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When You're Trapped | For Such a Time As This
Feeling trapped? 😔 Esther knew what that felt like — taken from her home and thrust into a palace she didn’t choose. In this message from Esther 2, Pastor Mark Carter shows you how to grow when you’re stuck, how to handle “sandpaper people,” and how surrender + excellence can lead to God’s favor. 🌱✨
You’ll discover how to:
✅ Stay faithful to your duty in hard places
✅ Combine surrender + excellence to stand out
✅ Do the best you can with what you have where you are
There's something about being trapped that is an interesting story. There's a lot of great stories out there that are in some sense about being trapped. You think about the entire six seasons of Lost. I know that the last three were not great, but the whole thing is really about being trapped. People are trapped on an island. You think about Shawshank Redemption. What's happening there?
Speaker 1:Andy Dufresne is, in one sense. He's trapped in prison. We kind of know they didn't do it and part of the question we're asking whether it's lost or whether it's Shawshank Redemption or whether it is Quantum Leap when Scott Bakula he's trapped in all these different times trying to get back to his time. We're asking the question are they going to become bad while they're trapped? Are they going to become good? Are they going to get better? Is their character going to develop? Are they going to go south? And is Andy Dufresne going to actually turn evil because the people around him are evil, or is he going to have a positive impact on them and kind of osmosis, his maturity over to them? And it's always refreshing and cool when the good people stay good and get better and maybe even some of the bad guys get better, but they're trapped. I want to talk to you today about being trapped in the will of God, being trapped in a situation you didn't particularly ask for. You don't necessarily know how you got here, but you know for sure you can't get yourself out. Okay, joseph, he was trapped. He's got all this, all this potential, he's got these dreams spoken over him, and yet he can't get there. No matter what he does, he's thrown in prison and then he's like a supervisor over the prisoners and he's in there for 13 years until finally he gets out. And we're actually crushing. Did Joseph get worse, like the people he was around, or did he get better? He got better out. And where I was encouraging to just get worse, like the people he was around, or did he get better? He got better. He became more mature, he became more wise, and you and I all have places where I'm sure you got great pieces of your life.
Speaker 1:But there may be some, at some different times, where you can't get out of this. As an example, it may be that you have wanted to buy a house for a long time and you just can't get there, no matter what you do. It's like you're priced out out or something closes down right at the last minute. You just can't get there. Maybe you're saying, hey, I can't get out of that. No matter what I do, I've tried, I keep trying and I'm trapped in this place. And when we say trapped in the will of God, that doesn't always mean like God wants you there or puts you there, but he's using the circumstances around you sovereignly to keep you in a place where it's time for you to practice growth.
Speaker 1:Sometimes we're trapped in a sin pattern and it's not that we're not repentant about it, but as time goes by, we keep falling back in and falling back in and it becomes so frustrating. Why am I still here? Why am I trapped? It may be that you're under a mountain of assignments and you're just like I am. I am, I'm trapped underneath this thing. Maybe, again and again, you feel like you can't get past your fears. Maybe you feel dependent on somebody else. Maybe there's someone else for seasonal if that's helping you pay the bills and you feel trapped in that place and the question becomes what is happening here and how do I get out of it and can I force my way out? How do we get out Esther?
Speaker 1:We're going to meet her today. We started her book last weekend. We're going to meet her today and she we're going to learn real soon is trapped. She is trapped. In fact, her entire people have been trapped. The Jews have been trapped. This is after the time of exile. Now some of them have gone back from being exiled into back into Jerusalem, but Esther and a whole lot of her friends and family and people are still under the rule of a Persian King and dude. It's, it's a little bit we're going to see for her. It's it's a little bit hopeless. The the, the place that she is condemned to on some levels, at least at the beginning. How would you ever get out of it? You can't get out of it. Her cousin Mordecai, who is the one who's kind of raised her and taking care of her, he's trapped himself because there's nothing he can do to help this little one that he's raised. She's essentially guys. Here's what's happening. She's kidnapped, she's kidnapped. She's essentially guys. Here's what's happening. She's kidnapped, she's kidnapped.
Speaker 1:I know that you've heard the story of Esther where it's like a beauty pageant and she and all the ladies are kind of competing and she's the prettiest or something like that. That's a really great VeggieTales kid version of the story. That really is. What's actually happening is that all the young ladies of the realm are rounded up and they're taken to a citadel like a fortified castle and they're said you're going to compete to be the queen, but you're all now belong to the king as his concubines and if you don't become the queen, you're going to come back here and you're going to live essentially as a widow in luxury for the rest of your life and that's going to be your life. You were kidnapped, you were trapped, and that is what Mordecai's thinking about Esther as this happens to her. So what do they do? And what do we do? We feel trapped in the will of God, and God is silent, like he is in the book of Esther. God's not saying anything. It doesn't seem like there's any hope dropped from heaven at all.
Speaker 1:If you remember what we talked about last weekend, it was Esther, chapter one. We started out hey, the king and all of his people, they're in this lavish luxury and they're throwing a six month party, followed by another seven day party, and they're just essentially celebrating how powerful they are and how rich they are and they're about to go off to war, and so, kind of at the last minute, the king Xerxes. He says, hey, let's call my wife in here and we'll have her prance around and she can just show you how beautiful she is. And she says, no, I'm not coming. And she doesn't even say why she's not coming, she just has the integrity to not come. And he gets furious. He and all his buddies get that. All wives, oh, you better do what your man says. That's their law, that's their law. And so they sent out the Pony Express and it's going everywhere and telling everybody. And we see right away, dude, this king, for however powerful he is, for however rich he is right now, he's a fool, he's easily manipulated and he's afraid of losing power. He's so afraid that he's got to make a law. Maybe it would have been great, dude, if your wife would have just respected you to begin with, like that would have been nice. If you interact with her a little bit better, that would have been better. But in the midst of this, we see the hand of God moving pieces on the chessboard into the right positions for God to do what he's going to do, which is preserve the promised seed that will lead to the Messiah, who will be a blessing to all the nations and families of the earth. That's what God's after, that's what he's trying to do, and he's taking care of his people while he does it.
Speaker 1:Esther, chapter two, let's jump in. We're going to see this. Okay, so it's been four years. King Xerxes went to war with the Greeks. He essentially initiated this war and he got beaten. So now he's humbled, he's back home and he's beginning to reflect on oh, remember that cool queen I had. She's gone Verse one.
Speaker 1:Later, when King Xerxes' fury had subsided, he remembered Vashti and what she had done and what he decreed about her. The king's personal attendants proposed let a search be made for beautiful young virgins for the king. Let the king appoint commissioners in every province of his realm to bring these beautiful young women into the harem at the citadel of Susa. Citadel is like a big castle that's ready to go to war in the midst of a larger city of Susa. Let them be placed under the care of Haggai, the. Let them be placed under the care of Haggai, the king's eunuch, who's in charge of the women, and let beauty treatments be given to them. Then let the young woman who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti. This advice appealed to the king and he followed it.
Speaker 1:Jump down to verse 7, we're going to introduce a brand new character, mordecai. Mordecai had a cousin named Hadassah, whom he had brought up because she had neither father nor mother. This young woman was also known as Esther that's her Persian name. Hadassah was her Jewish name. She had a lovely figure and was beautiful. Mordecai had taken her as his own daughter when her father and mother died, when the king's order and edict had been proclaimed, many young women were brought to the citadel of Susa and put under the care of haggai.
Speaker 1:Esther was also taken, taken. She was taken. There was trauma here. She was taken. She was the victim of essentially trafficking. That's what's happening to esther right now. She was taken. She didn't sign up, she didn't volunteer. She was taken to the king's palace and entrusted to Haggai, who had charge of the harem. She was trapped. She's now. Now she's doubly orphaned. She was orphaned once and now she's orphaned again, taken away from Mordecai, and it's all for the whim of this king who views people and things as whatever I want, that's what I do. And he's an example of the injustice of the world. He's an example of going all the way back to the very beginning, when man and woman steps out from under the protection of obedience to God. When they were like now, we got our own ideas and they step out. Ultimately, it evolves into Kings like this on this planet, who take whatever they want and do whatever they want whenever they want, no matter who it hurts, no matter how harmful it is, and this is why the human race needs an actual good king. Verse nine so, speaking of Haggai, the ones who's taking care of all these women, she pleased him and won his favor Immediately. He provided her with beauty treatments and special food. He assigned her seven female attendants, selected from the king's palace, and moved her and her attendants into the best place of the harem. So old girl suddenly has favor, similar to the way Joseph had favor before her. Similar to the way that David found favor in different ways with King Saul, at least initially, but definitely with all the people. Check it out. Here's verse 10. And this would? This seems okay, fine to us. It would have been a little bit weird to the original Jewish listeners who are hearing this. It's after the fact that they're not listening while it's recorded. The book of Esther is recorded. They read it for centuries, on and on and on. And this. This verse would stick out to them. Esther had not revealed her nationality and family background because Mordecai had forbidden her to do so. There'd be like what, why? Why is she hiding this? Is she ashamed of her heritage? And, by the way, it seems a little bit weird because we know the story and I mean, yes, she becomes queen, but she also, like she marries a pagan king and eats all the things that he would eat. And it seems like, why doesn't she back out of this? Why doesn't she get out? Well, I'll remind you, because she was taken. She was taken. She doesn't get a choice about anything. She's probably, at best, an older teenager. She doesn't have a lot of options of what to do. She might. She's far enough removed in the exile. She might not even know some of the laws that she's breaking. But just to just asterisk right there, put your finger there. We're going to come back to that idea, but this would have been a strange verse right there.
Speaker 1:Verse 11,. Every day, mordecai walked back and forth near the courtyard of the harem to find out how Esther was and what was happening to her. Okay, now we're going to describe what happens, and the scripture is vague, but you can fill in the blanks of what they're talking about here. Before a young woman's turn came to go into King Xerxes, she had to complete 12 months of beauty treatments prescribed for the women six months of oil and myrrh and six months of perfumes and cosmetics. And this is how she would go to the king. Anything she wanted was given to her to take with her from the harem to the king's palace. Anything, anything she wanted was given to her to take with her from the harem to the king's palace. Anything she wanted. I'm picturing because I want to keep it great to G in my mind.
Speaker 1:She probably brings a game of Yahtzee, she probably brings a sandwich. You know, that's what she brings, verse 14. In the evening she would go there and in the morning return to another part of the harem to the care of Shashgaz, the King's eunuch who was in charge of the concubines. Okay, so now she's transferred. She's not a contestant anymore, now she's just a concubine. She would not return to the King unless he was pleased with her and summoned her by name. So other extra biblical histories tell us there could have been up to like 1200 of these young women. Okay, so she goes back. She's not the one, she goes back and she's going to live there for the rest of her life, until at least till the king dies, and that's what she's going to do. That's her reality.
Speaker 1:And, guys, let's not miss the fact, it's more than this, because I'm sure he was looking for a little bit more in in terms of who the queen is. And I'm not trying to be, I'm not trying to offend your sensibilities. This is the way the Bible presented. The Bible presents evil as evil is to give us a thirst for a real Messiah. This is a sex audition. That's what this is. It might be slightly more than that, because he's looking for somebody wise or I don't know what else he's looking for in a personality, but that's the whole game here. That's the game show that she's on.
Speaker 1:When the turn came for Esther, the woman Mordecai had adopted the daughter of uncle Abiel to go to the king, she asked for nothing other than what Haggai, the king's eunuch who was in charge of the harem, suggested. Esther won the favor of everyone who saw her. Okay, so she recognizes this dude probably know what's going on. He likes me for some reason. I've got favor. He gives me my own apartments. Maybe he knows, like what's the best way in man. How do I do this? Because my best play is to become the queen. Trauma, no matter how bad this was, to be sure there's still this little light in Esther's mind. Okay, the best thing possible would be for me to become the queen, because if I become the queen, then not only is there maybe hope for me and my family, but maybe there's even hope for me and my people. And so, while it's a despicable kind of scenario they're still like. But if you can do this, esther, like you, it's going to be pretty good for you, at least in terms of what it would be if you don't.
Speaker 1:When the, when the turn came for Esther sorry, jumping down to verse 17. Now the king was attracted to Esther more than any other women of other women, and she won his favor, his favor. She got me, she got favor, favor, favor, favor and approval more than any of the other virgins. So he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. This should make you feel weird, because she wins. But she had a horrific experience to go through, and now all the other gals are still in that experience to go through, and now all the other gals are still in that experience.
Speaker 1:But I want us to notice that God allows trial and favor to bring about his purposes. Does God want any of this to happen to these women? No, but he allows trial and favor. So you've got trial in your life and you've got favor in your life. There's things going wrong, but there's a whole bunch of things going right. And sometimes we think, well, if God was really pleased with me or if I was favored, nothing would be going wrong.
Speaker 1:Well, now in the Bible you can be both favored, like Esther or Joseph, and in the midst of despicable trial, that can be happening at the same time. So, baby, just listen, you know you ain't crazy. God is treating you like he treats the people in the Bible. That's what he's doing. So so good news, you're being treated the same way. The heroes of the faith have been treated Okay. So verse 18, he gives a great banquet, calls it Esther's banquet and everyone's like yay.
Speaker 1:Verse 20, here we come back to it. This is a little bit of a different scene, but we're pulling it in this week. But Esther had kept secret her family, background and nationality, just as Mordecai had told her to do, for she continued to follow Mordecai's instruction, as she had done when he was bringing her. Even as the queen, she's hush about it. She's like Mordecai's wise. He told me what to do, and so I'm going to protect this thing. Now there's good reason too. We're going to see there's a lot of anti-Semitic activity going on, okay.
Speaker 1:But also, I think the spirit of God is trying to tell us something else. As people look at Esther, they're watching her. She doesn't do everything perfectly right, like perfectly legal, perfectly the way the law would say. You know who else didn't do that Abraham Isaac, jacob, everybody else. What is God trying to say? I think one of the things he's trying to say to us is dude, look, sometimes the world is crazy and you get into sin you didn't even know was sin, or you get dumb for a minute and you make a whole bunch of mistakes.
Speaker 1:And God doesn't need perfect specimens that always do what is right, to do great things for them. He doesn't need everybody just oh, I'm so Bible-y, I'm so perfect. Honey, I don't know about you, but I've jacked a whole bunch of stuff up and I'm so glad the God of the Bible says I know your heart, jesus will cover that. Let's go, let's get after it. And so for some of us, I just want to challenge you. You might have disqualified yourself in your mind. You're like, well, I did this or I did that, hey, get out and chuck that. That's not Bible stuff. In the Bible, everybody's jacked up, except Jesus, and God is merciful. That's how it works. Okay, no matter how low you get, jesus is ready to use us.
Speaker 1:So here's the bottom line of what we're saying today. I believe if God could stand on this stage, if Jesus could stand on this stage, if Jesus could stand on the stage, he would say to all of us do the best you can with what you have where you are. Where are you right now? What's going on in your life? God says do the best you can with what you have where you are. Do the best you can with what you have where you are. Esther is trapped. You and I have different traps that we've been in. Let's talk about three growth areas when we're feeling trapped because we don't want. We don't want to really waste trap. You're in your trap right now, but you've been in different traps before that you were now out of. I would assume you don't want to waste the trap. You actually want to learn everything you can in the trap.
Speaker 1:So, number one, grow in doing your duty. Grow in doing your duty. Number one, grow in doing your duty. Mordecai did his duty. This little girl doesn't have any parents. He feels just the way all of us would, probably some level of responsibility. Well, she's related to me. I should, I should be the one to step in and I should do something. His life is going one way because I'm going to bring this kid up, I'm going to take care of her. I like her, I want to make sure things go well for her. He does his duty to love the people around him. He's faithful to her. And love is really important to do when it's hard, because it's when it's hard that it forms character. It's easy to love when everything's easy and everybody's nice and you like everybody. It's when you choose to embrace the difficulty of love, when it gets in your circumstances, when it makes you have to act differently. Yeah, that's when you actually start to grow. That's when your, your, your inner person starts to expand. And now you're you're actually becoming loving from the heart, not just loving because it's easy.
Speaker 1:And Esther is Mordecai's If we look at the sovereign, like we were talking about last weekend. Esther is Mordecai's sovereignly picked person. God picked Esther to give to Mordecai. God picked Mordecai to give to Esther. He picked her and now he gets to love her and be near her and raise her up. God has given each one of us people that are around you that probably you picked. You're like, I like this person. Let's be around them and let's love them. Well, but he's probably also given you some people that you didn't pick Right.
Speaker 1:There's some people that you're like how do I get out of this? What do we got to do? God take them away, or take me away, or do something. And it could be someone related to you. It could be something you married into, it could be your spouse's weird friend, it could be someone you work with, it could be a neighbor. It could be a whole bunch of people that you're just like why, why, why, why? And there's a spectrum of how hard it is. But whatever they are, I want to remind you or introduce you for the first time to the concept of the sandpaper person, the sandpaper person. Okay, you and I have hard people, or we could call them sandpaper people, and they are sandpaper to us.
Speaker 1:Here is a little plank of wood. Imagine this is you and I. Now you can see it's a little bit gnarled. It's not necessarily smooth. It's wood for sure, but it's not anything necessarily that could be totally used. Yet until we take some sandpaper to the wood and this is what the great carpenter, jesus, does with every one of us.
Speaker 1:He says, well, I got them and I got them. They're not easy, at least not for them. But here we go and he starts to rub them and their life and their weirdness all over your life. And he's trying to what's he trying to do? All over your life. And he's trying to what's he trying to do? He's trying to shape you and smooth you out so that their weird jaggedness actually no longer bothers you as much. Why? Because your heart is just now, it's more loving. Now. God could just command you to do it, but he's already commanded you. You know that you're supposed to do it, but it's not until we can't get away. We're like let me out of here. He goes like no, boom, and you change departments. And then she changes departments and she just follows you right along because God is sovereignly keeping her, your picked out person. And he's like no, we got to finish this. I can't move on until you learn to just not care what this psychopath does.
Speaker 1:Sandpaper people Do you have a sandpaper person? Oh baby. I think one of God's purposes is that we actually graduate from having them as a sandpaper person and we start to see them a little more, like Jesus sees them and some other weirdness. It's just even maybe it it, it. It maybe doesn't bother us, maybe it even becomes endearing after a little while. Because, why? Because Jesus wants to use the trap to shape us, and if we're not out of the trap, we might want to ask the question okay, who is near me that God has wanted me to love, just as they are, just to be in their corner, whether it's just to endure them, or maybe it's to build them up or encourage them? Who is around me sovereignly in my life that it's in my trap? That maybe it's about me being able to get over the fact that I don't like them and I'm not saying you'll ever like them, okay, just just FYI. I got like 20 year sandpaper people Y'all like. I don't know. They're still there, okay, so, and it's a little easier, by the grace of God, but I don't know, I might go to heaven before that's all done.
Speaker 1:But all that to say, there's sandpaper people. So you know, for you it might be the soccer mom that you just man, she's at every game and you're like why? And sometimes it's because we have idols of convenience, just like our culture does. Our culture wants everything to happen right now, whenever we want it, and this person gets in the way of us having what we want right now, whenever we want it, or they don't think like we're as awesome as we think we are, and so that's like that comes up against us. And yet that, what is that? That's an idol of ourselves that we have that God is trying to. He's trying to sand down. Let's get rid of that thing, man. What's he doing for you? A different way to ask it is who's your homework? That sandpaper person could be your homework. Esther, praise God got to be Mordecai's homework. That was one of his good ones. We're going to see Mordecai has some sandpaper people coming, but who's your deposited from God person that might be sandpaper to your soul? Do the best you can with what you have where you are. Grow in your duty. And here's the second one grow in your surrender excellence. Grow in your surrender excellence. I couldn't come up with a word that was both surrender and excellence. And so, look guys, I'm trying to make it happen. Okay, maybe it'll work like fetch and it actually will, ironically, catch on, but we'll see. If not, just flow with me. Preacher's got to do something to keep it real, dude, all right.
Speaker 1:Verse eight, remember it said also Esther was taken to the king's palace and entrusted to Haggai, who had charge of the harem. She was taken, trusted to Haggai, who had charge of the harem. She was taken. And there comes a point where her and us I don't like it, I don't think it's right, I don't think it's good, but she's here now and we have to surrender and accept. This is where I've been taken to. These are the circumstances I have.
Speaker 1:Whatever I do, I have to do it here. My friends, sometimes there's just an acceptance that we have to have of here. I don't like it here, I don't like this part of here, but in order for me to maybe even get ever get out of the trap, I have to accept this is where I am, this is where God has sovereignly placed me, and I accept it so that I can surrender to him and say God, you are good even though this is bad, and it's in that space that I'm going to try to be loving and excellent. I don't know about you, but I've had some places that were really hard to get over, that I was there. There's times when I was sick and I'm laying in the bed and thinking about just grabbing Jesus' hand and trying to get over to the bathroom and it was hard at first to accept. This is who you are right now, carter, and you might die this way, we don't know. But just say yes, lord. Whatever we do from here on out, saying no Lord isn't going to work. So say yes, lord, and let's slow this.
Speaker 1:I remember a different time, sitting at the table lunch table at the factory, and at this factory I had the distinguished job of fire watch. What that means is the people there think I'm so incompetent that the best job for me is well, if anyone catches on fire in the next eight hours, just have this fire extinguisher handy and please put them out. So I literally walk back and forth in this factory waiting for someone to catch on fire and I'm thinking God, why, why are we here? I got all these big dreams in my head and all these passions that I want to do, and I'm walking around waiting for somebody to catch on fire, and the one time somebody did I wasn't even around. I'm like man, can you wait before you take your shirt off and put it on the ground and stomp it out? Let me get over there and be useful. So you and I have got this, but Esther had, she had favor, and we know from the scripture that that's from the Lord.
Speaker 1:But you know, favor also tends to follow excellence. I don't know if you ever noticed this. Like, people don't tend to have favor when they're just kind of like mid, when they're just kind of like mid, when they're just kind of like, um, lazy, when there's kind of like well, I'll just do the bare minimum or less, that's not excellence. And most of the time, like, even though God could give them favor, there's no like favor that God shoots on them. They're like, wow, this lazy person. I just have so much favor for them. Now, that's possible because God's giving you a heart to love them or whatever. But it's rare that, like, the world around them is going to be like here we go, favor on you. Favor usually is a combination of yes, it's God's opening doors, it's God's blessing on your life, but it's also usually some level of excellence.
Speaker 1:I don't know what Esther was doing, that she had not only God's favor on her. It could have just been that she was so beautiful. It could have just been that she was so beautiful. It could have been that she was kind of like Joseph. She was nice and sweet to everybody, trying to take care of everybody. I don't know, but I believe the biblical principle of excellence tends to produce favor, even when you're trapped. So what do we got to do If you're trapped? Let's take the time we're already here to grow in excellence.
Speaker 1:Excellence means I'm going to do a little bit more than expected. Excellence means I just want. I'm doing it unto God, not to you. So if you don't even care, if you don't, if you don't even want me to do it that fierce, I'm going to do it that fierce because God wants me to. I'm going to do it because God is watching and he's the only one I need to watch.
Speaker 1:Excellence has to do with not only that, it's your, it's your moral integrity, it. Excellence has to do with not only that, it's your moral integrity, it's the line you won't go beneath. Okay. So that means if you're in high school and you're on one of the teams, one of the sports teams, it means you're going to give it your all every afternoon. But also, when you're called to compromise in certain ways, you're saying ah, not me, guys, you go ahead. I'm not dissing you, but I can't roll that way because I have an excellent spirit unto the Lord.
Speaker 1:Look, man, I don't know about y'all, but I'm trapped here and there's some things I want to see God do in my life, and so I need to embrace excellence now. It has to do with just focusing on character in the midst of. So think of a place in your life right now there's just like it's just horrible, like you just hate it. It's a place you do not want to be here. What would it look like to make that about you growing in character? What would it look like to be like?
Speaker 1:My whole game here is to become more loving, and if I don't know what that is, I'm going to ask the Lord God, show me where I need to grow. I'm going to give it my all, whether I'm at the entry level position, whether I am the CEO, I'm going to give all my strength, all my energy, all my discipline, all my focus and all my heart morally, to. Okay, I'm going to stumble and fall, but I'm going to keep getting back up because I don't have to stay down here. I can grow and then grow and then grow and then grow. Think about even just your, your walk right now. Yo, think about your level of integrity.
Speaker 1:Now there's some places you're like I don't think I'll ever be more loving this. Well, why? Why can't you grow more loving than that? Why can't you have more honesty than you currently have? Why can't you be the one that people can rely on, more than you are right now? Say Carter, cause I on. More than you are right now, say Carter, because I'm too old. You ain't too old. Hey yo, if you're not dead, you ain't too old. Abraham was 75 when God called him. Are we hearing this? You are not too old, you are not. God has more. You are not too old.
Speaker 1:Let's grow in excellence right now. Do the best you can with what you have where you are. Here's number three. Grow with what you have where you are. Here's number three Grow in. So we said grow in doing your duty wherever you are. Who are the people around you. It is your duty. Find somebody, whether it's your sandpaper person, whoever it is, I'm going to love them well, if it kills me, I'm going to grow in surrender excellence. I'm going to surrender and do excellence in this situation as long and as hard and as fast as I can so that, as soon as I can boom, I can get out of this trap. And number three is grow in shrewd discretion. Grow in shrewd discretion. Mordecai told her. Don't tell anybody about this right now.
Speaker 1:Esther, there's some things you got to keep to yourself because we don't want the plan disrupted, because people know things before they should. Sometimes, when you just show up on the scene and you start announcing here's all my things and here's what I think, you kind of brand yourself in people's eyes like oh, they're that. So I'm just going to back away. My friends, the virtue of discretion may be more challenged than ever because there's an online world. When I say discretion, that means there's a guard over your mouth. You're not just revealing everything. You're not just saying everything comes to your mind. You're not telling people secrets. There's a poise and a self-control so that when you're online and you want to go nuclear on somebody because you're watching this thing, you say, ah, discretion, because I'm about to get in trouble If I get in this fight. I'm about to feel icky the rest of the day. But I'm also going to brand myself as maybe something I don't want to in everybody's eyes who is watching this, not to mention, it also trends toward favor.
Speaker 1:We can just sweetly, holy Spirit, holy Spirit, shut up, shut up, just shut up. That's a loving thing for him to say and I feel like I have lots of seasons where that's like the primary directive from God Shut up, shut up. Dude, it could be so much better than this if you shut up. Proverbs 17, 28,. Even fools are thought wise when they keep silent. People would think you're smart if you'd shut up. With their mouths shut, they seem intelligent. Proverbs 10, 19,.
Speaker 1:Don't talk too much, for it fosters sin. Be sensible and turn off the flow. Turn off the flow. We need to hear the spirit of God whispering in our ears. Turn off the flow. Man, you're talking and you're getting on a roll here. Whoa, slow it down. You're about to go over the edge. Yeah, you just said that, didn't you? You could have just turned off.
Speaker 1:It's hard, you know, sometimes we're sitting at the Carter dinner table and it's just getting amped up. People are going, they're just going for it. It's like everybody please can we just slow the flow, baby, this thing's about to go off the rails and I'm certainly maybe the most guilty for that. But we have to be able to tell ourselves and sometimes the people around us hey, let's slow the flow, let's turn it down and be sensible so we don't step in something that we don't want to be stepping in. You know, jesus also said don't throw your pearls before swine.
Speaker 1:Because the truth is, my friends, you know this, not everybody. They care, but they don't really care. They care in the vague sense that you're a human and they even care that you're alive. But if they have some morsel on you, they're going to bring it out like oh, you wait to hear about this and they're not being sensible and turning off the flow and your name is not necessarily safe in their mouth and we just want to be careful. Don't throw your most precious stuff to people that you're not sure yet actually have your back. Actually, you're going to care, actually you're going to protect your name.
Speaker 1:It's not being mean, it's not being cynical, it's just being wise. Hey, just wait, just step back, just wait and see, just give people a chance to show you who they are, and they'll show you after a little while. And whoever they are, it doesn't mean you don't love them. It just means we're wise to not go shooting it out there before we do something we're going to regret, so we avoid frustrations online. It also means, probably, that even when we're sharing our wisdom we got a lot of wise people in this church, a lot of smart people, a lot of intelligent people, a lot of people that have been through a lot of stuff Even when you're sharing your wisdom, do it with humility and you don't do it too long. You give little kisses. Hey, here's a little bit of wisdom. Okay, if I let myself go, I'm going to preach for the next 45 minutes, so I'm just gonna give a little bit of wisdom and step back. It protects this guard in our hearts that should be there. So here's the end of the story. My friends, there's a little bit of a. There's a twist at the end here. It's really great news.
Speaker 1:But the trap is not a trap. The trap is a gate. The trap is a gate into the next place that God wants to bring you to show his favor to you so that you know him better and better and better. The trap the trap is a gate. If we can allow it to cook us in some sense, it's changing the metaphor quite a bit but if we can allow it to change us and improve us and heal some of what's wrong.
Speaker 1:Jesus, however, it was a real trap. Jesus was not trapped. He was in heaven with the father and they agreed hey, I'm going to go down there and I'm going to be trapped in a human body and I'm going to live every day in obedience. And then I'm going to walk into Satan's ultimate trap, the cross. But he doesn't know it's a trap for him and I'm going to get on that cross, trapped. Why? Why would he do it? He does it, so you and I get out of Satan's trap for us, which is sin. That's what he's doing.
Speaker 1:And so you and I can embrace the pursuit of loving our sandpaper people. You and I can embrace the pursuit of excellence and acceptance. You and I can embrace the fact that we're going to pull back on our speech and every one of those things. You and I are going to get wrong. We're not going to do it right all the time. I've already jacked it up. I probably jacked up in this sermon, but I've got a savior. I've got a savior who willingly went into the trap so I could be sprung from the trap. I thought there'd be a much louder amen for that. But so no pressure.
Speaker 1:But wherever you're, maybe take some hope. What God is asking you to do. Maybe I know you're trying to break out. Instead of trying to break out, let's do this. Let's do this plan. Do the best that you can with what you have where you are.
Speaker 1:Let's pray God. Thank you so much that we can trust you, our sovereign and moving the pieces around on the chessboard. Would you give us grace? Sometimes we just don't see it, lord. Sometimes we're so low or we're so sad, or we're so beat up by the world that we don't see the opportunities that are in front of us to do the best that we can. I pray, god, you'd make us more aware of all the opportunities you're putting in front of us to grow through our trap, which is really a gate gift at fiercechurch slash give. If you want more resources like this, check out all of our channels at YouTube, tiktok and Instagram. Check out our podcasts and check out our blog at fiercechurch slash blog. If you haven't already. Please consider sharing this to help people you know take their next step. We'll see you next time.