Defining Moments - Esther 4

Introduction

Last Sunday, Logan proposed Haleigh, and it made me think of when I proposed to Megan. Like Logan, I remember being so nervous and so excited at the same time, and it made me realize all that happened as a result of that single decision. Being married to Megan has made me a better man, a happier man, and a healthier man. She’s been my chief advisor in life and ministry. She’s taught me so many things and helped me through so many hard times. It’s hard to even comprehend what my life would be like if she hadn’t been a part of it for the last 21 years. And to think, it came down to a single decision in a single moment.

All of us face defining moments in our lives, don’t we? Moments that will ultimately shape who we become and where we go. Some of those, like choosing to marry, are decisions that we make. Others are cast upon us without a say. When your company closes or the housing market tanks or biopsy comes back positive. But, either way it comes about, you know that these moments will define what the future of your life will be.

God’s Word

Esther finds herself in a defining moment in chapter 4. She recognizes that nothing about her life will ever be the same after she makes the decision that faces her. And, Esther’s defining moment shows us “How to Interpret Defining Moments: (Headline)”

Defining moments “make” us “desperate” for God.

Esther 4:1–3 “When Mordecai learned all that had been done, Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and he cried out with a loud and bitter cry. He went up to the entrance of the king’s gate, for no one was allowed to enter the king’s gate clothed in sackcloth. And in every province, wherever the king’s command and his decree reached, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting and weeping and lamenting, and many of them lay in sackcloth and ashes.”

Joel 2:12–14 ““Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God?”

Every day is the worst day of someone’s life, and every day it’s the best day of someone’s life. Ministry confronts you with this reality as you may grieve with a family at the funeral home and celebrate with another family in Labor and Delivery all in the same day. For Mordecai and his Jewish relatives, Esther 4 shows us the worst day.

The edict has gone out from Haman and sealed by the king that they are supposed to all be murdered by their fellow countrymen. A bounty is on their heads. So, Mordecai shreds his clothes and grieves out loud. The picture is of an entire nation of people weeping and wailing. Can you imagine the shrills and screams that would fill the streets if a nuclear warhead was on an unstoppable route to decimate the Southeast? That’s the picture here.

Bad times teach us that we “aren’t” God.

What we’re seeing here is an outward display of grief. Ancients were far more open with expressing their emotions than moderns. They displayed their grief in their clothes and cries. Inwardly and outwardly they were integrated with the experience of pain. And, what is grief? Grief is grappling with our inability to control what we wish we could control. None of us would allow ourselves to experience grief if we were God. The denial, anger, bargaining, and depression that come with grief are all the process necessary for us to ultimately accept that we can’t control the uncontrollable.

In that way, bad times, defining moments in which we deal with intense grief, teach us the limits of our control. They remind us that we’re not God, and that we need Him. And, that’s been the point. Remember the author of Esther likes to tell us something without telling us directly. He prefers subtlety. And, that’s the case again here. Notice the phrase “fasting and weeping and lamenting.” Remember that in Esther God’s name is never used, and faith in God is never expressed explicitly by his people. But, this is explicit enough.

Bad times teach us that we “need” God.

First of all, “fasting” is almost always combined with “praying” in the Bible. So, the implication is that God’s people are finally seeking after Him. But, it goes even further. You see, this exact phrase is copy and pasted from Joel 2. And, it’s meant to show that God’s means of working in the hearts of his people has been effective. What was the purpose of their exile? Well, what is the purpose of the discipline of your children? It was to show them they are more loved than they realized and they are better cared for than they understand. So, they should stop trying to go their own way, and trust God’s way. God says, “Rend your hearts and not your garments.” That is, let your hearts be torn, not just your clothes. Then, remember who I am. I’m “gracious and merciful and slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” So, remember who you are — you’re not God and you’re not in control. And then, remember who I am, and come back to me so that I can take care of you.

God was allowing his people to taste their weakness so that they would recognize the source of their strength. He was making them desperate for God again.

God loves you too much to let you just go through the motions with him. That’s not what’s best for you. It’s not good for you to believe that it’s best for you to be in control. So, He’ll let you be brought to the end of yourself so that you’ll be desperate for him once again. If you think back to the times you’ve been most desperate for God, the times you’ve prayed most passionately, the times you’ve thrown yourself entirely upon him, I bet most of those experiences happened in the worst of times. They happened when you thought your wife was going to die or when you realized that you couldn’t fix the mess you’d made with your life or when your x-rays showed a shadow. They happened when your kid turned away and wouldn’t come back. But, you know, I bet if I asked you for the deepest experiences of God’s love that you’ve known, most of you would take me to those exact same times. God uses defining moments to make us desperate for him.

Are you desperate for God this morning? Well, you wouldn’t have allowed yourself grief if you were God, but God became a “man of sorrows” so that you could have access to him. He joined you in your grief so that when you cried out in desperation, you’d know you’re never alone. Won’t you come to him?

Defining moments “show” us the “wisdom” of God.

Esther 4:8–11 “Mordecai also gave him a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for their destruction, that he might show it to Esther and explain it to her and command her to go to the king to beg his favor and plead with him on behalf of her people. And Hathach went and told Esther what Mordecai had said. Then Esther spoke to Hathach and commanded him to go to Mordecai and say, “All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law—to be put to death, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter so that he may live. But as for me, I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days.””

Divine providence is the convergence of God’s power and God’s wisdom. God is able to do whatever He please, and God is always pleased to do what is best. But, there are times when we look at where we are, wishing were virtually anywhere else, and wonder how in the world God could think it’s wise.

Consider how Esther got to where she was. Her parents died, and she had to live with Mordecai. Where’s God’s wisdom in that? Vashti embarrasses the king, and Ahasuerus decides to renovate his harem. So, Esther moves out of Mordecai’s house and in the King A’s harem. Where’s God’s wisdom there? Well, now, the grainy picture is starting to come into focus. All of God’s promises are in peril. God’s people are under threat. The king is unapproachable and unreachable. Well, except God has someone on the inside.

God “always” puts you in the “right” place.

Esther is exactly where she needs to be to do exactly what God has her to do. And, it’s important for you to see that all of her life has led her to this single moment. Every tear she’s cried. Every loss she’s known. Every disappointment she’s faced. All of them were included in the providence of God who was directing her life by his all-powerful, all-wise hand. And, the same is true for you. Your circumstances are beyond your control, but they aren’t outside of God’s wisdom. But, you know, when Esther’s parent’s died or when she was “taken” from Mordecai’s house into King A’s harem, it didn’t feel wise. Providence is like a Hebrew word. It can only be read backwards.

The “right” place is often a “hard” place.

God always puts you in the right place, but, sometimes, the right place is a hard a place. I can’t imagine Esther liked where she was. We see the word “favor” here again. Esther knew that begging for a Persian king’s “favor”was an exercise in futility. It would likely cost her life. But, the point of using this word was to remind her again of what Joel had prophesied: “God was abounding in steadfast love.” Again, it’s the same word. So, the point is that she’s exactly where she needs to be do what she needs to do even though where she is an extremely hard place to be and what she needs to do is an extremely hard thing to do.

Modern Christianity seems to favor the idea that easy and smooth must mean that God is in it. We tell people that God will always open the door. But, God doesn’t always open a door. Sometimes, He tells you to jump out of the window. There were two protestant Moravians, John Leonhard Dober and David Nitschman, who became heartbroken over the African slaves dying without hope in the 1700’s. The petitioned to be able to go to the West Indies and minister to the slave, but they were denied. Most of us would simply say, “Well, God closed the door.” Not Dober and Nitschman. They, instead, approached a slave owner boarding his ship, and sold themselves into slavery. And so, they ministered to the slaves as slaves. And, that ought to remind us of the cross. In fact, the motive they gave was: “May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of his suffering.” The cross was a hard place, but it was the right place. And, that’s the shape of our lives.

Defining moments are often the hardest moments, but a really hard place can be the right place to see a great movement of God. You see, it’s often on the other side of the hardest seasons that we’re able to see most clearly the wisdom of God. So, divine providence invites us to bold faith. If providence is the convergence of God’s power and wisdom, then faith is trusting his wisdom and depending on his power to live our lives, especially when they’re at their hardest.

Esther and the Moravians and the cross all ask the same question: Will you trust God and depend upon God in your defining moments? Or, will you keep waiting for open doors and miss it?

You see…

Defining moments “call” us to the “will” of God.

Esther 4:14–16 “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?” Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, “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.””

we’re tempted to think that nothing we do matters. Sometimes, when we think of providence and we think of how God is powerfully and wisely running the universe according to his plans, we’re tempted to believe that we’re just little puppets operating to our fatalistic ends and that our decisions are unimportant. But, Mordecai has the right view of God’s sovereignty.

Key in on verse 14. It is one of the most helpful verses in all the Bible in understanding the harmony of God’s sovereignty and man’s agency. Mordecai is saying: “God’s put in the right place. You’re in the palace, and it’s not accident. “Deliverance will rise for the Jews” from one “place” or another. God is actually referred to in some rabbinical writings as “the Place.” So, again, God’s name is not used, but God is not missing. Salvation isn’t coming from Esther. It’s coming from God. But, God has Esther in the right place to do through her what He’s planned to do. And, she’s accountable to do it. Mordecai says, “You can be used greatly by God or you can be judged and disciplined by God.” The Jews salvation isn’t in question. You’re role in it is in question. So, what are you going to do here?

Not just “taken,” but “sent.”

When Mordecai asks whether God has allowed her to experience all she’s experienced “for such a time as this,” he’s recalling all of her story. And, it’s a beautiful juxtaposition to what we saw in chapter two. In chapter two, we saw that Esther has had virtually no say in her life until this point. Remember we emphasized the word “taken” on Easter. She was “taken” into Mordecai’s house b/c her parents died, and then she was “taken” by King A from Mordecai’s place. But now, she’s no longer in a passive position. Mordecai wants her to see that she wasn’t “taken” by King A. She was sent by God. Right here, right now, in this defining moment she has to decide, not just what she will do, but who she is. Is she preeminently the queen of Persia or a child of God? Now, she has to decide what she’s goin Is she Esther or Hadassah? She’s been living with her feet in both world, sometimes Jewish, often times Persian. For the last five years, she’s been immersed in Persia as the queen. Is she God’s child living for God’s will, or is she the Persian Queen living for the easiest life she can find?

Not just “what will you do”, but “who will you be?”

And, in your defining moments, that’s what you’re deciding — not just what you’re going to do, but who you’re going to be. Some of them are big and you know it. Who will you be when you graduate and go to college? Who will you marry and what kind of husband/wife will you be? How will you respond on the worst day of your life, the day that one of your dreams dies or the day that you realize your child will live with a permanent disability? But, you know, there are other defining moments that are just as important though they may not feel as big. Will you cheat on the test or on your taxes or on your wife? Will you manipulate the time clock or secretly watch pornography? Recognize that in those moments, those defining moments, you are deciding who you are. What will you do?

Well, Esther faithfully, if not reluctantly says, “If I perish, I perish” and she embraces God’s will for her life, even if it means that it will cost her life. But, she leaves us longing for a greater King to deliver us, doesn’t she? A king that isn’t so reluctant. A King who embraces his death by decisively choosing the cross so that we could live. You see, if we follow Jesus, we’ll follow him all the way to God’s will, even when God’s will is a cross.