Speaker 1: I don't know about you guys.
Speaker 1: I don't do everything right.
Speaker 1: There's things that I don't do right, and then I'm quick to like ask for forgiveness.
Speaker 1: And there's things that I've already asked for forgiveness like a thousand times.
Speaker 1: That happened even before I came to know Jesus personally and I just am filled with regret because I'm ashamed of what I did.
Speaker 1: I'm ashamed that that thing happened.
Speaker 1: One such instance was when I was about 16, I was at a high school party and there was a group of guys that started to pick on another guy and it was arbitrary, like it wasn't, he wasn't even doing anything wrong, but they just they single them out and they started picking on them and they were getting really antagonistic and almost like they're going to attack this guy and it was getting almost out of hand.
Speaker 1: And I'm sitting there thinking, oh my gosh, I should do something like this is wrong, this isn't.
Speaker 1: I wasn't walking with Jesus, like there wasn't nothing religious was going on.
Speaker 1: I just felt in my heart this is wrong and I need to do something about this.
Speaker 1: And they began to like go after this guy.
Speaker 1: And then some other kid that was younger than me got up and got on everybody's face.
Speaker 1: He was like you guys are wrong, this is not the thing you need to be doing, and he shut the whole thing down and I was so proud of him and I was so ashamed of me.
Speaker 1: It's like I should have done that.
Speaker 1: I should have been the guy that did that.
Speaker 1: I should have been.
Speaker 1: Even then, I knew something in my heart said you are to be a protector and you did not protect.
Speaker 1: You should have gotten in there.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to do.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been paralyzed by fear?
Speaker 1: Even stuff that is irrational, even stuff that you're like I don't even know why I'm paralyzed by this but stuff where you didn't know how to move forward, you didn't know how to step up, you didn't know how to say what needed to be said and maybe, like me, that day, you just kind of stayed on the sidelines.
Speaker 1: Maybe you didn't even know what to do, so you couldn't do anything, but maybe there was something in you that said you need to do something.
Speaker 1: We all wrestle with stuff like that, not just in the past but in the now.
Speaker 1: We've all got fears that someone's going to reject us if we say something.
Speaker 1: We've all got fears that, well, if I let them know at work, that I, you know, go to church or I'm a Jesus-y person, that's going to go bad.
Speaker 1: That might like mark me or something like that.
Speaker 1: If I put a boundary between me and this family member because, I don't know, they're just sometimes that way, if I do that, that's going to go bad and they're going to reject me or they're going to take it the wrong way, or it's just going to ruin our relationship.
Speaker 1: If I don't have the right guardrails up, it's going to bleed into the rest of my life and then I'm going to feel like I could have said something and I didn't.
Speaker 1: Every one of us knows what it's like to feel like I don't know how to get out of this.
Speaker 1: It might not just be the fear of other people.
Speaker 1: It might be I'm in a health situation.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to get out of it.
Speaker 1: I'm in a debt situation.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to get out of it.
Speaker 1: I'm just overwhelmed with fear and I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1: I just know there's no way that I see that can ultimately fix this.
Speaker 1: Well, we've been in this book of Esther and, just to catch us up with some of the details that are going on, esther is now the installed queen.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a shady deal how she got there.
Speaker 1: Okay, she was trafficked into it, essentially with about a thousand other gals.
Speaker 1: She auditioned for the king to be this queen and it was a sexual audition, and nevertheless she's now in place as queen.
Speaker 1: And there's a villain.
Speaker 1: There's a colleague, a prime minister of Persia, and he hates Jews.
Speaker 1: Nobody knows that she's a Jew, yet he hates them and he wants to put them all to death.
Speaker 1: The catalyst was her cousin, mordecai, but he wants to kill all Jews because of kind of like an ancient fight.
Speaker 1: So now, what just happened in the last chapter was he released this law.
Speaker 1: That said, okay, on this day, he like consulted some demons about it.
Speaker 1: So the demons picked.
Speaker 1: The day was going to be a year from then, but a year from now we're going to just everybody in the whole, all of the people.
Speaker 1: You're going to kill all the Jews around you.
Speaker 1: Like everybody who's left, every Jew left in Persia.
Speaker 1: We're going to kill them.
Speaker 1: Well, now the Jewish population of this nation is hearing about this, so let's pick it up.
Speaker 1: They're hearing that genocide is coming.
Speaker 1: Let's pick it up when Mordecai he's the older cousin that has been raising Esther when Mordecai learned about all that had been done.
Speaker 1: He tore his clothes, put on burlap and ashes.
Speaker 1: This was a public way to mourn.
Speaker 1: It was to say I'm sad, everybody check it out.
Speaker 1: Like things are going bad for me, I want everybody to know.
Speaker 1: And he went out into the city crying with a loud and bitter wail.
Speaker 1: He went as far as the gate of the palace, for no one was allowed to enter the palace gate while wearing clothes of mourning, because the palace people were like dude, don't bring that in here.
Speaker 1: Like, don't bring your sad, the king doesn't need more sad, keep that out there.
Speaker 1: So they kept them out.
Speaker 1: And as news, as the news of the king's decree reached all the provinces, there was great mourning among the Jews.
Speaker 1: Just like Mordecai, they fasted, wept and wailed and many people lay in burlap and ashes.
Speaker 1: Well, esther, you and many people lay in burlap and ashes.
Speaker 1: Well, esther, you know she's queen now.
Speaker 1: She's in the palace, but you know there's no social media.
Speaker 1: She doesn't know necessarily what's going on.
Speaker 1: She clearly doesn't know about the law yet.
Speaker 1: She doesn't know what's happening with her people.
Speaker 1: All she knows is cousin Mordecai's out there.
Speaker 1: He's flipping out dude.
Speaker 1: And so queen Esther's maids and eunuchs came and told her about Mordecai.
Speaker 1: She was deeply distressed.
Speaker 1: She sent him clothing to replace the burlap, but he refused it.
Speaker 1: Then Esther sent for Hathak, one of the king's eunuchs who had been appointed as her attendant.
Speaker 1: She ordered him to go to Mordecai and find out what was troubling him.
Speaker 1: Why was he mourning?
Speaker 1: So Hathak went out to Mordecai in the square in front of the palace gate.
Speaker 1: So now there's, they can't talk directly.
Speaker 1: So Esther's sending her servants to go.
Speaker 1: Hey, go talk to him and hear what's going on with him.
Speaker 1: And now Mordecai is going to send him back.
Speaker 1: Mordecai told him the whole story, verse seven, including the exact amount of money.
Speaker 1: So Haman promised the king I'm going to give you all this money if you just let's kill all these Jews.
Speaker 1: Haman promised to pay into the royal treasury for the destruction of the Jews.
Speaker 1: Mordecai gave Hathak a copy of the decree issued in Susa that called for the death of all the Jews.
Speaker 1: Then he asked Hathak, show it to Esther and explain the situation to her.
Speaker 1: He also asked Hathak this is important to direct her to go to the king and beg for mercy and plead for the people.
Speaker 1: He said I got a command.
Speaker 1: I'm her older cousin, I'm the authority in her life.
Speaker 1: I've got to.
Speaker 1: This is what I want her to do.
Speaker 1: Esther, this is what you do.
Speaker 1: You go to the king and you beg for mercy and you plead for the people.
Speaker 1: So Hathak returned to Esther with Mordecai's message.
Speaker 1: Then Esther told Hathak to go back and relay this message to Mordecai something he already knew, everybody already knew.
Speaker 1: All the king's officials and even the people in the provinces know that anyone who appears before the king in the inner court without being invited is doomed to die, unless the king holds out his gold scepter.
Speaker 1: And the king has not called me to come in more than 30 days Now.
Speaker 1: This is just a mechanism to keep bad news out of the throne room.
Speaker 1: But the king's like dude, I can't be bothered.
Speaker 1: Nobody gets to come to me unless they want to die, unless I invite them.
Speaker 1: Well, mordecai knows that.
Speaker 1: Esther knows that, knows that.
Speaker 1: Esther knows that and she's saying Mordecai, this is risky, dude, I don't know how I'm going to do this without dying myself.
Speaker 1: She's afraid she doesn't know what to do.
Speaker 1: Just like many of us, we wouldn't know what to do.
Speaker 1: I've never encountered this before.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1: So Hazak gave Esther's message to Mordecai.
Speaker 1: Mordecai sent this reply to Esther.
Speaker 1: Don't think for a moment that because you're in the palace, you will escape when all other Jews are killed If you keep quiet at this time.
Speaker 1: Now, here's Mordecai talking about God.
Speaker 1: Deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from someplace because he still believes in the covenantal God.
Speaker 1: He still believes the God of their fathers, abraham, isaac and Jacob is still, even though they're in exile, even though they committed all these sins that got them kicked out of their own land, that God is still watching them.
Speaker 1: He made promises to them.
Speaker 1: He's going to preserve us, esther, but if you don't step up to your responsibility right now, it might not go well for you.
Speaker 1: Deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from someplace, but you and your relatives will die.
Speaker 1: Who knows if perhaps you're made queen for such a time as this, for such a time as this and that's the whole title of the series for such a time as this?
Speaker 1: And is it possible that you and I are where we are right now for such a time as this?
Speaker 1: We've talked about this.
Speaker 1: This is a lot in the book of Esther, but it's depicting God's sovereignty.
Speaker 1: God's sovereignty means it's the ways that he works in the background to use events and people's decisions, and even people's sinful decisions, to bring about what he wanted to do.
Speaker 1: Anyway.
Speaker 1: He's bringing about his will.
Speaker 1: So Esther thinks about this.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're going to watch what happens to Esther.
Speaker 1: Now she gets this word and there's something about those words the convictor, like they grabs her heart.
Speaker 1: She's like about those words that convict her, like they grabs her heart.
Speaker 1: She's like Mordecai's right, verse 15,.
Speaker 1: Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai Go and gather all the Jews of Susa and fast for me.
Speaker 1: Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day.
Speaker 1: My maids and I will do the same, and then, though it is against the law, I will go see the king.
Speaker 1: If I must die, I must die.
Speaker 1: So Mordecai went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him.
Speaker 1: What just happened, right there was pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: What just happened in those few verses.
Speaker 1: Esther went from being acted upon to acting.
Speaker 1: She went from being a victim to being a catalyst.
Speaker 1: It was Mordecai's advice, but it was also her reflection on it, and she decided here's what we got to do.
Speaker 1: And she begins to say this is what we've got to do.
Speaker 1: So our shift from victim to catalyst, whatever we got going on, whether we're afraid of whatever's like overwhelming, whatever we can't get past.
Speaker 1: We can be like Esther started and she was a real victim.
Speaker 1: It's not like we're just claiming a victim mentality.
Speaker 1: She was a real victim, but like her, we can go from yeah, this really did go wrong.
Speaker 1: This isn't what I want, this isn't what I like, but I'm going to be a catalyst for positive change right here, right now.
Speaker 1: The shift from victim to catalyst requires number one a reminder of responsibility.
Speaker 1: A reminder of responsibility, verse 14, who knows if perhaps you were made queen for such a time as this?
Speaker 1: And Mordecai is saying, and God is saying through Mordecai to Esther this is on you, this is on you, you have a responsibility here.
Speaker 1: And Jesus does that for us.
Speaker 1: He sends us little reminders.
Speaker 1: It might be through reading God's word, it might be through coming to or watching a fierce service or listening to some podcast.
Speaker 1: It might be something that a friend says, but he reminds you.
Speaker 1: Hey, hey, you might be forgetting, and he's not mad about it.
Speaker 1: He's just saying you have a responsibility here.
Speaker 1: There's something you're not totally without options.
Speaker 1: There's things you could do, and I want to focus you on those things now.
Speaker 1: God used Mordecai to remind Esther of her responsibility.
Speaker 1: And this girl has.
Speaker 1: She's kind of now doubly trapped.
Speaker 1: Remember, she was trapped at the beginning.
Speaker 1: She's brought into this process where she's part of the queen audition, but now she's kind of trapped in a different way.
Speaker 1: She's trapped in the palace and she's like I'm just, I'm nobody, what can I do?
Speaker 1: The king doesn't even talk to me for 30 days.
Speaker 1: What should I do?
Speaker 1: She's in a higher place and she decides well, there is stuff I can do, just like us Guys.
Speaker 1: Let's see this.
Speaker 1: She didn't ask for this.
Speaker 1: She didn't ask for this responsibility.
Speaker 1: Even so, she's accountable to do something.
Speaker 1: She didn't ask for it, but she's accountable.
Speaker 1: God has arranged sovereignly.
Speaker 1: He's made her the queen of Persia.
Speaker 1: He's put her at this particular time in history.
Speaker 1: He's even put her in the king's bed.
Speaker 1: He's arranged all this so that she could be part of God's process of keeping the promise of the Messiah through the chosen, promised people.
Speaker 1: She's a part of the story, or she gets to choose to at least, and she chooses to be a part of it.
Speaker 1: Now I'll give you you could just read ahead it's going to work eventually.
Speaker 1: Okay, like her, her decision to do this is going to ultimately lead to a turnover of the whole deal and they get out of it and it is the solution.
Speaker 1: But if that's not in today's text, so we should just know that's coming.
Speaker 1: But you and I all need, we all need reminders.
Speaker 1: We need reminders of our responsibility.
Speaker 1: We need people in our lives that will call us higher, that would say, hey, you know, I mean, I know, you know this, everybody knows this, but sometimes we just need to hear it again.
Speaker 1: Your family matters, dude.
Speaker 1: Like time with your family.
Speaker 1: You gotta get that.
Speaker 1: You gotta make sure that's a priority.
Speaker 1: Your soul matters Like you gotta make sure that that thing's up to date.
Speaker 1: You gotta check in with Jesus Like it matters.
Speaker 1: You have a responsibility here your family, your work situation, your commitments, the things you've already said you're gonna do that it matters that you honor your integrity.
Speaker 1: See, every one of us has been given gifts and opportunities and positions and they may not be the ones that you want, but they're the ones that you have, and God says you may have some responsibilities here.
Speaker 1: There's things that I'm asking you to do and I want you to do them Now.
Speaker 1: Esther couldn't have always done them, so we can't always do everything that maybe we could do later on in life or at a different season earlier in life.
Speaker 1: Esther was once not queen and there's nothing she could have done about it.
Speaker 1: But now she is and now she can take action and let's own.
Speaker 1: She went through some real trauma.
Speaker 1: She went through some stuff that most of us could not even imagine, like we couldn't imagine being taken out of our homes and we're never going to be back.
Speaker 1: We're either going to be the queen or, more likely, we're going to be a concubine for the rest of our lives.
Speaker 1: That's what happened to her.
Speaker 1: Check this out.
Speaker 1: Check this out your responsibility.
Speaker 1: Takes count what happened to you, but it doesn't let you off the hook.
Speaker 1: Rather, it uses what happened to you to inform your responsibility.
Speaker 1: It doesn't let you off the hook.
Speaker 1: Yes, it went hard, but that doesn't let you off the hook.
Speaker 1: That should inform how you do your responsibility or what you do.
Speaker 1: So I mean, I imagine Esther, she knows what it's like, dude, she's lived through this.
Speaker 1: There are powers in my life that will just willy-nilly.
Speaker 1: Whatever their whim is, they will come in and they will just take over in somebody's life.
Speaker 1: They'll just make a decision, they're far away and boom, this is happening to me.
Speaker 1: That's what happened to her, and now she's thinking this through for her entire.
Speaker 1: They're going to.
Speaker 1: He just Haman just decided, and now they're all going to die.
Speaker 1: So maybe that burden influenced her passion that I'm not going to sit by and watch this happen.
Speaker 1: This happened to me.
Speaker 1: Now I have power, I'm going to make sure nothing close to this happens to anybody else.
Speaker 1: In my early twenties, kenzie and I were part of a few churches in a row that were just very I'll call them legalistic.
Speaker 1: They were just very like you got to do it, just so, and if you don't, you're not on the in crowd and God's not down with you anymore.
Speaker 1: And that was.
Speaker 1: We could see it, and there was good things happening in those churches, but there was just a culture of like better, get it right, oh.
Speaker 1: If you're not getting it right, oh man, you should feel real bad about that.
Speaker 1: That's not the gospel, by the way.
Speaker 1: That's not the New Testament, by the way.
Speaker 1: In fact, that contradicts entire books like Galatians in the New Testament.
Speaker 1: However, we could taste that it was wrong, but we didn't have an opportunity to do anything about it.
Speaker 1: But years later, when we were part of a team that planted a church, one of these.
Speaker 1: We decided from day one we're gonna have a family and a church where everybody knows it's okay to make mistakes, because you're going to make mistakes anyway and we'd rather have our mistakes draw us to Jesus than push us away from the very God that will take away that guilt.
Speaker 1: Something bad happened to us in some senses and we decided we're never going to be a part of this again.
Speaker 1: We're going to change how it goes.
Speaker 1: That's what I mean by.
Speaker 1: Esther had something bad happen to her, but she still may have used that to bring about good and your thing, that went wrong for you.
Speaker 1: No one is saying it didn't happen.
Speaker 1: No one is saying God isn't grieved about what happened.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean you don't have to do anything about any evil that you're seeing.
Speaker 1: We need to oppose evil and stand for good, no matter what is going on, with his help, obviously.
Speaker 1: So that means it matters how we engage online.
Speaker 1: It matters how we respond to authorities.
Speaker 1: It matters how you discipline your kids and, depending on the stage of life that they're in, it matters how we use our money.
Speaker 1: It matters, like, how healthily we treat our bodies.
Speaker 1: All of it matters.
Speaker 1: We have responsibilities here.
Speaker 1: It matters that we seek to be as wise as we possibly can.
Speaker 1: It matters that we seek to pursue God and get closer to God and not just be like, ah, I probably don't really need this as much as they say I do.
Speaker 1: It matters that you and I take responsibility for the gospel going forth in the earth.
Speaker 1: It matters that we give and that we serve at our church.
Speaker 1: It matters because God has given us the opportunities, he's given us the gifts, he's given us positions.
Speaker 1: It matters what you do at work, if you've got any strings you can pull, if you've got any power you can do anything with.
Speaker 1: If you are the only representative of Jesus anywhere nearby where you are, god is not saying be silent and draw into the background.
Speaker 1: He's saying look man, don't go picking fights, but you have the power to stand up and say something or do something or be a positive influence or be the most encouraging person in the office.
Speaker 1: Whatever it is, don't count yourself out.
Speaker 1: You have a responsibility.
Speaker 1: So a reminder of responsibility.
Speaker 1: Here's number two shift from victim to catalyst.
Speaker 1: You don't have a responsibility for this, but I'll just remind you.
Speaker 1: The amens are a little low today.
Speaker 1: Okay, maybe you guys online are saying I'm really loud, but for those in here, we're going to try again on point two to see if they can catch up.
Speaker 1: Pray for them online, people that they give me some hearty amens so that this sermon gets better.
Speaker 1: Here's number two a plea for divine deliverance.
Speaker 1: A plea for divine deliverance.
Speaker 1: She said, okay, people, now she's given orders Do not eat or drink for three days, day or night.
Speaker 1: My maids and I will do the same.
Speaker 1: And then she says go into fasting.
Speaker 1: And then, though it's against the law, I'll go see the king, and if I must die, I must die.
Speaker 1: What does Esther know?
Speaker 1: She knows that, even though she has a responsibility, she's foolish to try to do this in the power of the flesh.
Speaker 1: She knows, look, man, if God doesn't help this, if God doesn't cause this to go the right way, it doesn't matter what I say, I'm just going to die.
Speaker 1: Like that is what is going to happen.
Speaker 1: She gets God's help and she recommends to her people hey, I need you to fast for me.
Speaker 1: I need you to get so serious about prayer and so serious about sorrow for the sin of Israel in the past that we cry out to God and he comes to our help.
Speaker 1: Now let me just clarify about fasting.
Speaker 1: Fasting is not a lever to pull.
Speaker 1: It's not a like well, god, I fasted, so you have to do this now.
Speaker 1: Fasting is a lot about our attitudes, about humbling ourselves and saying, god, I just can't do this.
Speaker 1: I need you.
Speaker 1: You are more important to me than eating.
Speaker 1: You are more important to me than anything else.
Speaker 1: I need you to step in and get involved here Now.
Speaker 1: Jesus did teach that his disciples would fast.
Speaker 1: I know that there's stages or situations in life where you can't fast food in the way that many others can.
Speaker 1: So maybe you've got diabetes, or maybe you're pregnant, or maybe there's something else going on with you.
Speaker 1: You can't fast really like the way others would, but there's still stuff that you can do.
Speaker 1: You can fast fast food.
Speaker 1: You can fast screens, you can fast desserts, you can fast something, but it's gotta be something.
Speaker 1: You're like I'm gonna miss you.
Speaker 1: You know I'm gonna miss you.
Speaker 1: That's what a fast is.
Speaker 1: It's something that you want and you're saying but God, you're enough for me to not have that.
Speaker 1: For a temporary, for a time, for a season, I'm going to fast.
Speaker 1: Esther knows.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to see the king.
Speaker 1: I need my people to get some, some of God's power put on these interactions Now later on.
Speaker 1: Let's remember this, because we're going to see Esther actually go to the king and she's going to have these conversations and we need to remember the reason those are working.
Speaker 1: The reason those are empowered and energized by the Holy Spirit is because back here the people fasted and asked God to get involved and that's why he does and gets involved.
Speaker 1: So, god, I can't do it without you.
Speaker 1: Let me point out something.
Speaker 1: I'm going to get on my soapbox for a second.
Speaker 1: The scripture doesn't actually teach this, but I think it probably implies it.
Speaker 1: So let me just say you know politicians and people don't like when I talk about political stuff in messages, but we need to talk about it because it doesn't make any sense to say don't talk about politics.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say to you hey, in your marriage, just don't talk about God, just don't talk, just leave them out of it.
Speaker 1: Hey, in your parenting, just leave God out of it.
Speaker 1: No, it's a sphere of life that needs to be informed morally by what should happen.
Speaker 1: Politics also is a sphere of life that needs to be informed.
Speaker 1: So, in other words, if we just say in church, hey, you just can't talk about politics.
Speaker 1: Guess what?
Speaker 1: You just created a safe space for the enemy to say whatever the heck he wants, and God is never going to contradict him because nobody can talk about it.
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to like, you don't even have to believe.
Speaker 1: What I believe, but I'm saying is we need moral instruction about how we citizen with one another.
Speaker 1: Are we hearing that?
Speaker 1: So here's my pitch to you is that by, by only having politicians that talk and that's that's that's why we have representatives right Like we're here in Grayslake and we say, okay, politician representative, go to Washington and represent my interests and tell them what I would want, and that's what we'll all do.
Speaker 1: Hopefully, at least with regard to here, that's what we're saying.
Speaker 1: And so they go and have conversations.
Speaker 1: It used to be that they would go and they might even pray, they might even get God involved in the decisions that they're making, because they know here's what they know Just talking doesn't oppose evil.
Speaker 1: The same way, god can Just talk.
Speaker 1: So what I'm saying, our politics today is missing the power of God because people have kept God out.
Speaker 1: We can't fast about it, dude, like evil doesn't just, you can't talk evil.
Speaker 1: You can't talk evil out of being evil.
Speaker 1: Are you hearing this Like, yeah, you can try a lot, but evil comes.
Speaker 1: Evil's not gonna lie, you can't.
Speaker 1: Evil's like my whole agenda is evil.
Speaker 1: You're not talking me out of it.
Speaker 1: But God can overpower evil.
Speaker 1: God can get rid of bad things.
Speaker 1: God can make hearts just change.
Speaker 1: God can change entire cultures of what they think is good and not good.
Speaker 1: There was a day when slavery was real in the South.
Speaker 1: That's not today, because people didn't just talk about it.
Speaker 1: They prayed and fasted for decades and then it went away.
Speaker 1: We can bring God into stuff if we will just have the wisdom.
Speaker 1: Dude, I'm not saying like bring God into every meeting at work.
Speaker 1: What I'm saying is behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: You and I need to know talking will not be enough to shut down evil.
Speaker 1: Talking will not be enough.
Speaker 1: We've got to pray.
Speaker 1: So let me tell you what fasting does.
Speaker 1: Many of you are familiar with the Olympic high jump and the pole vaulting.
Speaker 1: The high jump is where someone if you don't know there's someone that take a running start and they leap just right off the ground over a crossbar and the best in the world can do like six to eight feet.
Speaker 1: They can jump over this thing Pretty dope.
Speaker 1: The pole vault's a little different.
Speaker 1: It's close, but you bring a pole with you and as you're getting near that crossbar that's much higher.
Speaker 1: The best in the world can go 20 feet right over that thing.
Speaker 1: That's how fasting is different than just normal wishing.
Speaker 1: So you do everything in your own power.
Speaker 1: Hey, I'm just going to do this and I'm going to make it happen and eventually, sometimes that works right.
Speaker 1: But sometimes we get worn out Like why isn't this working?
Speaker 1: Because, baby, you're doing everything in your own power, but God has given us a pole.
Speaker 1: It is the pole of prayer and fasting and sorrow for sin.
Speaker 1: Okay, god, I'm going to get serious.
Speaker 1: I want to show you that I'm really serious.
Speaker 1: So here we go.
Speaker 1: Here's my pole of prayer and fasting, confession of sin, and it's going to strengthen how God answers.
Speaker 1: So here's some things that you can fast and pray about.
Speaker 1: I need to fast regularly for freedom from temptation.
Speaker 1: The elders do this with me.
Speaker 1: We do this every Wednesday.
Speaker 1: We also fast regularly for the kingdom expansion through this church.
Speaker 1: We're asking God no, god, I don't want jump versions, I want pole vault versions in this.
Speaker 1: We need to fast for decisions.
Speaker 1: Okay, so maybe it's where are you going to go to school?
Speaker 1: Maybe it's I'm thinking about marrying this person.
Speaker 1: God, is that the long-term best idea?
Speaker 1: Maybe it is God.
Speaker 1: We're thinking about moving across the country.
Speaker 1: We're thinking about taking another job.
Speaker 1: But I need discernment.
Speaker 1: I need to know, I need to have a lot of confidence that God and I have talked seriously about this and, even if he didn't say anything, I have confidence he is leading me and is not stopping me from doing this thing.
Speaker 1: Did you notice that Esther also was asking for courage?
Speaker 1: Because sometimes it's not God.
Speaker 1: I need to know something, it's God.
Speaker 1: I already know what to do.
Speaker 1: I already know what the responsibility is.
Speaker 1: I just need courage to do it.
Speaker 1: I'm asking for you to come through in a breakthrough way to help me do it.
Speaker 1: Here's number three we're getting there.
Speaker 1: That was better.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 1: Point two Pretty good, all right, we're getting there.
Speaker 1: Keep coming.
Speaker 1: It's hard to get a lot of amens on fasting.
Speaker 1: People are like oh no.
Speaker 1: Here's number three.
Speaker 1: The shift from victim to catalyst requires a reminder of responsibility, a plea for divine deliverance and an embracing of a new identity.
Speaker 1: An embracing of a new identity.
Speaker 1: This is so dope, because this is where Esther shifts.
Speaker 1: See, in verse eight, he's commanding her hey, hey, go tell Esther to do this, this and this.
Speaker 1: By verse 17,.
Speaker 1: Esther has ordered Mordecai to go do and he does what happened there.
Speaker 1: She embraced the fact that, yes, mordecai raised me and I respect him and you know, I'm going to do what I can to honor him.
Speaker 1: But now God has made me the queen and I am the queen and I have the power to order people around, and so I'm going to do it.
Speaker 1: I'm going to strategize, I'm going to bring my best prayerful thoughts to this and I'm going to tell people what to do.
Speaker 1: Because that's her role Now.
Speaker 1: That's her authority.
Speaker 1: She walks in her authority and she's still taking a risk.
Speaker 1: In fact, esther is, in some ways, the opposite image of Queen Vashti.
Speaker 1: Remember her, remember.
Speaker 1: So she refuses to come to the king and she loses her role.
Speaker 1: Esther gets the role and now she is risking death going to the king, but she chooses to act, she chooses to order, and she's going to not only order Mordecai, she's going to face off with Haman himself, right to his face.
Speaker 1: She can say hey, this is your deal, this is what you did.
Speaker 1: Now here's what the application for us fiercers today.
Speaker 1: Esther did not get a burning bush, she did not get a pillar of fire in the cloud.
Speaker 1: She didn't get any miracles.
Speaker 1: She didn't even get any conversation with God about it that we're aware of.
Speaker 1: Like there was no call, there was no like.
Speaker 1: Esther, I speak unto you, you're gonna go in and slay your enemies Like nothing, like that happened at all.
Speaker 1: She's just like doing her best and asking people to fast, and I think that's their purpose.
Speaker 1: For us to know.
Speaker 1: Guys, yeah, I'd love a burning bush, I'd love to just know for sure.
Speaker 1: There's miraculous angels around me and they're telling me Carter, go, go, go, go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that'd be way easier with a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: But in Esther's case, god doesn't say anything.
Speaker 1: She's just like what does she know?
Speaker 1: She knows I have a responsibility.
Speaker 1: The responsibility is the call.
Speaker 1: The responsibility is how God is telling me to do this.
Speaker 1: So she walks in courage.
Speaker 1: Courage is different than just not fearing.
Speaker 1: We talk about fear, we talk about last message.
Speaker 1: When we're walking in fear, we're doing everything we can just to not back up.
Speaker 1: With courage, we're not just trying to not back up.
Speaker 1: Courage is saying I'm stepping in, I'm going for it.
Speaker 1: I'm going to make this happen, I am afraid, but I'm still going to make this thing happen in Jesus' name.
Speaker 1: It is here that Esther I think she makes the decision.
Speaker 1: It's going to come out later, but she decides I am going to reveal myself that I am with these people.
Speaker 1: I'm going to let the cat out of the bay.
Speaker 1: Here's what Esther knows about courage.
Speaker 1: You can be courageous for like noble reasons, even reasons like hey, I just want to be the kind of person that would be brave here.
Speaker 1: That's a good reason to have courage, but there's a better reason.
Speaker 1: The best reason to have courage is love.
Speaker 1: It's love.
Speaker 1: I'm going to love these people.
Speaker 1: And Esther has kept her identity hidden.
Speaker 1: And there is a wisdom.
Speaker 1: For a time I'm going to stay hidden while I figure out what's going on here, but love eventually demands.
Speaker 1: I will courageously step forward and say I identify with these people and, in Jesus name, I've got to act.
Speaker 1: And that is what Esther is showing us to do.
Speaker 1: My friends, as a Christ follower you and I there's a time to be awesomely wise.
Speaker 1: But just know Christ followers are not called to play it safe.
Speaker 1: That's not our bag, baby.
Speaker 1: That's not how we roll.
Speaker 1: That's not how we do it.
Speaker 1: That's not how we've done it through the centuries.
Speaker 1: That's not how God is.
Speaker 1: That's not how we do it.
Speaker 1: That's not how we've done it through the centuries.
Speaker 1: That's not how God is asking us to do it today.
Speaker 1: Don't play it safe.
Speaker 1: Esther fights.
Speaker 1: I'm going to bring two of my worlds together right now, and so I just need you to flow with me.
Speaker 1: I know that I'm going to talk about something really nerdy that most of you don't even care about or care to understand at all.
Speaker 1: I'm you to not judge me because you're going to be like Carter, that's.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's okay to watch that show.
Speaker 1: Just so you know, we use filters on VidAngel to watch this particular show, so there's a lot of hell taken out.
Speaker 1: I would also advise if you're going to watch this show it's called the Walking Dead If you're going to watch this, it can be scary for people, so I don't want you to be like the pastor told me to watch this and now I'm horrified.
Speaker 1: Just don't watch it Like it's my show.
Speaker 1: You got your show.
Speaker 1: I don't want to watch your show.
Speaker 1: It's my show.
Speaker 1: So just, it's a story about my show.
Speaker 1: Okay, so here we go.
Speaker 1: Let me introduce you to one of the most awesome power couples in the history of fiction.
Speaker 1: It is Rick and Michonne.
Speaker 1: You might have thought there they are, rick and Michonne.
Speaker 1: They are a power couple in the zombie apocalypse.
Speaker 1: It's way cooler than that just sounded.
Speaker 1: And you might think the real power couples are people like Romeo and Juliet.
Speaker 1: And I'll just tell you, dude, I don't think they'd last 10 minutes in the zombie apocalypse.
Speaker 1: Those two are just going on, and on, and on and on.
Speaker 1: Then they just get eaten.
Speaker 1: That's what happens to them.
Speaker 1: But these two fall in love and they take responsibility for the people around them to lead and as they go throughout the series, I'm going to give away a spoiler.
Speaker 1: Hey, man, that show started in 2010,.
Speaker 1: Okay, there's been a lot of time to go through this.
Speaker 1: It's also, you know, I mean, it's on Netflix.
Speaker 1: It's not hard to get to this thing.
Speaker 1: Okay, they're going through a real low point.
Speaker 1: There's a guy named Negan and his people and they've come in and they've essentially instructed Rick and Michonne and their people hey, if you don't bring us a certain amount of food and supplies with regularity, we're Every time you're short on what we want you to bring us, we're just going to kill you.
Speaker 1: Now, in the zombie apocalypse, you have to bring people, you have to go find stuff, because everyone's already eaten all the stuff and you got to forage and there's no factors, nobody makes anything, and so they're under this burden for like an entire season.
Speaker 1: If we don't get Negan what he wants, he's just going to kill one of our, scared of what Negan might do to his people, that he stops acting.
Speaker 1: And he and Michonne, his good woman who speaks a good encouragement to him, just like a good woman does, she speaks a good encouragement to her husband.
Speaker 1: She pulls him aside and she says Rick, rick, this isn't who we are.
Speaker 1: I know that it's scary, I know that you know people might, you're afraid that they're going, gonna get hurt, but this is not who we are.
Speaker 1: We fight and they do.
Speaker 1: They're hardcore and they've given up for that for a minute.
Speaker 1: But she reminds him dude, you're living out of the wrong identity, you're just trying to be the appeaser.
Speaker 1: I need us to become again the power couple that is willing to fight for others and save them.
Speaker 1: That's who we need to become.
Speaker 1: And, my friends, I wanna challenge us, like Rick and Michonne.
Speaker 1: It is your time for such a time as this.
Speaker 1: You were put on this earth, you were put in the place that you are, and I would just challenge you it is not time to be an appeaser.
Speaker 1: It is a time to stand up for what is good, to oppose evil, to care about people enough to say I might get hurt with this, but I'm going to go forth and do it anyway, because it's my time on earth, like Esther, to do whatever I can.
Speaker 1: I can't do everything, but in my sphere I can do what I can do and I'm going to do that thing because we fight.
Speaker 1: God calls us certain things in the Bible.
Speaker 1: See, when we come to Christ, you're no longer who you were, even though you sometimes act the way that you used to.
Speaker 1: You now have a new identity.
Speaker 1: You are a son or daughter of the King.
Speaker 1: That means, even though sometimes you and I are dishonest, jesus is the spirit of honesty.
Speaker 1: So, because he's the spirit of honesty, that means the spirit of honesty is on the inside of me.
Speaker 1: That means, even though sometimes you and I are dishonest, jesus is the spirit of honesty.
Speaker 1: So, because he's the spirit of honesty, that means the spirit of honesty is on the inside of me.
Speaker 1: That means it's not just that I'm occasionally honest In Jesus' name.
Speaker 1: I am an honest representative of the king of heaven.
Speaker 1: So that's why I'm gonna be honest.
Speaker 1: I don't just give.
Speaker 1: I'm a giver because God's a giver.
Speaker 1: I don't just work.
Speaker 1: I'm a giver because God's a giver.
Speaker 1: I don't just work.
Speaker 1: I'm God's excellent worker, because that's what God is.
Speaker 1: I'm not just gonna give up, because God is relentless and tireless and he just keeps going.
Speaker 1: Yes, when you get slapped in the face down, I know it's hard, but we get up because we don't appease.
Speaker 1: We fight, we believe again.
Speaker 1: I would name, I would encourage you to name what is the aspect of God's character that needs to rise up in you today?
Speaker 1: This is I.
Speaker 1: Am this God's son or daughter?
Speaker 1: I don't respond in fear.
Speaker 1: I don't run.
Speaker 1: I don't act in unwisdom, but I don't back down.
Speaker 1: I do what God has made me to be, because of the cross, because of God's sovereignty.
Speaker 1: We can trust.
Speaker 1: Whatever you do, dude, it's all within God's sovereignty.
Speaker 1: He's got your back.
Speaker 1: It's going to be okay.
Speaker 1: You're going to be just fine.
Speaker 1: It's okay to take that risk, just like Esther did, and he might not fix it right away.
Speaker 1: It might be that you don't even live to see exactly how he resolves that, but you can trust that he is good.
Speaker 1: Esther says if I perish, I perish.
Speaker 1: Sometimes in the Bible for those that don't know this there's a person that is a lesser picture of who Jesus is, and Esther is that she says if I perish, I perish.
Speaker 1: And Jesus says I will perish so you can live, I will perish so you can live.
Speaker 1: And Mordecai says deliverance will arise from somewhere and Jesus is the son of righteousness that rises with healing in his wings.
Speaker 1: The ultimate balm, the ultimate cure, the ultimate medicine that we all need is Jesus.
Speaker 1: Hope is in Jesus, our courage is in Jesus, our deliverance is in Jesus.
Speaker 1: Do you need to trust Jesus with your stuff today?
Speaker 1: Do you need to push it across the table and say Jesus, you're enough Like you're smart.
Speaker 1: You know what you're doing.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do my best to be brave.
Speaker 1: If you do, I want to invite you to trust him again.
Speaker 1: We're going to pray that after communion, here in a second.
Speaker 1: But there's others of you who you don't know, man.
Speaker 1: You don't know about the Jesus thing.
Speaker 1: In fact, you don't necessarily know what the big deal is.
Speaker 1: Why do this help?
Speaker 1: If that's where you are.
Speaker 1: Let me give you a friendly challenge.
Speaker 1: You can take it or leave it.
Speaker 1: The friendly challenge is ask Jesus to bring conviction for your sin.
Speaker 1: We don't.
Speaker 1: We're so sinful because we don't even feel our sin sometimes.
Speaker 1: Say Jesus, if this is really real, because Jesus looks like a great idea for the person that knows that they're a sinner.
Speaker 1: When you know like, oh my gosh, I'm like I'm way worse than I thought Jesus starts to look really good because he'll take your place.
Speaker 1: He's like yeah, I know, take me, I'll get rid of that.
Speaker 1: If you don't have that softness, though, to know that you've betrayed a holy God, that's something he can give.
Speaker 1: You just have to ask for it, and he will, so test him.
Speaker 1: No-transcript.