Esther 2a Born For Destiny
Born For Destiny
Esther 2:1-20
This morning we have focused on two little children,
- two daughters,
o to precious gifts from God.
Parents dream about the potential future of their child,
“What is God’s plan for my child?”
But today’s lesson also speaks to everyone in this room;
No matter who you are,
No matter where you been
No matter how poor a start you might have made with your life.
God still has a plan for your life and wants to use you for His kingdom purposes.
Not only does God want to use you, it is often in the most routine days that His hand is revealed. Ordinary days become extraordinary – so pivotal, so different, they can change the course of our lives.
Enter onto the platform of our story today the character of Mordecai and Esther.
Look at their background. First they are captives in a foreign land.
History of Jews in Persia;
Many years before Esther, the Jews had a civil war and the country divided into the Northern Kingdom called Israel and the Southern Kingdom called Judah.
God judged the Northern Kingdom for unfaithfulness and sent the armies of Assyria against them. As a result the Jews of the Northern Kingdom went into bondage.
More than a 100 years later, God brought a similar judgment against the Jews in the Southern Kingdom.
Young Jeconiah had been the king of Judah for only 3 months when Nebuchadnezzar invaded and deported him to Babylon. 11 years later Nebuchadnezzar returned and destroyed Jerusalem and carried most of the Jews into captivity.
Later, Babylon itself was defeated by the armies of the Medo-Persians. In 539B.C. Exerses (in Hebrew: Ahasuerus) became king of the vast Persian Empire. And now the book of Esther begins.
Mordecai:
Vs. 5,6
Mordecai was a descendant of those exiled Jews. He was a godly man. We will see his influence throughout the story of Esther. But his most significant role was his relationship to his cousin Esther. Let’s meet her now.
Esther: (vs. 7)
Esther is her Persian name meaning “star” and indeed she becomes the star of our story.
Her Jewish name, Hadassah, means “myrtle” – a lowly and fragrant shrub.
As a little girl she was orphaned - her mother and father had died.
Remember she is also a lowly Jew living in exile in the great and godless land of Persia.
I can imagine, Esther, as a little girl, crying her heart out at the death of her parents.
What an unlikely choice for someone to change the course of history for the Chosen People of God.
Yet that is our God; working silently and invisibly behind the scenes; taking the broken and crushed of this world and works His purposes out.
Mordecai, her older cousin, chose to raise this orphaned girl and brought her into his home.
Last week:
The Persian King Exerses threw an elaborate a ½ year banquet to show off his wealth and power to the nobles of the kingdom and then concludes inviting everybody to a 7-day feast. He is now drunk as he commands his wife, Queen Vashti, to come and display herself in front of his guests. She bravely refuses and he deposes her, banishing her from his presence.
In the time interval between chpt 1 & 2.
Four years have passed between the deposing of the Queen in chpt. 1 and the search for a new Queen in chapter 2.
We have to look to secular historians to discover what happened during those years.
We learn that King Exerses made an ambitious attempt to conquer Greece. But it failed miserably.
The king returns to his palace dispirited by defeat.
We can imagine him longing for someone to personally care for him and his feelings at this time of defeat and loneliness.
It seems he now regrets his action of chapter one in deposing his queen.
Now his advisers recommend a plan to seek for a new wife.
They say in effect: “We’ll comb all 127 provinces, and we’ll bring in every beautiful young virgin we find. We’ll even let them enhance that beauty with cosmetics.”
What they were suggesting is what we call today a beauty contest. Let’s have a contest to find “Miss Persia”. And the prize: the winner will become the queen of Persia!
What elaborate beauty preparations!
(This is not the lesson from Esther I want to bring forward for women today!)
(If you want a prince of a husband start your beauty treatments now!)
They spent one year preparing these women, polishing up their outward appearance, to enhance their physical beauty.
In vs. 8, our story tells us they discovered Esther and took her to the palace to join the others in the contest. The verb indicates that she is taken somewhat reluctantly. Esther is not caught up in the competitive spirit of this beauty pageant. She goes but it is not her choice.
Imagine the petty rivalries, the in-fighting, the envy, and the jealously among those women vying for the place of recognition as most beautiful.
Imagine how tough it would be to maintain spiritual equilibrium when everything and everyone around you is emphasizing only the condition and shape of your body and the beauty of your face.
How demeaning!
How temporary and empty!
Yet in the midst of all this, Esther’s true beauty emerges.
This morning we want to learn from Esther not how to enhance outward beauty but how to cultivate inner beauty.
We want to discover some lessons as to the ingredients that made Esther a beautiful person her inner character.
1) Esther exhibited a grace-filled charm and elegance. (vs. 8b,9)
Lit. “She lifted up grace before his face.”
She does not display a sour attitude.
Instead she models grace before the face of the king’s influential servant, Hegai.
Her inner qualities captured his attention. And he chose to give her first attention and to provide her with anything she desired.
2) Esther exhibited an unusual restraint and control
(vs 10)
Esther told no one she was Jewish. Why? Because that is what Mordecai instructed her to do. She knew how to control her tongue. Her inner beauty included the art of respecting her guardian’s advice and keeping secret her ancestry.
3) Esther sustained a continually teachable spirit. (vs. 10, 20)
By vs. 20, Esther has been chosen by the king. Still she listened to her cousin Mordecai and learned from him.
Even though she is now in a high position in the courts of Persia, she still remains teachable.
How beautiful it is to find a servant-hearted, teachable spirit among those who occupy high-profile positions of authority.
Learning from our children.
Learning from our friends.
Learning even from our enemies.
How difficult it is to relate with someone who feels they have reached a position of consummate authority.
How beautiful to meet a person with a teachable spirit.
4) Esther exhibited an unselfish modesty and authenticity. (vs. 12-15)
Esther had no driving ambition to be queen. Therefore she was able to enter the king’s presence without fear.
Her life did not revolve around her physical appearance of making a king happy.
She was there for one reason: because she knew that the hand of God was on her life, and through the circumstances and Mordecai’s wisdom, she had been brought to this place for a reason.
She knew where she was coming from.
She knew who she was.
She knew what she believed.
And she knew God’s hand was on her life.
If it was His pleasure that she be here,
If it was part of His plan,
Then she would willingly accept it.
If not, she would willingly relinquish it.
She was modest about her own person and she was authentic.
5) Esther modeled a kind of winsomeness, regardless of her surroundings. (15-17)
Clearly, Esther had something about her that caused everyone to ‘favor’ her, from the king to the women in the harem who were competing against her for his attention and affections.
Webster’s dictionary describes winsomeness as: “being pleasant, delightful, attractive in a sweet and engaging way.”
A person who is winsome draws you to him or her. We are intrigued by that person’s charming and gracious spirit.
6) Esther displays a humble respect for authority. (18,20)
Many people seem to think that when you marry you no longer need to remember parental advice.
Or that when you get out on your own, you’re totally and completely on your own.
You think for yourself,
And do whatever you want.
Yet here we see that Esther, even in becoming the queen of the land, remembered the wisdom of her guardian and willingly considered his counsel.
What wonderful characteristics!
That’s what I want for my children.
That’s what I pray for my own life.
Yet for some here this morning, you might be saying to yourself, these qualities are unattainable for me.
But not so with God.
How to be a MODERN-DAY ESTHER.
Do you feel it’s not possible for you?
Learn this from Esther:
1) God’s plans are not hindered when the events of this world are carnal or secular.
2) God’s purposes are not frustrated by moral or marital failures.
3) God’s people are not excluded from high places because of handicap or hardship.
Esther, a Jew exiled in a foreign land, orphaned, far removed from being a candidate for Persian nobility.
Yet that does not stop God. He exalted her to the position he wanted her.
Don’t take your cue from the world. > defeat and frustration.
Yes, you as an individual have your own pressures,
your own difficulties,
your own unique circumstances,
but God offers ways to handle them and to become His special person.
1) Ask God
Ask God to give you:
A discontent with the superficial
And a deeper desire for the spiritual.
Make yourself available to His strength,
His reproofs.
Seek His counsel for the things you lack.
2) Trust God.
Trust Him to control the circumstances around you – those very circumstances that perhaps you are using as an excuse for not being the person you want to be.
Don’t wait for your circumstances to be perfect – they never will be!
Trust Him for:
Eternal life,
Forgiveness,
Character,
Security.
3) Start where you are right now.
Where are you today on your journey?
Are you discounting the significance of your days?
Are you sighing rather than singing?
Are you wondering what good can come from all that you have to live with?
The kids you can’t handle?
A marriage that lacks harmony?
The pressures that seem to have no purpose?
Whether you see Him or not, God is at work in your life at this very moment.
God specializes in turning the mundane into the meaningful.
God not only moves in unusual ways,
He also moves on uneventful days.
He is just as involved in the mundane things as He is in the miraculous.
Let us remain pure and committed to the things of God and His work in our lives – even in the midst of our usual days.
Let us remain sensitive to His hand moving in carnal, secular, even drunken places.
Then we can bring hope to this broken world.
Starting today, this no-big-deal day, that perhaps seems so ordinary, so commonplace, ask God and trust God.