and self-serving. It is easy for us to get discouraged; they get the awards and we’re like Mordecai, trying to do the right thing and don’t get any recognition. They get the promotions and we seem to be stuck in a place of no influence and no recognition.
The Proverbs tell us Prov 18:12
Before his downfall a man’s heart is proud, but humility comes before honor.
And we read from 1 Peter 5:6
Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.
And of course that verse we often see tossed around when some in their haughtiness seek to point outward rather than inward:
if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
The people of Israel were called to humble themselves and pray and seek God’s face turning from their ways that defied God. This is a message for all of us.
Esther is not the only one to learn from in this story. Haman is haughty and thinks of himself far greater than he should. Mordecai on the other hand is on the side of the jews, who in the context of the story are God’s chosen people.
Way back in Genesis when Cain and Abel were at odds God says to Cain, Gen 4:7
If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”
Esther comes to a point where she prays and fasts along with her people. She seeks the alternatives available and those that honor God and God’s chosen people. and she does something about it. We’ll see more as we go next week.
A • Ask
S • Seek
K • Knock
The accusation thrown about that our “Thoughts and Prayers are with you,” are just empty words is true if it’s just about throwing out some words. But if we’re sincere in our prayers, it is not just about asking, it’s about seeking out alternatives and what would honor God, and it’s about taking action and doing something.
Our thoughts and prayers are only empty words if there is no seeking of solutions and action.
As believers in Christ, let us be people of action and not inaction. Ask and pray to God.
Seek solutions and God’s Kingdom and God’s glory.
And Knock - do something!
All of it to the glory of God. AMEN.