Overview of Esther
Esther was an unlikely queen.
She lived in Persia when King Xerxes reigned. Esther was an orphaned daughter of Jewish
parents and was raised by her uncle Mordecai. As the years passed, Esther grew
into a stunningly beautiful woman.
After King Xerxes banished his first queen for disobedience, he
ordered his officers to bring all the beautiful young women of the land into
his harem as he wanted to select a new queen. Because of her beauty, Esther was
taken into Xerxes palace. When she
entered the palace, her uncle told her to keep her Jewish heritage a secret.
-
Esther was an orphan. She didn’t lose one parent, she lost both. She wasn’t in her 20s, 30s, 40s or 50s. It is believe that she was around 13 yrs old when this story took place
- Because of her beauty, she was taken in to the palace to be a part of the king’s harem. This isn’t necessarily a positive situation. When she entered the place, she lost all her freedom. She now belonged to the king. If she wasn’t selected to be queen, she would stay as part of his harem. That’s not a situation you want to find yourself in. Esther needed to compete with hundreds of other beautiful young women for the attention of the King.
- She was a Jew that couldn’t live out her heritage and faith. Her uncle told her to keep it a secret. Why? We are not sure but I am prone to think it had to do with protecting her and giving her a chance to be selected without being bias.
Put yourself in her shoes… Most likely Esther felt lost and alone
when she entered into the palace. She
had no fellowship with likeminded people, no chance to attend the synagogue or
hear the sacred scrolls. She was no
longer with the only person she knew to be family – her uncle but instead, she
found herself surrounded by hundreds of beautiful women, all competing
desperately to win the king’s favor. I
am not a competitive person so that right there would make me want to toss the
towel in… for a young Jewish girl from a humble background; it must have been a
huge culture shock.
By the grace of God, Esther (who is now 14 yrs old) found favor in
the king’s eyes. She was crowned queen of Persia. Because of her uncle’s advice, she never
revealed her Jewish heritage. Like all
good stories, beneath the swirling events taking place in the royal court,
trouble was brewing.
So what was brewing? Mordecai
(Esther’s uncle) refused to bow to a powerful politician named Haman. Haman
(being a proud and arrogant man) became offended and enraged. As a result, Haman decided to punish
Mordecai and his
entire people. After getting approval from the king, Haman arranged for all the
Jews in the land to be killed.
Desperate, Mordecai tore his clothes put on sackcloth and ashes (a
sign of mourning) and went out into the city wailing loudly and bitterly. Other Jews joined him in fasting, weeping and
wailing as well as wearing sackcloth and ashes.
As a result, word reached Esther in the palace that Mordecai was causing
a “scene”. She asked why he was doing this and he explained the dire situation
and pleaded that Esther go before the king and intercede for her people.
At first, Esther refused. After all, the king had not summoned her
for thirty days. What if he was angry with her? If she simply walked into his
throne room, she risked immediate death. But Mordecai appealed to her with a
heart-wrenching plea. Humbled, the queen
sent word back to Mordecai. She would go in to the king. “And if I perish, I
perish.”
Esther (after much prayer and fasting) comes up with a wise and
strategic plan. When she approached the
king, instead of the King becoming angry and ordering her to be put to death,
scripture says the King was pleased with her and held out his royal scepter and
offered her anything she wanted. Esther
courageously initiates her strategic plan and invites the king and Haman to -
not just one banquet but two!. It is
during the second banquet that she begs the king to spare her people’s lives.
My focus this morning is not on Esther’s plan. Suffice to say, King
Xerxes granted her request. Haman was
punished, the Jews were saved and Mordecai was promoted.
What does this account of Queen Esther teach us? I want to focus on today on how she got to
the point where she got the courage to go to the king.
In chapter 4, Esther asked why Mordecai was making a
scene at the city gates and he explained to her that Hamon is going to kill all
the Jews and pleaded that Esther go before the king and intercede for her
people. Esther responds - verse
11 “All the
king’s officials and the people of the royal provinces know that for any man or
woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned the
king has but one law: that they be put to death unless the king extends the
gold scepter to them and spares their lives. But thirty days have passed since
I was called to go to the king.”
1.
At some point in all of our lives, each of us
are going to be put in difficult situations where we have to make tough choices
and do hard things. Are we ready?
Esther was asked by Mordecai to do
something extremely hard. It wasn’t just
extremely hard – Mordecai was asking Esther to risk her life. Can you image the fear and anxiety that ran
through her body? We may not be asked to
risk our lives but I can guarantee we all will find ourselves in positions
where we need to make difficult choices
and do hard things.
For some of us, these situations can be extremely hard.
·
For me, it was living a life of
singleness. The death of the dream of
getting married and having babies in my 20s and 30s.
·
Staying in a hard marriage.
·
Putting up with a difficult boss.
·
Not being able to have kids.
·
Being single and raising kids on your own.
·
Maybe you are dealing with a rebellious
child.
·
Care of your elderly parents and making
decisions about their health and well-being.
·
Maybe you or your loved one has health
concerns.
·
Maybe you need to walk away from an unhealthy
friendship.
·
Maybe you need to forgive someone that you
don’t think deserves your forgiveness.
·
Maybe you and/or your loved ones are dealing
with strongholds that have been gripping you and your family for years –
depression, anxiety, drugs, alcohol, and anger.
·
Maybe it is time to deal with that family
secret that no one talks about.
·
Maybe it is time for drawing a line and saying
generational sins will not have a place in your home and in your marriage etc.
We find ourselves in hard situations… many hard situations have
serious consequences as a result. What
are we going to do when faced with a hard situation. Are we going to run and hide? Are we going to avoid it? Before Esther went before the King, I want
you to note that she first pushes back and reminded Mordecai “look – what you
are asking me to do – it will most likely kill me!”
What was Mordecai response - “…Do not
think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will
escape. For if you remain silent at this
time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but
you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come
to your royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:13-14)
Mordecai was saying… Look Esther - Let me remind you, who you
are. You are a Jew. This decree includes you. Don’t think you will escape this just because
you live in the palace. You may remain
silent but when they find out you are a Jew, they will kill you. Mordecai also reminded her of who her God
was. God will deliver the Jews – if not
you then someone else. And then he ends
it with - maybe, just maybe you have been placed where you are for “such a time
as this.” Mordecai “kicked her in her
royal butt”
2.
I want to encourage you that when facing a
difficult situation, it is important to remember who you are and who God
is. It is also important to remember that
God may just be calling you to rise up to the occasion. He may be calling you “for such a time as
this!”
Maybe, just maybe God has you in a
tough situation to be the deliverance for someone else?
·
How often do we get caught up in our own
situations that we forget how big our God is and that His ways are so much bigger
than ours?
·
We need to remember who we belong to.
·
Claim God’s promises. Scripture says “All His promises are yes and
Amen.” If we are children of God, He
will provide deliverance for us. It may
not be in the form of deliverance we want, but His ways are greater than
ours.
·
Maybe God has called you for such a time as
this.
·
Are you being called to bring healing?
·
To restore a broken relationship?
·
Change the cycle of sin?
Esther’s response “Go, gather together
all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for
three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. When this is
done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I
perish, I perish.”
Before Esther went in to see the king, she instructed Mordecai to
gather all the Jews of Susa. She wanted them to fast and pray for God’s
intervention. And she and her maids did the same. Esther
knew that she couldn’t do this in her own strength. She needed to rely on God and others. I want you to note that her attitude also
changed. She surrendered to situation. She said, “If I perish, I perish.”
Stop for a second and think about what it must have taken for
Esther to relinquish herself to the point she was able to say “If I perish, I
perish.” Her true inner self had to
“die” to her own dreams, desires, plans in order to surrender to God’s
plans. Think of the fear and anxiety,
the loneliness and emptiness she must have felt. But when she went to that inner place of
surrender, she found God there.
3.
Third – We can’t lean on our own
strength. We need the support of others
and we need to seek the Lord through fasting and prayer. We also need to surrender to God’s sovereign
plan for our lives. We need to come to a
point in our walk with Christ, where we stay “it is well with my soul.” This is Esther’s resolution… If I perish, I
perish. She got to the point where she was indifferent to her circumstance.
·
Do you have friends who will “go to bat” for
you in prayer.
·
Friends that will fast and pray for you. I have several friends who does just
that. One of them is here today –
Tracie. Tracie is part of my inner
circle that helps speak truth to me and challenges me to surrender to God’s
plans.
·
Let’s be honest - It is way too easy to avoid surrending
ourselves to God. It is way too easy to
avoid pain and put walls up to protect us. Those protective walls are false and
only cause more pain in the end.
·
We need friends that will hold our “feet to
the fire” and that challenge us to “Consider it pure joy when facing trials.” We need friends that will challenge us to not
to avoid hard situations but to perserver and to let perseverance finish its
work so that we may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” I am not going to go into too much
further detail on this but I have a hand out on each table titled “Find a
Friend To Wound You.” The article is
about having friends that will hold you accountable – friends that care about
your eternal soul above your momentary feelings.
·
Let me say one thing… You can’t just go around
and confront others about their sinds.
That’s not what I am saying. What
I am saying is find a friend that you can be transparent and real with.
·
If you don’t have these types of friends in
your life, I want to challenge you to seek them out.
·
But start with being that type of friend. Be a friend that will fast and pray. Be a friend that will challenge others (in
love) to surrender to God.
·
Be a friend that care about the eternal soul
over the comfort of the moment.
When Esther approached King Xerxes, she went in the strength of her God. Using her God-given wisdom and experience,
Esther carefully and intentionally planned the best strategy for asking the
king. She didn’t blindly rush into the throne room. Instead, she prepared a
rich banquet, trusting that God would hear her prayers and grant her an
audience with the king.
If Esther had listened to the inner voices of doubt and fear, she
would never have dared to go before King Xerxes. Yet she went to the Lord in
prayer and fasting. She dealt with the
voices of doubt and fear. She knew there
was only one still, small voice that mattered. And that was the voice of God.
When her very life was on the line, Esther chose to trust God’s wisdom and
yield her life to him.
4.
Fourth – We (when we seek the Lord for
strength) can approach our situation with strength
and confidence. Are we letting God give us the strength to preserver through hard
situations?
I want to share about my sweet momma. I told you a little about my mom in the
beginning. What you may not realize is
that my mom was my best friend. I don’t
say that lightly. It was very, very
true. I shared everything with my mom
and much of who I am today is because I had wonderful parents that walked with
me through some of the hardest of hard times one should have in a life
time.
One of my biggest fears and most crippling thoughts that caused me
great anxiety as a single person in my 20s and 30s wasn’t me dying, but my
loved ones dying and me being left behind and alone.
The death of my mom to a rare form of Leukemia was my biggest fear
becoming a reality. When she was
diagnosed, she was already well into stage 3 and quickly approaching stage
4. From the day she was diagnosed, she
lived 12 weeks. You need to understand
something. I never felt called to
singleness. I always wanted to be
married and have a family. I honestly
didn’t think I could live a day without her never mind a year or two. It was my mom who walked me through the
challenges of singleness and pointed me to Christ. She always held my feet to the fire when I
was called to do hard things. She
wouldn’t let me take the easy road. I
felt that I still needed that in my life.
·
As I mentioned before, the first time I
studied Esther, I studied it with my mom.
My parents were missionaries in the Philippines and in order to stay
connected, my mom and I studied scripture together.
·
The last time I taught it, it was right before,
during and after her illness. My mom
knew what I was teaching so we often talked about it during her illness.
·
My mom took our study of Esther and put it
into practice in her daily life. She
lived her remaining 12 weeks with the knowledge that she was living “for such a
time as this.”
Let me share a little of how she lived this out.
First, she
was handed a hard situation. She
was diagnosed with a terminal cancer… At first she cried and struggled with it. Like Esther she wanted to push back. She didn’t feel like it was her time to go. She didn’t feel like she was ready to leave
her family and grandbabies. My mom was able
to surrender to the knowledge that as Psalms 139 says “all her days were ordained before one of them came to be”, she got to
the point where she realized that she was being called for such a time as this.
She couldn’t change the situation so she was going to blossom in the
situation and make the best of it.
At the same time, I want you to know God also was working in my
life. The Sunday before she was
diagnosed I was teaching on how Esther came to the point of saying “If I
perish, I perish.” I was sharing how
Esther needed to relingquish and surrender her will to God’s will. I asked the ladies in my study to think of
something that in their minds were unbearable.
What was their greatest fear? A
unfaithfull husband? The death of a child…
Facing death yourself. I shared with the
group my biggest fear was the loss of my mother. I walked them through what that would look
like. If I lost my mom, then what? Then I would be heart broken, Then I would
feel alone and lost, Then I would… You can fill in the blanks. I got to the point that I was able to say out
loud to them If my mom, then God. Two
days later my mom went into the hospital and 4 days later was diagnosed with
terminal cancer. I can honestly tell you
that If my mom, then God has been true ever since. God has truly been my deliverer.
God had
asked both of us to make difficult choices and do hard things… He was calling each us “for such a
time as this.”
So what did that look like for her?
Each time she went in the hospital, she would say “I am here for a
reason.” Every nurse, doctor,
cleaning service personal… she focused on each and every person she came in
contact with. She spent time getting to
know each of them. Ask them questions
about their up-bring, home life, she wanted to know their passions. She deeply carried about each of them and
through caring about them she was able to share about her faith. She knew this was her calling and that she
needed to rise up to the fact that God was calling her “for such a time as this.”
One nurse had quit her job and was moving to Maine. On her last day at the hospital, when her
shift was over, she came in my mom’s room and sat with my mom for over an hour
before she left. She told my mom that
she had made up her mind that she was done with the politics and dynamics of
the hospital and that was why she quit.
She told my mom that my mom’s presence and interaction with her over the
last few days made it hard for her to leave.
She was amazed at my mom’s peace and contentment and all she wanted to
do was to sit with her and glean from whatever my mom had. My mom got to share Christ with her.
Third – she didn’t walk
through her diagnosis and terminal illness in her own strength. She had a team of people praying for her and
she would pray daily that she wouldn’t miss any of God’s divine
appointments.
Fourth – She walked with
intent in her “for such a time as this” situation with confidence and strength.
She held on to two verses.
Proverbs 18:24 “but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.”
And Psalms 139:16 “all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.” She had always
known her days were numbered and often talked about it. She lived her life with that knowledge.
She was also intentional with me.
She knew her “for such a time as this” was my biggest fear and she knew
she was leaving me behind. The Sunday
before she died, she asked me to join her in her bedroom. I sat next to her and we had a conversation
that people dream of having with their loved ones. No word was left unsaid. As we sat there several of my family members
came in and she would dismiss them. This
was her time to be intentional with me.
She needed to say things that she knew I would hold on to for the
remaining days of my life. God in his
wisdom - he did not allow me to realize during those 45 minutes that she was
saying goodbye. For me, it was just one
of our normal conversations but for my mom, she was leaving nothing
unsaid. She was giving me her final
wisdom, discernment and instructions and she did it with confidence and
strength. She didn’t cry. She wasn’t sad. She knew where she was going and she knew
what she needed to do before she left.
So what do we learn from Esther?
Esther’s courage was not her beauty, or wisdom, or even her
position. It was her faith in an unshakeable, unstoppable, unchangeable God.
Wherever you are in life know God has ordained you to be
where you are at this very moment in your life for a reason. He has called you
and ordained you to handle the circumstances you are in. He has a purpose and a
plan. God knows every intimate detail of your life. God knows and cares
about every twist and turn and oh please, please hear me on this… He knows
where you are and he knows where you will land. Remember who you are just
like Esther had to remember who she was. Walk in his strength and wisdom.
And, above all, learn to listen for the still, small voice of God. And when you
hear it, obey.
My prayer is that it “May it be well with your soul.
For God has called you and me “for such a time as this!”
