Esther Part 1

Esther 4

Main Idea: God’s providence is always greater then our own longings

Hello Everyone!

Welcome to Junior High Youth Group!

It is awesome to be with you all!

In case you don’t know me, my name is Zach and I am the director of student ministries here at Bethel.

I am excited to be speaking with tonight, because we are going to be covering one of my favorite stories in Scripture.

Esther--

So if you have your Bibles we are going to be in Esther 4 tonight.

If you don’t have one that is okay, the words will be on the screen, but might I encourage you to bring your Bible with you.

It is important to see the text and read the text for yourself.

As you are finding Esther.

I want to ask you guys a question:

Have you ever left like you just didn’t belong somewhere?

Or that you didn’t understand why you were placed some where?

Like lets be real here, Have you ever thought, why was I born to this family, in Galesburg, IL? Like why here, and why now?

Me:

I would often ask these questions when I wasn’t really satisfied with where my life was.

I would be frustrated about work, when I worked at Hy-Vee and I would often ask God or even beg God to let me go somewhere else.

When I was about 23 I remember getting my own bakery with Hy-Vee.

I became a bakery manager at one of the worse stories in the QC.

Davenport #1— This was the first store in Davenport.

It was built on Rockingham Road and it still is there today.

I took of this position and I was hopeful that I could turn this around.

I’m a pretty optimistic person and I was expecting the bakery to turn around.

You see it would lose thousands of dollars every month.

And I was going to change that.

So I tried and I tried and I tried some more.

That still wound not happen— I was working about 60-70 hours every week.

I had people that would call in and since I was the manger a would have to cover their shift.

I remember getting to bed one night at 11pm to only be woken up at 1:30am from the store saying that my donut frier wasn’t there.

I was at the store by 2am worked all day, was about to leave then my closer called in sick.

So I stayed till 8pm.

It was awful.

And I quickly became burnt out and I wanted a change.

and in less then 2 months in I was looking for another bakery to jump too.

I was told no by my bosses bosses.

It was the worse.

And I recall praying to God ask him why here, why do you want me to be here?

I didn’t get it.

It was miserable.

And I remember God just telling me to be patient.

and see what I see.

And here is what God saw— a community that was run down, the people coming into the store were poor, they were the lease of these.

They were run down and beat down, our store would get people coming in and stealing stuff weekly.

You know what the people needed, someone to care and someone to love them.

And that included the workers as well.

The workers just needed someone to believe in them.

Why was I put there— to care for people, to be a light for people, to encourage people.

I learned so much from that store once I stopped fighting to get out.

We:

But when we are in the thick of a crappy situation we tend to complain and whine about not wanting to be there.

We long to be somewhere else.

We want to be anywhere else.

So what do we do, we try to make it happen on our own.

We take matters into our own hands.

We pray to God, God why am I here, when I long to be there.

God I can’t wait to leave this stupid town.

People really don’t like Galesburg and I have no idea why?

We go to God and say, God I hate my family, why am I part of this terrible family?

God help me get out of here.

And look God wants to hear from you, but has it ever crossed your mind that maybe God has you exactly where you are suppose to be?

Like God’s providence is greater than your own longings.

God’s providence is God's caring provision for his people as he guides them in their journey of faith through life, accomplishing his purpose in them.

Like maybe your purpose is to be right where you are.

And hearing that may be very discouraging, but what I want to show you today is how God used someone through his provision to save His people.

God:

So lets go to God’s word and read about Esther.

But before we do, lets talk about Esther first, because you may not be aware of who she is or why she is important.

Okay there are 5 people you will want to remember.

We have Ester that is simple— she would become queen.

Mordecai who is Esther’s cousin that is taking care of her.

King Ahasuerus but we are going to call him King Xerxes.

We have the former queen Vashti

And lastly we have Hamon— say boo Hamon.

Okay let me give you a run down.

King Xerxes was having a party, because he can.

He is the king of Persia.

and his queen is Veshti

So the king is having a 7 day party.

It is massive and fun.

At the end of it all he commands his queen to come before his friends so he can show her off.

She refuses.

Here is why this is a big deal.

The king is the most powerful person in the land and he commands armies and other people and if the queen stands up to him and refuses his command how long before others do that as well?

It is like if a parent doesn’t respect his spouse eventually the kids will see that and they too will not listen or respect the other parent.

So she openly defies the King.

The king says oh no honey not today!

He sends her away and because he is the king he gets to get a new queen.

So they pull all the women together and Esther finds favor with the King.

Esther and her cousin Mordecai are both jews who are living in Persia, this is a big deal because the Persian people were not the biggest fans of the jews.

So they kept their ethnicity quite.

She becomes the new queen.

All is well and happy!

Now one day Mordecai hears two of the kings men plotting to kill the king.

He tells Esther, Esther tells the king, the king then has these men hung for their act of treason.

And Esther tells the king that it was Mordecai that told her this.

The king’s officials wrote it down.

That was that.

Remember that for next week.

Now the part of the story that matters tonight.

King Xerxes promoted a dude named Hamon to be like his second in command.

Pretty sweet role.

Hamon was paraded around the city to which everyone bowed to him.

Well everyone expect Mordecai.

As a Jew he would only bow to God.

This makes Hamon so mad.

Hamon finds out that Mordecai is a Jew and persuades King Xerxes to allow him to destroy all the Jews in all of Persia.

The King agrees and Hamon send this out:

Esther 3:12–13 CSB

The royal scribes were summoned on the thirteenth day of the first month, and the order was written exactly as Haman commanded. It was intended for the royal satraps, the governors of each of the provinces, and the officials of each ethnic group and written for each province in its own script and to each ethnic group in its own language. It was written in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed with the royal signet ring. Letters were sent by couriers to each of the royal provinces telling the officials to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the Jewish people—young and old, women and children—and plunder their possessions on a single day, the thirteenth day of Adar, the twelfth month.

Now if you were a Jewish person, you saw this and you knew that a day was coming that they were literally going to have a Purge of all Jewish people.

This takes us to the response by Mordacai.

Esther 4:1–3 CSB

When Mordecai learned all that had occurred, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, went into the middle of the city, and cried loudly and bitterly. He went only as far as the King’s Gate, since the law prohibited anyone wearing sackcloth from entering the King’s Gate. There was great mourning among the Jewish people in every province where the king’s command and edict reached. They fasted, wept, and lamented, and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.

This was a big deal.

The Jewish people were wanted, and they were all going to be gathered up and killed.

So they wept, and prayed, and fasted for God to lift this command from the King.

Mordecai was greatly troubled, but notice how he did not flee.

I would have ran so fast.

If they told me hey we are going to gather you and your people up and kill you, I would be leaving so fast.

But Mordecai stayed.

And he was in such distress that people noticed and told the queen.

Esther 4:4–11 CSB

Esther’s female servants and her eunuchs came and reported the news to her, and the queen was overcome with fear. She sent clothes for Mordecai to wear so that he would take off his sackcloth, but he did not accept them. Esther summoned Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs who attended her, and dispatched him to Mordecai to learn what he was doing and why. So Hathach went out to Mordecai in the city square in front of the King’s Gate. Mordecai told him everything that had happened as well as the exact amount of money Haman had promised to pay the royal treasury for the slaughter of the Jews. Mordecai also gave him a copy of the written decree issued in Susa ordering their destruction, so that Hathach might show it to Esther, explain it to her, and command her to approach the king, implore his favor, and plead with him personally for her people. Hathach came and repeated Mordecai’s response to Esther. Esther spoke to Hathach and commanded him to tell Mordecai, “All the royal officials and the people of the royal provinces know that one law applies to every man or woman who approaches the king in the inner courtyard and who has not been summoned—the death penalty—unless the king extends the gold scepter, allowing that person to live. I have not been summoned to appear before the king for the last thirty days.”

Esther cares for her cousin and sends clothes for him which he doesn’t accept.

And then there is this back and forth with them between a mutual party.

You guys every do that before, like you get caught in the middle of two people having a conversation through you but not about you?

Like some girl is like hey can you tell Ryan that I think he’s cute and then ask him if he thinks I’m cute?

And you being the good friend goes to Ryan and you are all like hey Ryan do you think that Wendy’s cute?

And Ryan— he’s not very smart is like, uhhh whose Wendy, she sounds cute.

Yeah I think she is.

Like does Wendy like like me? or does she Like Like Like me?

And then you go back to Wendy and back and forth.

You get it.

But this conversation is a matter of life and death not over some dumb boy or girl.

And Mordecai comes up with a solution.

He says to the middle man to tell Esther to go to the King and ask him to reconsider.

But there is a problem with that, because you never went to the King, the King summoned you.

Not the other way around.

and if anyone was foolish enough to make their own appointment with the king they could be killed.

So Esther is weighing this option.

And she tells this to Mordecai and here is his response.

Esther 4:12–14 ESV

And they told Mordecai what Esther had said. Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. 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?”

He challenges Esther with something she may not have thought about.

This death sentence was for all the Jews and that included her.

But look at the trust of Mordecai.

He says look even if you don’t help the Jewish people.

God will rescue us.

And then he leaves her with one last nugget.

He says maybe God has you exactly where you are suppose to be.

For a time such as this.

As in you Esther have become queen to save the Jewish people.

This is enough to make her change her mind and then she decides to go to the king.

Esther 4:16–17 ESV

“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.” Mordecai then went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him.

God placed Esther in a very strategic place.

It was Him who put Esther as queen.

For a time such as this.

As we will read next week what happens next.

We can take away this principal this week.

That maybe God has put you in a place to best serve him, for a time such as now.

You:

It can be easy to always want to go go go.

And you may want to even move on or long to be somewhere else.

But what if God wants you to stay put.

I had a friend who came into my office one day and he was in this place.

He wanted to just leave and move on with everything.

He wasn’t married, and he longed for that.

He wanted kids and he longed for that.

And after many failed relationships he finally finally just had enough.

And he really had one foot in and one foot out.

So I encouraged him to pray about it and see where God would have you.

He ended up staying and getting a house.

I don’t know if you know this or not but once you get a house, you are locked in for a while.

So he was locked in, and with him staying it caused him to focus on what God would have him do.

I can now say that this man is married and they just had a sweet baby girl.

When you get to this place of longing to be somewhere else, you are forgetting to live.

God has called each one of us to live lives that are Gospel centered.

And maybe God has you exactly where you are suppose to be.

You want not like it, you may want something else, you may want something different but it is God’s plans that are better then ours.

God’s providence is always greater then our own longings.

I pray that you believe that.

Don’t get me wrong God may lead you from here as well, some day and I pray that you are obedient to that as well.

But for most of us in this room where we are currently has a lot to do with our parents.

And if they are staying then we are staying.

I say that if that is our fate, then make the most of it.

IF we are consistency looking for the next thing, and wanting the next thing we will find ourselves failing to live out our life right where God has us.

We:

If we all grasped this, I think it would it free up our mind.

As in in takes mental energy to build and dream of the future.

Again I think we should be looking at the future but not at the cost failing to live.

Esther was so scared to go before the King, she feared for her life.

She was happy with how things were, she was sad and deeply troubled for her cousin and the Jews, but was at first unwilling to do anything.

It was not until Mordecai said

Esther 4:14 ESV

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?”

Understand that God has you where you are for a reason.

What is that reason?

What are things that are happening in your life that maybe God is pushing you to help, to be a light, to encourage someone, or to create something.

Whatever it is a hope that we can live out the Gospel right where we are, because who knows maybe we were placed in Galesburg for a time such as this.

Let’s pray