Northside Church - Sydney
Superheroes: Life Lessons from the OT Week 5: Esther
We're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. I was about to flick the channel. You know what those boring documentaries can be like right? And I thought there's no point watching this other than a fact it was being shot at one of my favourite backwater towns in Australia called Port Macquarie. And I could see some of my favourite places there. So I thought I might as well watch this lovely, sweet looking 80-year-old woman continue to go on. And as I did, my ears began to ring and my eyes just about popped out of my head. As I watched this funny figure they called the white mouse. And as she goes on and the interviewer asks lots of different questions, the story begins to unfold of her somewhat sordid younger days, days in which she said a little powder and a little drinker along the way, I'd go past the German posts and say, "Do you want to search me?" And she says, "Oh God, what a flirtatious little thing I was." And literally did I know that I was watching a documentary about one of the most decorated service people of the Second World War. This funny little old lady lived just a kilometer away from here for many years. She grew up, she went to school in North Sydney. And yet through this incredible acts of bravery went in and penetrated the enemy lines. In fact, what she was alluding to is that she would often sleep with officers in order to gather intelligence for the allies. Sounds like a Hollywood movie, doesn't it? And what I love about some of these stories, particularly with Remembrance Day being just past is these incredible stories, particularly throughout the campaigns of the Second World War, in which the actions and the courage of seemingly just one or a handful of people delivered entire nations from peril. Sounds a bit like the story of Esther, right? This young orphan girl, a white mouse in her own way, plucked from destruction and abandonment by a cousin, Mordecai, mysteriously plucked out of obscurity, has this incredible natural beauty as her own gift. And she goes in behind enemy lines and through a set of incredible coincidences, has a megalomaniac king who has gotten rid of the first wife because she was too bold, all the women like Queen Vashti. She was a great example. He had had a few drinks one night at a big party, goes to call her in, wants to show off the trophy wife, and she says, "I'm not having a bar of that." And so what does he do? He says, "You're not the queen anymore." Because all the boys were terribly worried that all the men in the kingdom would see what Vashti had done and that men wouldn't be able to rule their house anymore. What a bunch of misogynists. Is that word again? And so through this fate, Esther plucked from all the regions of the vast Persian empire, wins this megalomaniac king over with his beauty, goes in, sleeps with him, finds favor with him. She's the white mouse. Now, are you feeling a slight tension here this morning? We're talking superheroes. Is Nancy Wake and Esther really the sort of examples that we should be following? Is this biblical? What sort of example are you using Young Samuel with such moral and ethical grayness? What are you teaching us this morning? I mean, how could God call Esther to be the interracial replacement spouse of a megalomaniac polygamous unbeliever? Here's what it shows us. First and foremost, that you must be willing to go into the palace. Here we've rejoined the great story with Mordecai. He's ripped his clothes off. He's gone down to sackcloth, a Jewish tradition. He's in mourning because he's heard of a terrible plot. There has been a date, there's been a time set in which it has been decreed by this megalomaniac king that all neighbors of Jewish people at a set date and time may turn on the Jewish people and wipe them out, plunder their wealth. It's already been done and named. The date is there. Mordecai has been aware of this plot. He runs to the gate of the palace. We have to understand an incredible citadel in the city of Sousa, this great palace that sits on top of the hill. He goes to these golden gates. Esther gets wind that he's there crying. He's desperately trying to get a message through to the bars, through the bars of the gate to Esther. And he says to her, "What are you going to do about it?" Esther is an orphan Jew hiding in secret behind enemy lines. What are you going to do? He says, "You must do something about it because you're in the palace. You're in the palace. I'm out here." Now, what we have to understand here is that the palace was the social and the intellectual and the financial power capital of the Persian Empire. This was the Persian Empire that we see in the modern day movie, "300," that takes on a King Leonidas of the Spartans, the Battle of Thermopylae. This was an incredible vast empire and Esther sits at the power seat of this empire. And Mordecai says, "You have to do something about this." What I've loved about preaching through books like Daniel this year and we looked at being Kingdom expats is a really interesting phenomenon that was exhibited in what we call this "exilic period" for the Jews. They were dispersed around pagan nations. Here's the principle. Here's why God called Esther to do this. Here's what it means for us today. God calls us to serve him in increasingly unbelieving settings. God to Daniel, similar to Joseph, Esther is telling a story of how Jewish minority rose to a place of power in order to save God's people. And look, as one commentator puts it, he says, "Let Esther's harem represent every commercial political institution in the world today." God, see, here's the thing, God calls people into those dens of iniquity. God calls his people into that, but I don't know about you, but that's off the map for a lot of traditional churches, right? We see it, particularly in America. What churches do? We're worried about the dens of iniquities, so they start their own Christian schools and Christian superannuation funds and Christian soccer clubs, right? So we don't have to hang out with these sorts of people and we can be safe in our own holiness. It's Esther is off the map in that sort of realm. And here, what we have is a God, the God of the Bible saying, "Don't get out of that world, get in, get in." And here's the tension. Often, you know, I hear the questions. Can I go to that social night at the Headmaster's College? Can I hang out with those friends who are a little bit questionable in their various habits? Should I engage in this company that I know for a fact is exploiting people? Should I do business with them and the resounding answer from this passage is yes. We're in the Grey Zone, remember? We see these wonderful examples, Joseph, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, all of these guys showing us in various ways. The Christian ministry in the church is not the ultimate destination for the faithful believer. I mean, it should not be your objective as Christians to go and do what I'm doing. As we see here, we need a partnership of God's people in the church. We need Christian CEOs. We need Christian managers. We need Christian lawyers. We need Christian doctors. We need Christian schoolteachers. We need Christian lecturers. You must be willing to go into the palace. Now, here's the danger. Here's the tough part about going into the palace, verse 8, Mordecai gives him a copy of the Edict for the Jewish Annihilation, which had been published in Sousa to show Esther and explain it to her, and he told the unique that he gave it to, to urge her to go into the king's presence and beg, get her to beg for mercy, to plead with him for her people. You see, Mordecai has to get to the gate, and he has to challenge Esther not to get caught up in all the things of the palace. In other words, you must be willing to go into the palace, but you mustn't be tempted by the palace. That's why. I call it the big principle. In the '80s, Tom Hanks had a great movie called Big. I don't know if you've seen the movie Big, but basically it's about a little boy who's desperate to grow up, and so he puts a coin into his old-time machine. He wishes that he was big, and instantly he's transformed as a young child into an adult's body. So he moves into New York City with his best friend Billy, and it becomes a wonderful playland in that sense. They go there, they're hanging around, and fortuitously, Tom Hanks bumps into a toy executive. They jump on the big piano, you remember that scene, and he gets a job in a toy company, of which being a kid and adult's body, he gets promoted through the ranks really quick. And initially, Life is his one big party. The two boys there, Toys in their New York apartment, this is one big life of fun, and in Josh Baskins, Tom Hanks's character, the promotion, then he gets more money, then he falls in love with a girl, gets caught up in his job, and Paul Billy is left behind. Has to say goodbye to him and go back to his home in the suburbs. And here's the reason. In the end, Billy lost his best friend to the world, because our greatest temptation is that we'll be enthralled by the power and the glory of the palace. Josh Baskins' story, the story of Big is Our Story, it can be gradual, it can be unintentional, it can be coincidental, until one day you turn around and realise when friends leave you, or you look around that just like Josh, you've been caught up in the party of the palace, and all the things that are good and wonderful of this world have got. You see, that was Esther's problem. That's why cousin Mordecai was screaming at her through the golden bars of the gates, because these golden bars were not bars in order to keep the riffraff out of the palace. In fact, what Mordecai realised that these bars were golden bars of a prison. The palace had locked Esther in, and there was a great temptation in which she was going to be caught up in all of this, that she wanted to hold on to the power and the glory at the cost of her people. So it is with us guys, I guess the greatest threat to you and I is that if God calls us into increasingly secular, unbelieving situations is that we can get caught up in the same power and the same glory. How do we overcome it? Mordecai, Mordecai says that wonderful line in which we've been reading from in the verse this morning. When Esther's words were reported back to him, he sent back this answer, do not think that because you are in the king's house that you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows that you have come to a royal position for such a time as this? Don't you love his logic? Sweetheart, darling girl, if you try and avoid this, you are going to go down. But if you lose it all, then there might be hope of redemption. I remember a wise guy, 500 years later says in the Bible that if anyone wants to hold on to their life, you know what? They could lose it, but anyone who's willing to lose their life for my sake will gain it. Mordecai, Mordecai brings her into, he's saying, Esther, there's a bigger picture beyond the palace. You've got to understand that there is a king above the king that you're married to at the moment, that there is something deeper and greater going on here. You're saying, Esther, look at the coincidences in your life, girl. Look at it. You're an orphan, but I plucked you out of obscurity. God made you gorgeous. God gave you favor with the king. God put you in this position. Look at all these coincidences, Esther, or are they? The dramatic tension of Esther here, guys, at this time is that this was a threat to the existence of the entire Jewish nation, but it's more cosmic than that. It's bigger than that. It was so much bigger than that. Genesis, chapter 12, 1-3 shows us that God had a plan to save the world through Abraham's family, the Jews, and so therefore this attack by Xerxes on the Jewish nation wasn't just an act of war on a nation. This was an act of war on God's sovereign plan. This was an act of war upon his plan of grace to rescue and redeem the world that has filtered down throughout the centuries to you and I today, this morning, friends. This was an attack on everything and yet, through a large set of coincidences, the Jews are saved and God's plan remains intact. Here's the interesting thing. God's not even mentioned in the entire book of Esther. You type up on Bible Online, G-O-D, Esther. You're not going to find it. Why is that? I was thinking, do you think the writer of the book gets one of their friends to have a read through the draft, the manuscript, and the friend says, you know what? You've not mentioned God in this book. You think they went, oh, I went, oh, shucks. Too late, already gone to print. Come on. What's a teaching is here? It's teaching us that God is sovereignly in control of everything, even when he appears to be absent in your life. This is the basis for the plate waiting for God, right? What the writer of Esther is doing is giving us a story where the actual main character of the entire story is not even mentioned once. And so application, look, for those of you that don't even want to think about going to the palace this morning, for you, whatever way to teach you that God is present in your circumstances, even though you might feel that he's absent right now. The message of this book is that God's plan of salvation and grace, it cannot and it will not fail. And although he may not appear to be working your life, he's present and he's working and he's working out his plan. Now let's pause here. Let's take a different tack here. We're at the gate. Jewish destruction is imminent. We're not sure what's going to happen now. Mordecai's in tears. He's put the big challenge out, girlfriend, if you go either way, everyone's going down. This hesitant orphan queen, she's about to do nothing, and then we hear the words, "And if I perish, I perish." Now here's the question, "What made Esther change and be willing to give up her place in the palace and say, 'If I perish, I perish?'" She had an experience of grace. Not the way that we do through Jesus Christ, but you know, when Mordecai says, "Who knows that you have come to such a time as this, the language," it's actually a passive way of saying it. Here's another way that it could be translated. It could be translated, not who knows that you've come, but who knows that you have not been brought to such a time as this? I call it the dead cat principle. I'm sure I've shared this once before. Two worms fall from the sky. One falls into a crack in the cement, the other worm falls into a dead cat. Three days later, the worm in the cement malnourished week on the verge of death turns to his counterpart. Piers over and says to the worm in the dead cat, "A kind sir, will you please share with me the secret of your incredible success?" The worm in the cat says, "Well, hard work and a sound strategic vision." Let's be real guys this morning in Mordecai Community Church. The lower north shore of Sydney, Sydney, Australia. We've fallen into a dead cat. And our temptation is to say inside the palaces of our lives that I worked for this and I was diligent and I did this and I searched the papers for the job and I was a good student and I educated myself, "Look, yet in line of our justifying arguments, Mordecai's statement challenge is not just Estebate, each and every one of us here this morning who regard ourselves the children of God, he says to us, "Who says that you weren't brought to your position this week by God for such a time as this? How did you choose to be part of the top 10 nations in the world? How did you choose comparatively to be in the top 5% of wealth in the entire world? How did you choose to get the brain that got you the job in the first place? How did you choose to get the opportunities that you've currently had in this life? Look for the Christian guys, it's inconceivable to say that the God of the universe who gives us every single breath and to whom we owe everything, it's inconceivable to say to him that my social capital and my intellectual capital and my financial capital is mine. And he's the one who gave it to us anyway, right? Instead the Christian begins to think like Esther, that all of these coincidences and blessings in my life, who's to say that God has not brought me here for such a time as this? This week now. And friends I'm conscious, look, I stand before people a great privilege and a church like this, I stand before influential people each and every week, I stand before executives, I stand before lawyers, I stand before doctors, I stand before university lecturers, I stand before those that actually some have the power to influence government policy and decision. And you know what, I feel like a Mordecai. This young chump got nothing more than a Bible and a bit of sackcloth and I feel like I'm peering through the gates, trying to send you messages saying you're in the palace. You're the ones, not me that are in the palace. You must use your position for such a time as this and so therefore I ask you the word of God asks you this morning, are you willing to use or even risk losing your social and your intellectual and your financial capital for the sake of the people of God? Who says that God hasn't brought you here? You must be willing to go into the palace, but yet we must not be tempted by the palace. Well how do we do that? Well finally as I wrap up this morning, it's really simple, don't be like Esther and it sounds pretty silly because we're doing a series on superheroes and she's the superhero for week five. We've just been talking about it for the whole 15 minutes, 20 minutes, it sounds ridiculous Sam. Look, here's a great danger, you're going to walk out of here and say, you know, hopefully if I've done my job, you're going to feel inspired, you're going to feel moved and you're saying to yourself, I'm going to be an Esther this week and you know what, I've hid my Christianity in my workplace and I've been quiet for too long and you know what, some of you may have even compromised in some of the ways that you've worked in your corporations over the years and you're saying, this is it, I'm going to be hurt, I'm going to speak out and you know what, it's not going to last long, maybe a week or two because the motivation on one hand is either going to be of guilt and Sam just aroused something and you knew that said I should do this or on the other hand, it's going to be moralistic where you go, yes, I'm a Christian and all those pagans in that unbelieving world, I stand above them and I'm going to tell them the good news, both of them are not going to last you any more than a couple of weeks. You're not going to muster up the courage to do that and I think if we're realistic about it, you see, look, using Esther as your example is probably the worst thing that you could do. In fact, you could sacrifice some pretty good careers that God might be using for five and ten years down the track. Using Esther as your example, it's the worst thing to do in that sense. Look, what made Esther a superhero? Salvation, saving the Jewish people, it came when Esther was willing to give up her place into palace and to risk her life in order to intercede at the throne of power for her people and you're saying, yeah, that's what I'm going to do, that's what I'm going to do, I'll give it all up for you Lord, I'm going to do it but it won't last for long. You know, look, here's the question. What if we see Esther not as an example but a pointer, a pointer to someone greater, a pointer to something greater? I'll say it again, salvation came to the Jewish people because she was willing to give up her place in the palace and to risk her life in order to intercede at the throne of power for her people. Does that remind you of anyone, class? It's fast forward, John 11, verse 50, just after Lazarus, remember that great story? Days before Jesus will go to the cross. Do you not realize, this is Kai for speaking, the high priest, that it's better for you that one man died for the people than the whole nation perish? He did not say this on his own but as high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation but not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God to bring them together and make them one. Now, as a side note, you want to know the irony here, the commentators say of that story when Jesus healed Lazarus, it was the time of a great Jewish festival. That was the background context, a festival called Purim. Purim is derived from the word of casting lots. Lots were cast by a guy called Haman, Haman was the one who hatched up this plan under the King Xerxes in order to destroy the entire Jewish nation and yet, they celebrate the Jewish people in the festival of Purim, this young orphan girl who stood before the throne of power to intercede on behalf of her people by resolving, "If I perish, I perish." Isn't the Bible a cheeky book, if you look at it deep enough? I see friends, every story of the great superheroes of the Bible leads us to the true superhero. He's the true Moses who stands before the great throne of slavery, not of work but of sin and he says, "Let my people go." He's the true Sarah, the challenge is God's sanity that in his death can somehow, he Jesus continue the promise to Abraham that through his own labor pains at the cross will give birth to many more children of God. He's the true Joseph who was cast into prison by his own brothers, only to be plucked out by the true King and rise to the seat of power to intercede on their behalf and extend a hand of forgiveness and welcome them in with open arms. He's the true Daniel who was thrown into the tomb, had the stone rolled over him and the lions of death didn't so much as touch him and he walked out still alive and people praised the God of Jesus and we see this morning that Jesus is also the true Esther. The true Esther who didn't need a challenge, he didn't have a cousin Mordecai to come to the gates of heaven. Philippians two said that even though he had a quality with God, he didn't consider it something to be grasped. He's the true Esther who didn't need a challenge to lose his comfort in heaven but gave it all up. He saved us not at the risk of losing his glory but at the cost of losing his glory so we could have it. We did not say if I perish, I perish but when I perish, I perish. Friends can you see now what this superhero story can call you to do not to emulate the heroics of Esther but to rest upon the work of the one who stood before the ultimate throne of power not at the risk of his life but at the cost of his life so that you could not only be delivered from an earthly death but an eternal death, an eternal darkness, an eternal annihilation who gave up his rightful place at the inner court of the ultimate palace so you could have the ultimate place in the ultimate palace that you may approach the one true king unsummed and without the need for a scepter to be pointed at you in order to speak to the one true God King. Friends when you see that Jesus Christ willingly gave up his place in the palace for you, you might be able to overcome the enthralling glory of the smaller palaces in your life for the sake of God's grand plan. Do you know him this morning, do you rest upon that this morning? Application 30 seconds, do you feel like an exile, God calls his people into increasingly secular situations, do you hate your boss, do you hate your workplace, God might be putting you there for such a time as this. The person sitting here saying, secondly, I'm not a doctor or CEO, I look around you, droves of boats, try to cross the borders of this place compared to the deserts of Ethiopia, the violence in Gaza, the poverty in Mumbai, guys, look around us, if you are in the bottom rung of this place this morning, each and every one of us are still in the palace. Thirdly, human strength is weakness and weakness can be God's strength and often a girl who had nothing, a woman who triumphed over a man back in those days, shows us the pattern of God's kingdom. If you feel that you've got nothing to offer God this morning in your skills, your talents or your gifts, that's right where he can use you. And friend, God is always in control even though he may appear to be absent. So don't be an Esther, instead see the one that Esther points to, you know, when you can see that he freely gave up his place in the palace so that you could sit in front of the seat of power with total adder confidence knowing that you could approach the ultimate king when confidence, knowing that you wouldn't be killed, when you know that your position is secure in that palace, we can go to the palaces of this world, but at the same time be willing to let them go, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word, we thank you for the richness of the Old Testament, and thank you for the richness of your incredible plan which has been going since the beginning of time. Father, I'm conscious like a Mordecai, I sit and I pray this morning, I speak through the bars of the palaces of this world and Father, first and foremost, we thank you that you have privileged and you have blessed this incredible church and you have blessed these incredible people and each and every one of us, Father, and where we sit in comparison to the rest of the world that you have brought us here for such a time as this, let it not be lost on us this morning, Father, let it not be lost on us as we move out into our workplaces and our families and our homes and our schools and our universities this week, may we move ever more into those dens of darkness, Father, and recognize that you call your people to move in. Father be with us, may we constantly look not to Esther but the one that she points to Jesus Christ, the one who stood before the great power and pleaded on our behalf, died on our behalf so that we could approach you with the ultimate confidence. If there is those that don't know that this morning, may they have received that through faith in him and for the rest of us, may we constantly look to the true superhero as we continue to live out and work out your redemptive plan right here, right now, for such a time as this. We pray this now in Jesus' name, amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]