Esther

Introduction

The story of Esther is the story of a young woman who faces a choice. A choice she alone can make, a choice no one can make for her. She must choose whether she will fit the mould society has for her, or reject it in favour of the pattern of life that God asks of her.

Who are the characters

Although their names may be unfamiliar to most of us, the characters are typical, even of our day.

There’s the king, Xerxes, the most powerful in the whole world. He has everything he wants, everything money and power could buy, but he lacks almost everything he needs. He lack inner strength and conviction. He’s easily swayed by those around him and he’s lost touch with reality because reality doesn’t serve his goals. In other words, he may be cash rich, but he is character poor.

There is Queen Vashti. She has position and influence, but it the end her refusal to play the king’s games costs her the position of queen. In one respect at least, queen Vashti sets the scene for the choice Esther will have to make later when her time to choose comes.

Haman is the chief villain in the story. He’s a more able and powerful leader that Xerxes, but he’s also selfish, jealous, deeply manipulative and intent on the destruction of the Jews.

There’s Moredecai, the thorn in Haman’s side and the man who demonstrates principle and character in a way no other male character in the book seems to do.

And lastly there’s Esther, the central character. A young orphan girl whose only asset, at least at first, appears to be her youth and beauty.

These are the characters around which the story will unfold. It’s a story of intrigue and political power struggles. A story about the weakness of one leader and the evil intent of another. About the self-interest of a king and the selfless sacrifice of a queen. It’s a story in which one woman rescues all the men!

It’s a story, as one preacher put it, about a culture so superficial that middle-aged men would try to impress other people by showing that they had so much wealth and power that they could attract a wife with youth and beauty.

It’s hard to believe that human society ever sank to such levels, but once looks were everything, especially for young women, and little else counted.

As far as society was concerned, Esther’s only duty was to please the king. It was after all the reason she got the job of queen in the first place. She from all the candidates had been the one who pleased the king most. 

There was a whole entourage of people who dedicated themselves to keeping the king happy, because an unhappy king was a problem king. So Esther’s job was simply to play the part of the dutiful and beautiful wife of a wealthy world leader. To not do what Vashti had done, but simply to go on pleasing the king. To sit around doing little else than her nails and hair, and to be paraded in front of others as the ultimate trophy wife.

But through the words of her uncle, Esther had to face the fact that she may not have risen to such a position on the whim of an ageing egocentric king, but according to the purposes of God Almighty.

Esther rejected her stereotypical role in order to fulfil her true role, the role that God had positioned her to fulfil. But it wasn’t an easy choice to make. She had to think long and hard about it.

The choices we must make: For such a time as this

What the world would want from us… conform to society’s values and expectations. But is that what we want for ourselves? To live a life of such mediocrity that it’s just like every other life. How about choosing to live life to the fullest? Jesus offers all those who will trust him and follow him a full life, an abundant life. Not a life full of possessions and power, but a life full of meaning and value and significance.

Esther had the choice, and it was a hard choice.

Here’s the story: Haman has hatched his plot to murder all the Jews and manipulated the king into making happen. Mordecia has found out and sent a message to Esther to enlist her help. But there’s a problem. The king hasn’t sent for her for thirty days. She is no longer the light of his life. She might have youth and beauty, but she doesn’t have the king’s undivided attention or affection. After all there were 127 other contestants for the role of queen.

So Esther tells Mordecai that she’s scared and doesn’t want to do it…

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 he be put to death. The only exception to this is for the king to extend the gold sceptre to him and spare his life. But thirty days have passed since I was called to go to the king."

Understandably Esther fears for her life, but it’s not just about her anymore.

 12 When Esther's words were reported to Mordecai, 13 he sent back this answer: "Do not think that because you are in the king's house you alone of all the Jews will escape. 14 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 then Mordecai presents Esther with a challenge. He says:

And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?"

Esther replies and calls a fast and she chooses to face a destiny that society did not have in mind for her.

 15 Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: 16 "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 maids 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.”

The choice is simple: Let the world shape your destiny or let God shape it.

Employing our gifts and shape for God’s purposes.

 Are you chasing the shadows, looking to fulfil the dreams and aspiration of a superficial society or would like your life to mean something? To have value beyond the day when your good looks and fine physique have given way to the impact of age.

A life that means something

Rick Warren, the senior leader of Saddleback Church, says that we all share 5 common purposes:

1. We were made for God’s pleasure

2. We were formed to be part of God’s family

You were never meant to make the journey of life on your own. You were purpose designed to be a part something so much bigger.

3. We were created to be like Christ

The Bible tells us that God’s plan is that we all become his sons and daughters, members of his family, sharing the likeness of Jesus his one and only Son who came to earth to live and die on our behalf.

His example of personal sacrifice and commitment are to our pattern of life.

4. We were shaped for serving God

You have gifts and abilities that God wants to use to make an impact on our world. You have a passion for something deep within your heart that fires your purpose, and you have and are gaining experiences that make you who you are and that God will use if you will let him.

5. We were made for a mission

Your mission has eternal significance

“The consequences of your mission will last forever; the consequences of your job will not. Nothing else you do will ever matter as much as helping people establish an eternal relationship with God.” [284]

“We will have all of eternity to celebrate with those we have brought to Jesus, but we only have our lifetime in which to reach them.” [284]

Your mission gives your life meaning

“William James said, “The best use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.” [285]

My life is worth nothing unless I use it for doing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others about God’s wonderful kindness and love (Acts 20:24)

Find out what you do best, and then do it in a way that makes a difference, Jim Wallis

The Choice you must make

It’s a simple choice: the world’s pattern or God’s pattern.

Synchronise Google Calendars and Outlook

Whilst looking around the internet for something else, I stumbles upon a bit of software that claims to synchronise Outlook to Google. If you want to try it and let me know if it works, please feel free to do so and post a comment. This is all early days for us with regard to sharing dates in this way, so any ideas and help would be great.

Prayer month

It will soon be February and another opportunity to have a focussed time of prayer as a church family. There is much to pray about: the ongoing strategy, the challenges of recent weeks, the opportunities ahead.

A prayer guide should be available some time next week.

Subscribe to the calendar

I've added a button on the left that allows you to subscribe to the Google Calendar shown in the sidebar of this blog (also available on the church website). I'll be honest with you, I have no idea what you have to do or have in order to subscribe to a Google calendar, but if you have a personalised Google home-page, you can certainly add a calendar to that.

So if you try it, leave a comment please so that other people can see what's happening.

Layout and calendar

As you can see I've altered the layout of the blog and I've done some work on the calendar. 

Having moved to a Mac, I'm now running iCal and I'm trying out SpanningSync to synchronise my Google calendar and iCal calendars for church.

I'm hoping to be able to give other people permission to add stuff to the calendar, and to be able to subscribe to it, although I don't know if that sort of thing works for Outlook and other Windows based calendar systems.

Presentation to Church Members January 2008

Every week our news bulletin says this:

Our vision is to build a church that honours and glorifies God; built on biblical principles; teaching biblical truth; influencing its community; where personal relationships are deep.

Our purpose is to love people into a deep and growing relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

Our heart is to share God’s heart for the marginalised and oppressed

Those are pretty demanding words. What they say is that we are a church that refuses to settle for anything less than God’s best. We will do everything that we can in order to fulfil his purposes and plans for our communities.

Each year we renew our covenant with God to build a great church based upon a great commitment to the great commandment and the great commission. To live out the significance and importance of those words; to be a living echo of the prayer Jesus taught the disciples to use: Your kingdom come, on earth as it is on heaven.

Last year we took another big step towards those dreams by setting a budget that without God’s help, is beyond our ordinary means to meet. We set what one pastor describes as Big Hairy Audacious goals. Employing another full or part-time staff member; developing new streams of ministry through counselling services and well-being groups; getting more involved in our communities by serving on committees and councils; reaching more people in more ways through things like servant evangelism and Ordinary Attempts.  

In 2008 we do not want to let these goals slip away unnoticed as if having established them was the end of the process rather than its beginning.

We need to examine closely our vision, values and purpose. We need to ask ourselves what don’t we understand about them, what scares us when we think about them, what excites when we reflect on them.

For me, the thing that scares me most is the thought of failure. The thought that all this time and energy and effort and tears and prayers will eventually come to nothing, may count for nothing.

What excites me is the opportunity to do something with my life that will make a difference in eternity. To live a life that matters. I may not see the full extent of the difference God makes through my life, but I’d rather that than come to the end of it knowing that I didn’t even give it my best shot.

So I’m asking you, do you want the same thing? Do you want to live a life that matters. I know how scary and risky it can look, but isn’t it worth it to make a difference?  

The Journey ahead

We have a journey still to make. The image of a journey assumes two things. Firstly we have come from somewhere. We have left some things behind to strike out in a bold new direction. Secondly, that we are going somewhere different. Perhaps a third assumption is that we have not yet arrived!

As a church we are on a journey. Some of the landmarks are familiar. The gospel remains the only hope of change; the church remains God’s chosen vehicle for bringing that message of hope to neighbourhoods and communities.

But some things change. The Wixams will begin to grow this year, Shortstown, already having grown, will grow again. Even Cotton End has some new residents as the redevelopment in Wood Lane takes shape.

God is going to do some extraordinary things in these new communities and we should not  be willing in any way to miss out on being partners with him in those things. If we do then we surely condemn ourselves to the inevitable decline we see in too many churches across our nation.

Let’s not allow that to happen.

Breaking new ground

We can all play our part in the journey ahead. We can all in some way contribute to fulfilling God’s great commission. We can all be involved in breaking new ground, crossing new barriers for the sake of the kingdom.

We can pray. Put it on your list to pray for:

Opportunities, personally, to connect with new members of the community

The new people who will move into our area through the new developments

One home, one living room from which we can begin to connect with new communities

Join us as we begin to pray more regularly for the Wixams

Come and prayer walk the area

Consider becoming part of the group that will establish a bridgehead into the new community at the Wixams

With all of these things there is a price to pay. A price in time, in effort, emotionally, and financially.

 The question isn’t: “Is there a price”, but “What price are we as Cotton End Baptist Church willing to pay to see these dreams, this vision become a reality?”

Conclusion

I know how big and hairy and audacious our goals are, I know they are scary to consider sometimes, I know they can seem so far out of reach that it’s hard to imagine them ever becoming a reality. But I also know that God promises to go beyond what we can see and imagine.

To close I want to go back to the simplest of questions that I’ve asked tonight.

Do you want your life to count for something in God’s kingdom? 

If the answer is yes, then what price are you willing to pay for it?

Joshua

How do you follow a leader like Moses? After all he was the one who grew up in extraordinary circumstances, looked after and set apart by God from birth, the man who saw the burning bush, performed miraculous signs in front of Pharaoh, eventually led the people out of slavery and through the wilderness; climbed the mountain, brought back the 10 commandments (twice!), built the tabernacle, had the “glow of God” on his face. How do you follow that?
Following Moses must have been a daunting task, even for someone like Joshua.

Be strong and Courageous

This phase gets a lot of use in the opening of the book of Joshua. It is repeated four times, but it’s not the only time this little phrase is aired in the Old Testament. Moses knows what faces Joshua, so he tells him to be strong and courageous in Deuteronomy 31. David tells Solomon to be strong and courageous when it comes to building the temple, and Hezekiah tells the people of Jerusalem to be strong and courageous as the face the siege of the king of Assyria.
For Joshua and Solomon strength and courage are needed to see the job through. Conquering the land and building the Temple wee not short jobs, they took years. Along the way there must have been plenty of opportunities for disappointment and discouragement. Plenty of times when either one of them would have given up and looked for something a little less demanding to do.
But then the reality is that if it were easy, none of them would have needed a healthy dose of strength or courage to see it through, to finish the job, to face the enemy. Apart from just before Christmas, strength and courage are not prerequisites for the weekly shopping at Tescos or Sainsbury's.
The point is this: strength and courage don’t remove doubt or fear or anxiety. But without strength and courage we will never be able to face those self-same fears, and doubts and anxieties, we will never be able to push on and move ahead.
As one writer puts it: Courage isn’t the absence of fear; it’s moving ahead in spite of your fear.

The strength and courage that Joshua needed was born out of three things:

Faith in God

If we could adjust what we believe according to how we feel, then we would not need strength and courage, we’d just need flexibility. We could adjust our behaviour according to the pressures to conform at work or at school or at college. We could adjust our principles according to the needs of a situation. We could adjust our level of commitment according to how to convenient it os to be identified with Jesus.
But faith is not about what we feel, it is about what we know. And sometimes knowing the truth and living in that truth takes great strength and great courage.
Fortunately God’s promise is the be there with us, making up what we like so that we can say:
The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. Ps 28:7

Faithfulness to God

This is all about the choices we make. Do you choose to honour God or do you choose not to honour him? It is a choice, a choice you must make. We’ve already thought about how faith is not a matter of feelings and about how we need strength and courage to go one believing. Faithfulness is is that determination of mind that chooses to walk with God whatever the cost.
As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord

The route to faithfulness comes through God’s word. God tells Joshua: Do not let this book of the law... Meditate on it day and night...

Faithfulness of God

The enduring presence of God

As I was with Moses, I will be with you

The enduring promise of God

The land I will give you

The enduring power of God

For what do you need strength and courage?

Joshua had to follow Moses but that wasn’t the reason he needed strength and courage. He needed strength and courage to lead the people through the conquest of the land. But there was a shadow so-to-speak cast over the land, a shadow called Jericho. This great fortified city would be the first significant test in the new land.
He would need strength and courage to face Jericho.

What’s your Jericho?

Do you need strength and courage to face the truth?
Do you need strength and courage to make a change?
To make the right decision rather than a wrong one?
To choose to honour God and walk in obedience?

Whatever your Jericho might be, big or small, God is willing and able to offer you the strength and courage you need to face it and conquer it. If Jesus can go to the cross for you, you can carry a cross for him. If Jesus is willing to die for you, you can offer your life too him. Whatever the cost you may feel you are paying, Jesus has already paid a greater cost for you.

Take courage from him, and find strength in him.

Abraham: Journey of faith

If I made you a promise today, how long would you be willing to wait for me to keep it? A few days? A week, maybe a month? I guess it depends on the promise, but how about 25 years? That's how long Abraham had to wait before God kept his promise. From the time he first told Abraham that he would be the farther of a great nation, to the time Issac was born, 25 years. Think about that for a while.

Paul calls Abraham the man of faith, with whom all those who have faith are blessed. For, as Paul points out later in Galatians, If you belong to  Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. This promise depends on the grace of God not on the law.

Because of all this, Abraham is a significant character in the story of faith. But was it all plain sailing, an easy walk of faith, for this hero of the early church?

First things first

In Genesis 11 we’re introduced to the family of Abram, not yet Abraham, we meet him with his brothers and father and cousins in the land of Ur. 

In 11:31 it says that Terah took his son Abram and set out for Canaan, but they settled in Harran. Chapter 12 on the other hand seems to make it clear that the call was to Abram, and this call was to leave his father’s household and make the journey to Canaan.

The stop-over in Haran does not appear to figure in that call. Faith is not an easy road to walk. One of the characteristics of Abraham’s walk of faith is compromise. 

He shares the land of promise with Lot, he has a son with Hagar, he goes to Egypt when there is famine. All compromises in their way.

Abraham may have been the man of faith, but he was also human, painfully human.

How long Abram lived with his family in Haran isn’t made clear, but God didn’t lose faith with Abram.

One other fact slips quietly into the equation. Sarai, Abram’s wife, can’t conceive.

To be childless in the Ancient world was a terrible thing. It lead to jealousy between Rachel and Leah, it was seen as an act of judgement against Abimelech’s household, and Peninnah pushed Hannah to tears over it.

Although a husband’s hopes and dreams were all wrapped up in the promise of a son, Abram kept faith with Sarai, even though a family seemed like a distant and diminishing hope. 

Sarai’s determination to build a family eventually produced the compromise with Hagar. But this was not Abraham’s idea.

Having established then, that the call was to Abram and his home, which he was to leave behind, was Ur not Haran, the journey begins again, but the questions don’t stop.

Developing Faith

Faith and perseverance

I guess the big question in chapter 12 is simply this: God can promise, but can he provide? Abram reaches the destination, he arrives in Canaan, but there’s a famine. Centuries later the people of Israel would ask this question: Has God brought us out into the desert to kill us? The Devil tempts Jesus with a similar question: Will God let you fall?

Well, will he? Isn’t that what you want to know? If you step out in faith today will God let you fall flat on your face tomorrow? “No, of course not,” you say with confidence, but have to tried it? The way of faith is also a way of failure. Not on God’s part, but often on ours. It just isn’t that easy, and we should not pretend it is.

I’m not suggesting that we don’t step out in faith, in fact I’m desperate to take big steps instead of timid little ones. But faith needs to walk with perseverance if it’s going to make it to the end of the journey.

Faith and God’s unchanging word

God’s first promise to Abraham comes when he calls him to make the journey to Canaan:

I will make you into a great nation... I will make your name great... I will bless you (12:2-3).

In chapter 13 it is restated in terms of the greatness of his offspring and the promise of the land, and in 15 and 17 the promise of God is restated in the language of covenant. God’s word to Abraham doesn’t change through all this time, but then again, neither do the circumstances of Sarah childlessness.

God’s word does not change because God’s character does not change. Clearly this does not mean that God cannot change his mind so-to-speak, that he is in some way fixed. Abraham’s negotiation over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah demonstrate that. No, the significance of God’s unchanging word has to d with his trustworthiness with respect to our eternal destiny.

Does your hope of heaven rest upon what you can do to gain it or what God has done on your behalf?

God’s unchanging word means that when you feel distant from him, he remains close to you; when you feel as though your prayers aren’t being answered, he is still listening; when you wonder if it can all still be true, he remains true. Does God’s unchanging word mean that we will never doubt him, never doubt ourselves, never doubt the promises he has made? No. But it does mean that through our doubts we can say with confidence that no matter what we feel, God is the same yesterday, today and forever, and his word does not change.

Faith and Patience

 So, while God’s word does not change, we face another challenge, the challenge of faith and patience.

How do you define patience? Is it active or passive? Does having patience mean that you simply sit back and wait for it, whatever it might be, to come to you, or does patience mean that whilst you pursue the ‘it’ you don’t lose sight of the need to wait? Complicated isn’t it!

FB Meyer on Abraham:

God has his set times. It is not for us to know them. Indeed, we cannot know them. We must wait for them. If God had told Abraham in Haran that he must wait all those years until he pressed the promised child to his bosom, his heart would have failed him. So in gracious love, the length of the weary years was hidden. And only as they are nearly spent and there were only a few more months to wait, God told him, according to the time of life, “Sarah shall have a son.”

If God told you on the front end how long you would wait to find the fulfilment of your desire or pleasure or dream, you’d lose heart. You’d grow weary on well doing. So would I. But he doesn’t. He just says, “Wait. I keep my word. I’m in no hurry. In the process of time I’m developing you to be ready for the promise.”

Here’s the key thought: I’m developing you to be ready for the promise. I always thing I’m ready, God has a different view.

Faith and Trust

Chapter 17 is a strategic turning point in Abraham’s life. It is the point when he becomes Abraham. God reiterates his promise, nothing new there, but something changes because changes Abram into Abraham. Ou don’t have to look far in most Bibles to discover that Abram means exalted father whereas Abraham means father of many. Now either name would seem insensitive for a man with no children, but God does not mock, he promises. Patience needs a partner, and the partner is trust.

As God’s promise becomes more explicit (up to this point God has not said how he will make Abraham the father of a great nation, now he makes it clear that it will be through a son born by Sarah), patience must walk with trust. Of course Abraham and Sarah fail to trust God fully and come up with a quick, human solution that inevitably leads to pain and heartache.

The challenge of trust is to allow God full control and to co-operate fully with him. It’s like riding a tandem. I’ve never ridden a tandem for two reasons. One, I’ve never had one, second I don’t want to be the one at the back! The one on the back has seems to have two responsibilities: First, keep pedalling. Second, don’t try to steer. I’ve ridden on the back of a motorbike a few times, and the hard thing is to try not to steer. I guess it’s similar on a tandem. The person driving needs to to be the one who steers. If the person on the back tries to steer then the driver has to fight them as well as steer the bike.

So it is with life lived in God’s hands. He must steer, we must trust.

Faith and Testing

The final element in Abraham’s journey of faith is the test. Now, his faith was tested all through the journey he was making. The famine he encountered when he first arrived in Canaan, the stop-over in Haran, the fear of being killed for Sarah. Many times his faith came up against an obstacle, a challenge. But this would be the greatest test.

Having lived through all those long weary years waiting for God to keep his promise of a son through Sarah, God now asks him, “Abraham will you give up even that son to me?” Every other test pales into insignificance in the light of this ultimate test.

You and I know the end form the beginning, but approach it again as if you didn’t. A son, an heir, not yet a father of many, but finally the father of one. It’s a start, a beginning. And now God says sacrifice him to me.

Abraham will you trust me still?

As they prepare the altar Isaac asks his father where the sacrifice is to be found. Abraham replies, “the Lord will provide a sacrifice.”

Is that a statement of hope, of faith, of desperation, of trust?

Abraham has come to that ultimate test of his maturing faith, and by the grace of God he comes through it. God does provide the sacrifice just as he will provide the sacrifice through his son Jesus Christ on the cross.

God reaffirms his promise to Abraham to make his descendants numerous and he reaffirms his promise to us never to leave us nor to forsake us because of the cross.

Finale: Home is where God says it is!

Eventually of course Abraham dies. He’s made it to 175, an old man full or years. 

Now in the Ancient world the custom was that when you died, your body went home. Where did Abraham’s body go? Did it go to Ur of Chaldea, his ancestral home? No, it went to Canaan, his promised home. Home was where God said it would be.

When you die, and you go home, where will that be? I’m not talking about where they will put your body or your ashes, I’m talking about your eternal destiny. Where will home be in eternity? 

Jesus promised a place if only you will trust him. If only you will walk the same walk of faith that Abraham made. A walk of faith and perseverance, of faith and God’s unchanging word, or faith and patience, of faith and trust and of faith and testing.