Live Like a Leader - Esther

The past couple of weeks we have been talking about leadership. Everyone is a leader in some way. We’ve been talking about leadership through the experience of characters from the Bible. We talked about Daniel and his disciplined life the first week. Last week we talked about the heart/character of David. This week we’re going to be talking about the story of Esther. To do so, I’m going to have some helpers help me act this out. Let’s set the stage.

The Setting: Persia

Persian capital Susa

After Israel’s Kings

Jews are all over the place in Exile.

Takes place a hundred or so years AFTER Daniel.

Persia conquers babylon

The Characters

This is not rehearsed. They are gonna do what I tell them as I narrate. Sound good? Good!

Esther

introduce Esther. She waves/smiles like a Queen/beauty pageant contestant

Obviously our main character. Esther is a Jew. She very quickly in our story today becomes Queen of Persia.

Mordecai

introduce Mordecai. He is humble/friendly.

Mordecai is also a Jew. He is Esther’s cousin. Esther’s parents weren’t alive so he took her in as his own.

Haman

introduce Haman. He is the evil bad guy.

Haman is NOT a jew. he is an evil Politician. He’s power hungry and will do terrible things for more power.

King Ahasueras (a.k.a. King Xerxes)

(A-has-shoe-wear-us)introduce the King. He is friendly. He is a stiff politician. Waves like the president. Flirty.

This is king Ahasueras or king Xerxes. He’s alright. Very powerful man. He made some bad choices, some choices. He definitely had some personal issues. He just fired his queen. She didn’t do what he asked so..he took her authority as Queen away. so now he is single.

The People

That’s the rest of us! Some of you are Jews. Y’all are from all over the place.

The Story

Let’s get started. Just a heads up. I’m summarizing like 10 chapters today. You should read this story yourself sometime! Also, this is a serious lesson/story that we’re gonna make goofy, but promise me that you’ll see the serious stuff that’s happening here.

Esther Becomes Queen

so the KING needs a QUEEN. He just had to fire/divorce his wife. So basically they pretty much have one epic season of the Bachelor: Persia Edition. Women from all over the country are handpicked to be candidates. ESTHER is chosen to be a candidate. These candidates go through an entire year of spa treatment getting the beautification they desire to be ready to meet the King.

The time comes for Esther to meet the King. When the KING sees ESTHER he thinks she is the most beautiful woman ever and makes her his wife/Queen. (KING propose to ESTHER). AND they lived happily ever after. Eh…not really. Let’s go on to the next scene.

Haman wants to kill the Jews

I told you about Haman. He works for the KING. He’s the kings right hand man. The king gives him so much power that he commands all the people to bow before Haman. SO people, let’s stand up. As Haman walks by, let’s bow before him. BUT WAIT! Not everyone bows. Mordecai does NOT bow down. this makes Haman angry. (pouty face). Haman finds out that M is a Jew. He goes to the KING and tells the KING that the Jews are dangerous for the kingdom and they should be eliminated. the KING is like “sure, okay, whatever. Sounds good pal!” This make M and the Jews among the people panic! M knows he must do something!

Mordecai and Esther make a plan to save the Jews

they plan that Esther will go to the KING. This is a big deal, because in their culture, the Queen could only go to the KING when HE asks her to come to him. She just cant go anytime she wants. She could get killed for going into his throneroom. However, the king may decide to welcome her and give her mercy if he chooses. So M and E take a huge leap of faith and decide to risk it.

Esther goes before the KING!! The KING welcomes her! (phew). He knows that she is there to ask him for something. He’s like, what do you want? I’ll give you anything up to half of my kingdom! Longer story short, she asks if she can throw a party/feast and there she’ll tell the KING what she wants.

There she tells the King that her people are in danger of being sold off as slaves and killed. The KING is outraged! He’s like whose plan is this?! Esther tells the King it was Haman! The KING is furious at Haman. He reverses the order and protects the Jews.

The Jews are saved

Yay! Haman doesn’t have a happy ending. He gets hung on the gallows he was building to kill the Jews on. Yikes.

Mordecai gets promoted.

Esther - she was part of God’s plan to save the Jews. Remember, Jesus was a Jew. It was the Jewish culture that Jesus grew up in. Throughout history God has chosen the Jewish people as his people. As Christians we are the “new Jews, new Israel”.

Give our cast a big round of applause!

What do we learn from Esther?

Esther teaches us about human participation in God’s plan. God is the hero! Esther is a helper. We need to be more like Esther. She was faithful and obedient to God. When she saw an opportunity to do something tough/difficult that she knew god wanted her to do, she took the opportunity. She could have died! God was at work! She recognized it. Just like Esther, we need to do what God is doing.

Do what God is doing

Just like thousands of years ago in the Bible stories, God is still active and involved in the world. He doesn’t need us for anything. However, our purpose our meaning comes from doing what God wants. We can live a comfortable life and never be satisfied or we can live for God and have purpose.

Ephesians 2:10 CSB

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.

God is at work in this community, in this church, at your school, in your home. God is up to something! He’s working! He’s making the world better. He’s pulling people closer to him. He is love in action. We need to see! We need to see what God is doing. Then we need to do what God is doing.