Skip to content Unusual Suspects: Esther - For Such a Time as This Jun 10 · 35 min ...more
Unusual Suspects: Esther - For Such a Time as This
June 10, 2025 · 35 min
Pastor John Mark emphasizes that God values the heart over personal qualifications and that one’s history does not dictate one's destiny,
Series "Pastor Talks" with John Mark Caton June 10, 2025 · 35 min · "Pastor Talks" with John Mark Caton
Pastor John Mark emphasizes that God values the heart over personal qualifications and that one’s history does not dictate one's destiny, ...more Show the full description Show less Pastor John Mark emphasizes that God values the heart over personal qualifications and that one’s history does not dictate one's destiny,
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John Mark is the Senior Pastor of the thriving Cottonwood Creek Church in Allen, Texas, where he has served since 1995.
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The Unlikely Queen: Esther's Rise 0:00 I love what our team did as they put that together and made this happen. We started, if you are a first time here joining us today or online, we started a new series last week entitled Unusual Suspects where0:12 we're looking at people throughout God's word that really if you're thinking man, is there someone that God's gonna use, you probably wouldn't think about them. But as we talked about last week, here's the beautiful0:24 thing. When God begins to build a team of people, He wants to do something for Him, He doesn't look at resumes, he looks at your heart. And so wherever you are today, however you think you are as in relationship to0:35 can God use me, I want you to know this whole series is about reminding us that God uses some unusual suspects. If you missed it last week we started by looking at this guy named Moses. He was out in the0:47 wilderness, had a criminal past, couldn't speak well. Basically Moses looked at God and he says, I am completely unqualified to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt over to the0:59 promised land and God said, great, you're hired. Today, we're going to look at a lady named Esther and Esther was an orphan who became a queen. And1:11 by the way, if you're wondering, that is Tawny from our children's ministry and everything this week is about vacation bible school and kids. And so when you see Tawny, thank her for posing for that picture, she looks1:23 amazing. But here you have it. Today we're talking about Esther. She she was an orphan, lost her parents. Basically adopted by her first cousin to be her father,1:34 ultimately ends up being the queen. But Let me give you a little quick history. I just talked about Moses ultimately did after he told God I'm totally unqualified. God said great, you're hired. He does go and lead1:46 the children of Israel out of Egypt over to the promised land. They don't go in, they journey around for 40 years. Whole generation dies. Joshua eventually does lead them into the promised land. They conquer the1:58 promised land. God says we don't want you to we don't want to have a king, we just want to serve God. And they said no, everybody around us has a king. God says you don't want a king. They said we want a king. God gave2:08 him a king, they didn't want a king. Alright? And so Saul becomes their first king and sure enough Saul is not a good king. So God overlooks him eventually and says I2:20 want this guy named David. David ultimately has a son named Solomon. Solomon becomes a tax and spend bureaucrat. And the kingdom gets divided. And so after Solomon2:31 dies, the kingdom splits into a northern and a southern kingdom. Almost immediately, all the priests and the godly people stayed in the south. Ultimately, it wasn't long up in the north. God says listen, since prophet2:43 after prophet after prophet says if you don't turn back to me, if you don't stay faithful to me, I'm going to remove my hand of protection and blessing from you. They just continued to ignore God. Sure enough, in 7 86,2:53 the Assyrians roll in and destroy the northern kingdom. A few years later in 5 86, the southern kingdom follows the same path, stops worshiping God, God takes his hand of protection and blessings off of3:05 them, and a guy named Nebuchadnezzar rolls into town of the Babylonians and he basically destroys the southern kingdom and takes a bunch of exiles away, back to Babylon. It's not3:17 long after that that this, the Medes and the Persians are on the rise, and the Persians come in and they destroy Babylon, they take it in, and that's really where we are. Destroy Babylon, they take it in and that's3:27 really where we are. That's Esther chapter 1. The Persians have rolled into town, they have overthrown the Babylonians and you still have all these exiled Jews3:39 who are now living in what used to be Babylon, which is now Persia. And Esther and Mordecai are those 2 people. Let me tell you a little bit about Esther. There are 10 chapters,3:51 covers about 10 years. It's incredible. If you haven't read it lately, you need to read it. It is a combination. If you like Shakespeare, it is a combination of Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth4:03 all rolled up into 1. It's just got it all. And here you have Esther, an unlikely queen, an orphaned girl adopted by her cousin who4:15 ultimately becomes the queen and she shows humility and courage and takes a risk. My guess is if you know 1 verse in all of Esther, it's this4:27 verse we find in Esther chapter 4. Here it is, it's just Mordecai talking to her, there's a plot to kill the Jews in the kingdom, I'll tell you that story here in a second. But Mordecai goes to her and he says,4:39 now listen Esther, you need to go tell the king that you're a Jew. See up until this time he had given her the wisdom, don't tell anybody you're a Jew, now he says the Jews are about to get killed, Go tell4:51 the king. Her immediate response is, I think I'm going to die. I can only go to the king if he requests me and you want me to go talk to him about the Jews. And Mordecai looks at her and says, who5:04 who's to know that you weren't placed here for such a time as this? Child of God, I don't know where you are or what you're doing right now, but I want to tell you that God has a plan, he has a5:16 purpose for your life. Let's read this. Says who knows, Mordecai says, but you have come to the royal position as the queen for just such a time as this. So as we5:28 journey into this story, I'm gonna tell you this story and I'll give you some illustrations and life lessons at the end. But there are basically 4 characters that you really need to know about. There are a lot more but5:37 there are 4. 1 is Esther. Esther is ultimately that orphan girl who is adopted by her cousin, ends up being the queen. I'll tell you how that happens here in a little bit. Number 2 is a guy named Xerxes.5:49 He's the king. If you read the book of Esther, you'll see him use 2 names. Xerxes is the Greek name, alright. And so you'll see King Xerxes, he he he's a pompous, but6:01 ultimately ends up doing the right thing because he loved Esther. The only person he loved more than himself was Esther, because that's just the way he rolled. Then you had Mordecai who was just6:13 a cousin who ultimately ends up adopting Esther, gives her good wisdom, enables her ultimately to become the queen and then you have the bad guy, the antagonist. And his name is Haman. And we're going to see6:25 here in a second his name is Haman the Agagite. And that matters and I'm gonna show you why it matters. So let's jump in to Esther chapter 1 and let me tell you a little bit about the story as we journey6:36 through. Here it is, verse 10. It says and when King Xerxes, there he is, the king, the Persian king was in high spirits from wine. You say how high? If you go read the first 9 verses.6:50 Basically now that the Persians have taken over, they end up with about a hundred and 27 different provinces and states. And so what happens is Xerxes wants to make sure that all the7:01 kings and nobles and mayors and governors from all these different provinces understand that they want to stay loyal to the Persians. So he brings all of them in from all across the land, the hundred and 277:13 different provinces, and he throws literally a 6 month party. And basically what he's trying to tell them is listen, I have wealth beyond7:25 wealth beyond wealth and power beyond power and if you ever get in trouble you want to stay loyal to me. The Persian Empire was so, was so wealthy7:37 that about a hundred years later after the story of Esther, a guy named Alexander the Great overthrew the Persians. If you go read what Alexander the Great found out when he rolled7:49 into the capital city of Susa, he says there was more marble and gold and jewels than he had ever seen before. So let me tell you what, when Xerxes threw a party he knew how to throw a party throw a party. And it8:01 says when he was in high spirits, what does he do? He, Xerxes, his Greek name, commanded his 7 eunuchs who served him to bring him his queen, and her name is Vashti,8:13 wearing her royal crown in order to display her beauty to all the people and all the nobles for she was lovely to look at. So, he basically wanted to treat her as a as8:25 just so much of his other opulence. He wanted to show everybody, man, she's just beautiful. Bring her in. Show her off. Now we don't know what all this meant, but that's pretty much what we know from this story. Now8:35 notice what the queen did in verse 12. But when the attendants delivered the king's command, Queen Vashti refused to come. Alright? They probably used some marital counseling. How many of you8:47 think that? The king asked the queen to show up, the queen says, yeah tell the king I'm not coming. Alright? So notice what happened. Then the king became furious and burned with8:59 anger. Now, guys if if you ask your wife to come here and she says no, just sit down and have a conversation. That's not what King Xerxes does. He9:11 is angry and he did the wrong thing, he brought his buddies in. He says, hey guys, I don't know if you heard. And they're like, we heard. She didn't9:22 come. She didn't come in. And he goes, hey hey guys, what what do you think we should do with And let me tell you, all of his buddies, they could care less about him and Vashner.9:34 They cared about them and their women. That's exactly right. They said listen, you can't let this happen because if they hear the queen won't come to the king, then all of our wives will start saying9:46 no to us as well, so they come to the conclusion they've got to get rid of her. So they devote, they demote queen Vashti. We're really not told. Some some commentators believe9:58 that she was killed, others believe she was just demoted, we don't know, we're not told into the story. But then they said here's what you're going to do King, demote Vashti and you're gonna have10:10 queen tryouts. New queen tryouts. We have a vast land, we have a big place, so now you're in Esther chapter 2, pick it up in verse 8. Says when the king's edict went10:22 out, he proclaimed this, that Vashti would no longer be the queen, and he sent an edict to all 127 provinces. He says listen, I want everybody to go through your10:33 province, find the prettiest, young beautiful girl in your province, and we're going to bring her back to Susa. And they're gonna have queen tryouts. That's exactly what happened. Alright? They10:45 have queen tryouts. So here you had Persia's Got Talent rolling all through so they can bring the best and the most beautiful and the brightest, and then he's going to try it out. Now listen, when they got him10:57 back to Susa, it was the 12 months of the best fall days you could possibly imagine. You can just go read it, I'm not going to read it for you. First 6 months, every day they would get a massage,11:09 this is in the scripture, it's not me. Alright. Oil, myrrh, they wanted what? To make their skin the most beautiful it could be. The next 6 months, they started working with their hair, and11:20 styling their hair, and putting on cosmetics, and showing them the jewelry that they could wear, and everything that they could wear. And then at the end of the day, in the queen tryout, after 12 months, you were queen11:32 for a night. And then the queen after he talked with you, ate with you, spent some time with you, he was going to make a choice and sure enough, it says Esther was 1 of the young11:44 ladies that was drawn into the fold. She went through the 12 months when it was her time to go in and be with the king, she asked Haggai,11:57 what should I take? And he said, just go be you. And it says she took his advice and she went in and it says she won the king's heart.12:09 Look at Esther chapter 2 verse 17. Now when the king, now the king was attracted to Esther more than any of the other women and she won his favor, right? She took good12:20 advice, Haggai said listen, you know, you can go. And by the way, when they went into the king it says they could have any dress, any jewels, anything, any hairstyle, anything that they want. And so I'm guessing this12:31 means that a lot of young ladies did that. They put all of this stuff up, they would fix their hair up, and when she went to Haggai, the chief eunuch, she says, what do you recommend? He12:43 said, just go be you. Just go be you, and sure enough you won her heart. You know God moves in different ways and in different spaces and so as you just jump back, it says12:55 now the king was attracted to Esther more than any of the other women and she won his favor, so he set a royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti.13:08 You know, God moves in different ways. Sometimes it's miraculous, sometimes it's mundane, sometimes it's right out there in the open, and sometimes it's just God moving in mysterious ways.13:20 Sometimes God moves in believers lives, sometimes God moves in pagans lives. And in this whole book you're seeing God move in the hearts of pagans, they have no idea what is going on, but13:32 behind everything is God directing the path so that Esther, who is a Jew, could be the queen over all of Persia and13:43 when a plot is discovered that they are going to kill the king, all the Jews, she exposes it and says listen you love me. I'm a Jew,13:55 And the king gets furious and does the right thing. So it's all about God moving. So let's jump back into the story. Let's move on. Jump down to verse 21. It says during that time Mordecai, that's her14:07 adoptive stepfather, was sitting at the king's gate. That's by the way, if you want to know, you just might want to write this down, make a note in your app or something. That is the place of official business. Alright?14:17 When it says the king's gate, there were lots of gates into the city, but the king's gate was where you did business. Alright? If you had something you needed to do with the king you came through the king's gate. If you14:28 had something you want to give to the king so you can buy his favor or something like that, you went to the king's gate. So Mordecai, who was also a Jew, the adopted father has some sort of position and14:40 so it says when he was sitting at the king's gate, 2 of the king's officers who guarded the doorway became angry and conspired to assassinate King Xerxes. Look at verse 22. God's got Mordecai14:52 in the right place at the right time. But Mordecai found out about the plot, told the queen, who in turn reported it to the king giving credit to Mordecai.15:04 So interesting thing, God is moving behind the thing, behind the scenes. He's positioning his people in the right places at the right time for the right reason and for the right purpose. Esther15:16 didn't pursue being queen, she was chosen to go try out. But God was always moving. Mordecai just happened to be the right place at the right time. My guess if15:28 you'd asked Mordecai, hey you know Esther's parents are dead have died. Do you wanna do you wanna adopt her? No, I don't but God does some mysterious things and some crazy things to get his people where15:40 they want them to be. So as you think about this story, it is a story where God is constantly moving in the background, not in what we think. Man, the plot15:53 to kill the king? Esther goes and tells the king. It is investigated, finds out it is true. They execute these 2 guards that were going to kill the king, and16:04 then guess what happens? Well let's just look. Go to Esther chapter 3 verse 1. After the plot was discovered, King16:16 Xerxes honored Haman. Woah, wait. You would almost think what would have just happened is that Mordecai discovered the plot, so Xerxes would promote16:28 Mordecai. That's not what happens. You say, why? We don't know. Just some sort of bureaucratic mix up that somehow he thought Haman deserved it. So what happens is Haman gets promoted16:40 and not Mordecai. Remember Mordecai is a Jew. So now let's read the song. It's part of the story. Says, from there, Xerxes honored Haman, the Agagite. Hold on to that word. The16:52 Agagite. That is very important to the story. Elevating him and giving him the seat of honor higher than any of the other nobles. All the royal officials and at the king's gate would kneel17:03 down before Haman and pay honor to Haman for the king had commanded that concerning him. But Mordecai would not kneel down or pay honor17:15 to him. You say why? I think you got 1 of 3 reasons. You got 1 of 3 reasons. 1 it could be religious, could be spiritual. And there are a lot of commentators saying this is Mordecai17:27 standing against the will of a pagan government. I don't know but it could be true. The first commandment says you should have no other gods before me, so maybe he could have in his mind says I'm not going to bow down17:38 before you because it'd be like making you a god but yet I'll promise you if Mordecai ever entered the presence of a king he bowed and he got promoted. The second reason might be, and we're going to17:50 see Haman's character, remember I told you he's the antagonist, he's the worst guy in the room. Could have been that Mordecai just knew he was a bad dude. And he says listen, you may have the position of18:01 honor, but you're a bad dude. So it may be character, might have been religious, could have been history. My guess is there are some people that you think18:13 in your life that you have a little bit of history with them. And when they show up you're like, I might try to be cordial, but there's a little history. If they're in the room don't point.18:27 But I actually lean towards this reason, that they had some history. Remember he was Haman the Agagite. Go back to first Samuel chapter 15. I'm18:39 gonna put it up on the screen for you. This is when Saul is told by Samuel the prophet to go and destroy the Amalekites. Why would he do that? Here it is. Samuel said18:51 to Saul, first Samuel chapter 15 verse 2, this is what the Lord God Almighty says, I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them on their way19:03 out of Egypt. Now, Paul stopped. You say waylaid them, that's a cool word. It is a cool word. And you say, when was this battle? This is probably the battle you've heard of. Remember the19:14 battle when the children of Israel, they're just journeying across the desert and the enemies come out and attack them? And Joshua is down in the valley fighting the Amalekites,19:27 Moses is up on the mountain holding his hands up, and as long as his hands were were up Joshua was winning and when they began to fall Joshua would lose, and Aaron and Hur stood there and held his arms up. How many of19:39 you remember that story? That's the story that is being talked about in first Samuel 15. God never forgot. And he said, alright now Samuel, go to Saul and say I want you19:51 to marshal the people and he gets several hundred thousand people and it's time to go get the Amalekites back. Remember what Saul did? He didn't fully obey God. God said go kill20:03 it all, Don't take anything for yourself. Saul went over there, killed the bad stuff, kept the good stuff. Guess what the king's name was that they spared?20:15 King Agag. So Haman was Haman the Agagite. He was a direct descendant of this Amalite king,20:28 Amalekite king and he knew. So it could have been religious, and it's good to preach that boy Mordecai doesn't bow down, you and I don't need to bow down. Could have been that.20:40 Could have been he just understood the character. He he says it's a bad dude. Or it could have been a little history. I have a tendency to lean towards history, right? I have a tendency to think, I think he20:52 just says nah, I'm not ever bound down to an Amalekite, especially 1 that is a direct descendant of the king that Saul spoke. Remember what happened when Saul disobeyed God, that was the21:04 moment when he didn't destroy everything that God looked at Samuel and says go anoint David because I've given up on Saul. And so here you have all of21:16 this history and all of this story and God is moving and so here's what happens. So Amon gets so angry at Mordecai because Mordecai probably, it says Mordecai told Haman21:29 that he was a Jew. So my guess is in the conversation, Haman says why aren't you bowing to me? He says because I'm a Jew and no Jews bow to Amalekites. It says that Haman21:40 got so mad that he didn't want to just kill Mordecai, he wanted to kill all of the Jews. So let's journey forward in this story and notice what happens next. It says21:53 then Haman said to Xerxes, here's what we want. He says, there is a certain people. So Haman now goes to Xerxes, he knows that Mordecai is a Jew, but Mordecai has told22:05 Esther, don't tell the king you're a Jew. So the reality of it is Haman knows Mordecai is a Jew, but he doesn't know the queen is a Jew. So he calls Haman, Haman calls King Xerxes in, he22:17 he approaches. He says, you know king, there's a certain people dispersed among the peoples of all the provinces of your kingdom who keep themselves separate. They do things a little different. Their22:28 customs are different from those of all the other people and they do not obey the king's laws. It is not in the king's best interest to tolerate them and keep them around. And he says, if22:40 it pleases the king, what I'm going to do is I will go through all hundred and 27 provinces, let a decree be issued to destroy them, and I'll do it. And so Haman is obviously probably22:53 from the kingly bloodline of the Amalekites. Why? Because he says I'm gonna give, he says I'm basically gonna pay the king to let me kill the Jews. He says what? He says I will give 10000 talents of23:05 silver to the king's treasury if you will allow me to do it. So what does the king do? He says let's do it. Issues a decree, we're gonna kill all the Jews,23:17 we're gonna start with Mordecai. So Haman is not just looking to kill Mordecai because he disrespected him, he's looking to kill all of the Jews because he hated them as a people. Mordecai hears about the23:28 plot, he goes to Esther, says you've got to go tell the king, and she says I'm going to die. I only get to go to the king when he requests, but23:40 now I'm going to request to go to the king. He could kill me and just like he did with Vashti or at least very much get rid of me, and he says listen, you're a Jew and Haman's about to kill all the23:52 Jews. And so here's what Esther says, she says alright, I'll go. And she says alright, I'll go and if I perish, I perish. She didn't know how this thing's going to turn24:04 out, but what she does do is she looks at Mordecai and he says listen, before I go into the king, have all the children of Israel begin to fast and pray and fast and pray that I could have favor24:16 with God. And so here's what happens, fast forward a little bit, made the decree. There was a night that the king can't sleep. Anybody ever have sleepless nights? Anybody like me, just24:28 from time to time you can't sleep? The king had a sleepless night, so he brought in the history book. He loved to write down everything. Go look at the end of Esther chapter 1, and king would say write this down, write24:40 this down, write this down. Right? Apparently when he would when he couldn't sleep he would have his eunuch come in and read the history book of the king and now how many of you know read a little history to put you to24:51 sleep? Couple of years ago, Jean and I, we always picked on this. I don't read fiction. Is there anybody in here? I don't read fiction. I'll read a biography. I'll read something real. I'll do something. She loves to25:01 read fiction. Alright? I would prefer read a systematic theology book. And so we all started picking on each other. I said, you don't read anything that teaches you anything? She goes, you don't read anything to expand25:11 your imagination? I said, basically we're both broken. So we made a deal. I think it was like a hundred or 200 dollars. Said, listen, I'm gonna give you a systematic theology book. You give me any 1 of the books25:23 that you want me to read and whoever finishes it first, you can't cheat, you gotta finish it first, gets the money. Guess who won? We both quit.25:35 I get about a chapter and a half into this and I said, I know how this is gonna end. He's gonna fall in love with her and they're gonna go off to the country and there's gonna be horses and dogs. Prayer. And she she25:45 said, I'm done with this. And I go, well how are you gonna learn systematic theology? She says, I'm just gonna come to Cottonwood Creek every Sunday morning and hear what you read about, right? So he can't he can't he25:57 can't fall asleep. The king is sitting there reading the story, read the story. So they go back and they read the story about Mordecai discovering the plot of the soldiers that were26:09 going to kill the king. And and and the king says, oh 0 I remember this story. And the king looks at him and says, hey what did I do for Mordecai? And they're looking through and says, well it doesn't look like you did26:20 anything for me, because how did that happen? Bureaucratic oversight. He says, As a matter of fact, it kind of says that you promoted Haman instead of Mordecai. And the king says, well26:32 you know, that can't be. Get Haman over here. Remember, king's already honored Haman, so he says get Haman over here. And so Haman walks into the room and the king says, listen Haman, if there was this very26:44 special guy in the kingdom, this guy that had had saved my life, that was so loyal, that was amazing and I really wanted to go over the top, to do something special, to honor him in front of the people,26:56 Haman thinks he's talking about him. And so Haman says, oh that's a good idea, king. He thinks he's talking He said, I would give him a royal horse. I would get him a wonderful robe. I would get him a crown. I would27:08 parade him through town. I would make sure everybody knew this guy was special to the king. And the king goes, great Haman, go do that for Mordecai. I told27:20 you there's so much intrigue in this book, you've got to go listen to it. And so sure enough, Haman kind of goes, here's your horse, here's your robe, here's your king, whatever. And so sure enough,27:32 the queen finally gets the courage to go into the king. And she throws a banquet. The queen throws a banquet and only has 2 guests, the king27:44 and Haman the Agagite, who has already instituted a plot to kill all the Jews. And so they get them together, they have this banquet, and the queen says,27:56 now if it pleases the king, I have a request of you. The king says, whatever you ask. She goes, I need you to save28:08 my people, because someone is out to slaughter them. And the king says, you're kidding me, who is it? And she went, he's28:21 Haman the Agagite. It says the king is so furious because she has now revealed that she's a Jew and Mordecai, who he's just honored is a Jew, wants to kill him, that he knew,28:32 now knows that he's been tricked by Haman for personal reasons and he runs out, the king runs out in the garden, he needs to know what to do. He comes back in while the king is gone because he's angry, because he28:44 furious, then all of a sudden Haman gets down, gets on the couch with Esther, and starts begging for her life to change the king's heart about the time the king rolls back in and says, and now you're trying to molest my28:55 wife as well? And he takes him out and has him impelled on the pole that Haman had built by his house to impale Mordecai on. It's kind of29:07 amazing. God put all of this together. So that's a great story pastor, but what's the point? Let me give you a couple of thoughts and I always want to encourage29:19 men, if you don't have the Cottonwood Creek app, open it up because I never get to everything and I always put more in there that you can study throughout the week. But let me give you 5 thoughts from that story.29:31 Thought number 1, your history doesn't determine your destiny. Your history does not determine your destiny. The history, Esther was an orphan.29:43 Her parents had died. She was adopted by a cousin, ultimately ends up being the king. What about Mordecai? Man, lost his first cousins, they died, he ends up adopting a29:55 girl that he probably wasn't ready for, and sure enough, he ends up saving the king, being honored by the king above and beyond all else. So thought number 1, don't ever think your destiny. Don't ever think your history30:07 determines your destiny. Here's number 2, expect pushback when you don't bow down. Man, when when when the world asks us to bow down, and we live in a world right now that they want, how30:19 many of you know this, they want Christians to bow down to certain ideologies. But listen, when we choose not to bow down, and we instead choose to honor God, we've got to30:30 expect a little pushback. I mean that's exactly what they found over and over again. If you just pick it up in Esther chapter 4 verse 14, excuse me, 3 verse 5, it says this, when30:42 Haman, he was the prime minister at this time, saw Mordecai, would not kneel before him or pay honor to him, he was enraged at having learned that Mordecai's people were Jews. He scorned the idea of killing30:54 only Mordecai, but instead wanted to kill them all. Listen, when you don't bow down, expect a little pushback. Here's number 3, God has a purpose for you right where you are.31:07 God has a purpose for you right where you are. We often times think man, you know, I've got to go do this or if I could just get this job or if I could just do this. Man, Mordecai was right where the king31:19 had told him to be. He was at the gate and he discovered the plot. God has a plan for you right where you are. Esther, right where she was. Look at it, Esther chapter 4 verse 14. Mordecai says,31:31 listen, for if you remain silent at this time, this is Mordecai jumping on her. She's told her before, don't reveal that you're a Jew. Now he's saying it's time to reveal that you're a Jew. He says for if you remain31:41 silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place. Notice that? See, God wants to use everyone in this room.31:53 But God will get his will done by using someone in this room, or someone online. So he says deliverance will come from some place or another, but you and your father's family32:05 will perish. So he says, listen, there will eventually be salvation, but don't think you're not going to pay the consequences if you don't step up with a little courage and take a little bit of a risk. And who32:17 knows, listen to this, but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this. You know what Mordecai says? Who knows?32:29 Everything you went through, going through the queen's tryouts and even losing your parents, we're all setting this up for this moment and this time. So child of God, God can use you32:41 right where you are. Here's another 1. Faithfulness to God will always require a little courage. Faithfulness to God will always require32:53 a little courage. Let's just continue to read Esther chapter 4 verse 15. Then Esther sent a reply to Mordecai, go gather all the Jews that are in Susa, the capital city, and fast for me praying, don't33:05 eat or drink anything for 3 days or 3 nights. I and my attendants will also fast just as you do. And when this is done, I will go into the king even though it is against the law. And she says, and33:16 if I perish, I perish. Hey, doing God's will requires a little courage. And I love this, that that once she said yes, she didn't go it33:28 alone. Child of God, she needed her people praying for her, fasting with her, so yes it was her going to the king, but she had the prayers of God's people.33:40 Child of God, the encouragement for you as you have courage, you want to surround yourself with godly people. Man, you want to get in a group, you want to be in a church so when things begin to get hard and you need to33:50 take a risk and you need a little courage, you have others who are encouraging you along the line and praying for you. And here's the final 1, number 5. God wants to use you to bless others.34:03 Fast forward to the last chapter. Mordecai basically is second in command of all the king. But notice how he used his power and notice how34:15 he used his wealth, here it is verse 3. Mordecai the Jew, now they're open everybody, was second in the rank only to King Xerxes, preeminent among all the Jews, and34:27 held a high esteem by many of his fellow Jews. Why? Because he worked for the good of his people and spoke up for the welfare of all34:39 the Jews. Why was he blessed? Because Mordecai didn't live a selfish life. That everything he said and everything he did wasn't about Mordecai,34:51 it was about others. So those are 5 thoughts from the book of Esther. I want to encourage you, go read it this week. You will love it. And best of all, it's35:02 not fiction. Let's pray. God thank you so much for this day. God thank you for the opportunity just to study your word and and just enjoy an incredible story of how you God move and put people35:14 into places where no 1 understands it. But you always have a purpose and you always have a plan. God let us leave here today looking to use whatever we have to bless others. In Jesus name we35:26 pray, Amen and Amen.In this video 0:00 The Unlikely Queen: Esther's Rise
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