Obscurity to Royalty

If you have your Bible, I invite you to open up with me to Esther 2:1-18 tonight. How many of you like fairy tales? What are some of your favorite fairy tales? If you think of Disney, you can probably think of several of them. It seems like we are almost drawn to fairy tales because we love the rags to riches stories. We love seeing the underdog come out on top, we love seeing those that have been rejected by society rise to a higher standing and I think that one of the reasons that we love stories like this is because there is this sense of realness to them. Not all of us come from a great family or have great wealth but we can all relate in some ways to stories like Cinderella, Rocky, Aladdin, and The Pursuit of Happyness because we have all had moments where we have been in need before. We have all desired to be taken from the depths of our human lives and have desired something more. There is this sense that some day our prince will come or some day the knight in shining armor will spring us from the depths that we are in and even in that we get a taste of the Gospel. Sally Lloyd-Jones wrote, “The Bible isn’t a book of rules, or a book of heroes. The Bible is most of all a Story. It’s an adventure story about a young Hero who comes from a far country to win back his lost treasure. It’s a love story about a brave Prince who leaves his palace, his throne–everything–to rescue the ones he loves. It’s like the most wonderful of fairy tales that has come true in real life! You see, the best thing about this Story is…it’s true. There are lots of stories in the Bible, but all the stories are telling one Big Story. The Story of how God loves His children and comes to rescue them. It takes the whole Bible to tell this Story. And at the center of the Story, there is a baby. Every story in the Bible whispers His name. He is like the missing piece in the puzzle-the piece that makes all the other pieces fit together, and suddenly you can see a beautiful picture.” In the book of Esther, we are going to see something that looks like a fairy tale but there are elements of horror in it. It’s like if Stephen King tried to make a Disney movie. As we are going to see tonight as we are finally introduced to Esther is that not everything in life is perfect when one goes from rags to riches, from obscurity to royalty. There are some major heartaches on the way and there are some major struggles once you get there. Yet underneath all of this, we recognize that even if you or I were to be taken from where we are right now and put into this great position of power and authority, it wouldn’t come close to comparing to what God does to when He brings us from death to life. The way that the world looks at us does not compare to how God looks to our hearts. Let’s open up in prayer and then we will read Esther 2:1-18

Esther 2:1–18 ESV

After these things, when the anger of King Ahasuerus had abated, he remembered Vashti and what she had done and what had been decreed against her. Then the king’s young men who attended him said, “Let beautiful young virgins be sought out for the king. And let the king appoint officers in all the provinces of his kingdom to gather all the beautiful young virgins to the harem in Susa the citadel, under custody of Hegai, the king’s eunuch, who is in charge of the women. Let their cosmetics be given them. And let the young woman who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti.” This pleased the king, and he did so. Now there was a Jew in Susa the citadel whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, son of Shimei, son of Kish, a Benjaminite, who had been carried away from Jerusalem among the captives carried away with Jeconiah king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away. He was bringing up Hadassah, that is Esther, the daughter of his uncle, for she had neither father nor mother. The young woman had a beautiful figure and was lovely to look at, and when her father and her mother died, Mordecai took her as his own daughter. So when the king’s order and his edict were proclaimed, and when many young women were gathered in Susa the citadel in custody of Hegai, Esther also was taken into the king’s palace and put in custody of Hegai, who had charge of the women. And the young woman pleased him and won his favor. And he quickly provided her with her cosmetics and her portion of food, and with seven chosen young women from the king’s palace, and advanced her and her young women to the best place in the harem. Esther had not made known her people or kindred, for Mordecai had commanded her not to make it known. And every day Mordecai walked in front of the court of the harem to learn how Esther was and what was happening to her. Now when the turn came for each young woman to go in to King Ahasuerus, after being twelve months under the regulations for the women, since this was the regular period of their beautifying, six months with oil of myrrh and six months with spices and ointments for women— when the young woman went in to the king in this way, she was given whatever she desired to take with her from the harem to the king’s palace. In the evening she would go in, and in the morning she would return to the second harem in custody of Shaashgaz, the king’s eunuch, who was in charge of the concubines. She would not go in to the king again, unless the king delighted in her and she was summoned by name. When the turn came for Esther the daughter of Abihail the uncle of Mordecai, who had taken her as his own daughter, to go in to the king, she asked for nothing except what Hegai the king’s eunuch, who had charge of the women, advised. Now Esther was winning favor in the eyes of all who saw her. And when Esther was taken to King Ahasuerus, into his royal palace, in the tenth month, which is the month of Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign, the king loved Esther more than all the women, and she won grace and favor in his sight more than all the virgins, so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. Then the king gave a great feast for all his officials and servants; it was Esther’s feast. He also granted a remission of taxes to the provinces and gave gifts with royal generosity.

The Nightmare Within the Fairy Tale

When I was a kid, I saw this story and I thought that it was like a fairy tale and there are certainly some elements that are like that in these verses. I think the Veggietales of Esther helped to create that mindset. You do have a young lady that is totally unknown to the world that is taken from the street, from poverty, and becomes queen. It’s almost like Cinderella but the story of Cinderella, the story of Aladdin is not happening on these pages. I know that there are several young girls in the world who look at what happens to Esther in this chapter and all they see is the story of a girl who becomes queen but there is a nightmare within this fairy tale. What we are going to see is why it is so important for us to understand the context of what we are reading. The first thing that I want you to notice is that Esther is a Jew living in Persia but she is not there by choice. At this point in history, the Jews have been removed from their own home and are now living in captivity in Persia. What happens for poor Esther is that the poor girl who has already been torn away from one home is torn away from another. Notice that nowhere in these verses does it say that Esther willingly went to the palace. Notice that it said in verse 8 that the young women were gathered in Susa. The king didn’t put out a notice for volunteers but we can assume that if officials saw a beautiful woman, they would take her to the palace. So, Esther, possibly by force, is removed from her home, from her family, she has already lost her parents and is now removed from the one family member she has left, and is forced into the palace of the king that is in charge of the very nation that forced her people to leave their home in the first place. Esther is a very beautiful woman and she is a kind woman and it is through her beauty and her personality that she is able to win the favor of Hegai. He is a eunuch that is in charge of the women that have been brought to the palace. However, even though she is winning the favor of those around her, she still has to hide who she truly is. Mordecai commands Esther to not reveal who she is or what people she is from because you have to understand, the Jews were not just visitors to this nation. In the eyes of the Babylonians and the Persians at first, these were unwanted guests that the king brought to humiliate and rule over. They are un-liked people and Mordecai knows that if Esther says who she really is, it’s not going to go well for her. One could argue that even if the nation didn’t dislike the people, they certainly were viewed as more of a nuisance than anything. Now I know that we want to think that when beautiful young Esther came before the queen, she was just so beautiful and so kind that the king’s heart grew three sizes that day and he was absolutely smitten and then we have this beautiful love story but that isn’t what happens. Esther is not in a beauty contest, this isn’t Persia’s Got Talent in the hopes that the person that is the most skillful wins the favor of the king. No what is happening here is that you have all these young women who spend 12 months getting ready to spend one night of passion with the king. The only competition that is happening in these verses is a sex competition. You have these young girls who are being prepped against their will for 12 months to spend one night with the king and maybe there is a chance that you will please him enough that he might remember your name. You give him what he wants and he sends you back and he waits for the next girl. In this story you have who knows how many young girls give something away to a man that was never going to love them. They do all they can to please this one person and they are lucky if they will even be remembered. That’s not love and as a dad with a daughter, that breaks my heart. I look at some of you young ladies that I have known now for years and I see and hear about the kind of guys you go for, and I hear what you feel like you need to do to keep them around, and let me tell you, you don’t need that. All of you, male or female, you are more than just a body, you are more than just what you can offer to someone else, you are created in the image of God. While sin may mar the image of God in you, sin cannot remove the image of God from you and no one can take that from you. If you need to put something out in order to keep that guy or girl, they ain’t worth it. We talked about this a bit last week, girls, you are far too valuable to settle for little boys. Guys this world needs men. Real, Godly men that love sacrificially and lead righteously. I love you guys far too much to just watch you throw something away because some little boy or little girl tells you that you need them and this is what you need to do in order to keep them. That’s crap. I’m getting sidetracked so back to Esther. Esther goes into the chamber of the king and bluntly, she wins the sex contest and she is placed on a throne with a crown on her head. Countless women are cast out and Esther is brought forth as queen. This young lady is an orphan, forced from her home twice, removed from her family, practically raped, and is now being paraded out as the one that pleased the king the best. So no, this is not the story of Aladdin. This isn’t the wonderful story of a street rat that won the heart of royalty and is now brought from obscurity to royalty. This is a heartbreaking tale of a young girl that is put in a position that she may never have wanted. But like I said last week, while God’s name may not be seen in this book, there is much that we can take from this book where God’s heart is clearly seen, especially in regards to what we know in the rest of Scripture. Last week we talked about the shortcomings of Ahasuerus and how Jesus is the greater king and I want us to highlight that again tonight.

The True Prince that Comes to Give and Not to Take

In Esther chapter 2, we see the story of a king that comes to take what he wants. We see a king that does not care about love but simply wants to be pleased. He wants to be wanted but more than that he wants to be desired. He takes what he wants without a second thought and once he gets what he wants he could care less about who you are. When it comes to the King of Kings, when it comes to Jesus Christ, we have a King that doesn’t come to take, He comes to give. He doesn’t come just to give a gift or a crown, He comes to give His very life! Jesus says in Mark 10:45 “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” You see it is our King who has come to not take what is solely pleasing to Himself, but to give His very self so that we could have Him forever. J.C. Ryle said, “By His death Jesus made a full and complete satisfaction for man’s countless transgressions. He bore our sin in His own body on the Tree. The Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all. When He died, He died for us. When He suffered, He suffered in our stead. When He hung on the cross, He hung there as our Substitute. When His blood flowed, it was the price of our souls.” In the story of Esther we see a story about a king that does nothing but take but at the heart of the Gospel we see a story about a greater king that does nothing but give. He gives His life, His blood, His righteousness so that we truly can be brought from obscurity to royalty and to a royalty that is everlasting in a kingdom that is everlasting. When we look at what God does for us through Christ, we see what is known in theology as the great exchange. We give Christ all of our sin, all our unrighteousness, all that is vile and dirty in us and in exchange, He gives us His sinlessness, His righteousness, His goodness. Esther gave to Ahasuerus the best of herself and he gave her the title of queen. Yet here we are giving our Lord the absolute worst of ourselves and He gives us the absolute best of Himself. He gives us a name and a kingdom, He gives us His very life! God truly does raise His people from total obscurity to everlasting royalty; from spiritual rags to spiritual riches that cannot be described and that will not be fully enjoyed until the life that is to come. Jesus Christ is the true loving King that has given everything for His bride so that He may love her purely and sacrificially. Men, be a husband like that. Women, look for that trait in your future husband. Sacrificial love is a greater show of power and strength because sacrifices will always cost more. Men can rule over their spouses with power and abuse but that is not strength. That is weakness and cowardice. As we see in Christ and His love for the church, true love is a sacrificing love but it does not sacrifice that needs of the other person. It is self-sacrificial. Jesus doesn’t sacrifice the life of the Church so that Christians can have everlasting life, He sacrifices His life so that Christians can live forever. When you look at marriage, when you look at your relationship, do you see a picture of Jesus? Because that is what our marriages and relationships need to represent. You may not be in a relationship yet, you probably aren’t thinking about marriage right now but as you grow up, keep these things in mind. You know what true, sacrificial love looks like because we see it in our King through what He has done for us. One last thing that I want to remind you of is that while Esther may have caught the eyes of the king through her beauty, what won her favor in the eyes of others was her heart. You may be the ugliest person in the world but what matters to the Lord is not what you look like on the outside, but what makes you who you are on the inside. The world looks at the external all the time but God looks to the heart. 1 Samuel 16:7 says, “But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” If you are hoping that your standing with God will be based on your outward appearance, outward success, outward abilities, you are looking in the wrong places. God often works in spite what we are capable of, in spite of what skills we have, to show that glory belongs to God alone. Psalm 147:10-11 says, “His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man, but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love.” Our physical qualities are not what God looks to. God looks to the hearts of men and women. James Montgomery Boice said, “There is nothing wrong with physical strength or beauty; God made them both. But physical things pass away, while the one who does the will of God lasts forever.” The time will come when you won’t look as good as you once did, you won’t be as strong or as fast as you once were or have as much money as you once had, those things will come and go. But it is what is on the inside that will last forever. It is that which you do in the name of God that will have truly lasting significance. What this reminds us then is that our heart matters. The things that we do and the intentions that we have matters. Where is your heart at right now? If you are a Christian or claim to be a Christian, what is it that drives what you do? Isaac Watts, one of the greatest hymn writers to have ever lived, said, “The Great God values not the service of men, if the heart be not in it: The Lord sees and judges the heart; he has no regard to outward forms of worship, if there be no inward adoration, if no devout affection be employed therein. It is therefore a matter of infinite importance, to have the whole heart engaged steadfastly to God.” God is not in the business of only wanting a part of you. He wants your whole heart. He wants all of you. Are you able to give Him that? Are you able to give Him your good and your bad so that you can follow Him? We serve an amazing King who gave us everything and the least that we can do is give Him our hearts. Do you think that you can do that? Let’s pray that we will be able to and then we will worship together.