Choose This Day Whom You Will Serve

Intro:

· The Wide-Mouthed Frog by Ana Martin Larrañaga- had an identity crisis. He hopped off to see the world.

· He met various animals and with pride and arrogance asked them who they were and what they ate. He asked a koala, a kangaroo, a possum, and an emu.

· All was well and good until he met a creature stretched out on the riverbank like a knobby brown log.

· In a big lazy smile, the knobby brown log answered that she was a crocodile and she ate big wide-mouthed frogs.

· Suddenly, the big-wide mouthed frog knew his place and in the narrowest smallest mouth you ever did see he responded that he was a small mouth frog and that he was gone!

· Who are you? Who do you belong to? What group do you attach to? You must choose!

· Esther had a bit of an identity crisis. Like the wide-mouthed frog she too finally met the knobby brown log. She will learn her spot in the pecking order is not actually at the top.

Read 1-3

· Who is Esther? Nobody seems to know. Is she a Gentile? A Pagan? Or is she a Jew?

o Mordecai knows she's a Jew. Nobody else does. Nobody even told her that her people were doomed. Why would she need to know? She doesn't if she is Persian. No big deal, right?

o She is still concerned for Mordecai, and doesn't like seeing him in mourning. They likely haven't seen each other in 5 years, since she became Queen.

Read 4-11

· Is she important to the king? Is she powerful? Nope.

o Identity Crisis

o Defining Moment

Read 12-17

3 Application Points:

God Always Keeps His Promises

· “14 For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place…”

· God is not mentioned here in this text, but Mordecai knows God’s faithfulness.

· God made a promise with the Jewish people, and Mordecai knows God will deliver on his promises, one way or another.

· Don’t think that God is dependent on you.

· God’s plan, his promises, do not hinge on you or me.

· He could have used another means, other than Esther.

God Delights to use Faith-filled Sinners

· 14 – “And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

· Notice- we don’t know that Esther actually had faith. She may have just been choosing the best of two really bad options, the lesser of two evils.

· She was a sinner – worked her way to the top, immorally; dressed like a pagan, and lived like a pagan Ate the king’s food.

· But we do know that God wanted to use her.

· God found great joy in using Esther to deliver God’s people.

· He used a murderer named Moses, a murder and an adulterer named David, a tax collector name Matthew, a terrorist named Saul, later Paul.

· God delights in using sinners to accomplish his promises. That’s good news for me and you!

· Trust him! Go in with faith!

· Their 3-day fast is the most Jewish thing we see in the whole book. We assume they were fasting and praying, but not certain.

You Must Choose Whom You Will Serve

· Esther had to choose whom she would ultimately identify with.

· Who will you identify with? A Political party? A mascot?

· Will you go with the flow of the King for a life of comfort?

· Or will you go against the grain, risking execution?

· Joshua told the Israelites years and years before to choose whom they would serve, and the challenge extends to today. Choose you this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.

I have decided to follow Jesus

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