Spiritual Leadership

The sermon text this morning is Esther chapter 8.

Esther 8 · chapter mention

If you're new with us this morning, we are in a series on this book of this woman of God, whom God used in a powerful way, to have a great influence and effect on many, many people.

The title of the sermon is Spiritual Leadership.

We've been thinking about that already this morning in the service.

We'll continue to think about that.

I didn't have to go far from the book of Esther to find a text that teaches us much about spiritual leadership.

We've seen spiritual leadership exercised by Esther in her context, also by her older cousin Mordecai.

And we're asking God this morning to teach all of us because all of us have influence.

All of us have opportunity for influence.

You don't have to be ordained as an elder or deacon to have spiritual impact on people.

And that's why we turn to the word of God this morning.

Reading Esther chapter 8.

Esther 8 · chapter mention

On that day, King Ahasherus gave to Queen Esther the house of Haman, the enemy of the Jews.

And Mordecai came before the king, for Esther had told what he was to her.

And the king took off his signet ring, which he had taken from Haman, and gave it to Mordecai.

And Esther set Mordecai over the house of Haman.

Then Esther spoke again to the king.

She fell at his feet and wept and pleaded with him to avert the evil plan of Haman the Agagite and the plot that he had devised against the Jews.

When the king held out the golden scepter to Esther, Esther rose and stood before the king, and she said, If it please the king, and if I have found favor in his sight, and if the thing seems right before the king, and I am pleasing in his eyes, let an order be written to revoke the letters devised by Haman the Agagite, the son of Hamadotha, which he wrote to destroy the Jews who were in all the provinces of the king.

For how can I bear to see the calamity that is coming to my people?

Or how can I bear to see the destruction of my kindred?

The king, then King Ahashrus, said to Queen Esther and to Mordecai the Jew, Behold, I have given Esther the house of Haman, and they have hanged him on the gallows, because he intended to lay hands on the Jews.

But you may write as you please with regard to the Jews in the name of the king, and seal it with the king's ring.

For an edict written in the name of the king and sealed with the king's ring cannot be revoked.

The king's scribes were summoned at that time in the third month, which is the month of Sivan, on the twenty-third day, and an edict was written according to all that Mordecai commanded concerning the Jews, to the satraps and governors and the officials of the provinces, from India to Ethiopia, a hundred and twenty-seven provinces, to each province in its own script, and to each people in its own language, and also to the Jews in their script and their language.

And he wrote in the name of King Ahashuas and sealed it with the king's signet ring.

Then he sent the letters by mounted couriers riding on swift horses that were used in the king's service, bread from the royal stud, saying that the king allowed the Jews who were in every city to gather and defend their lives, to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate any armed force of any people or province that might attack them, children and women included, and to plunder their goods.

On one day throughout all the provinces of King Ahashwis, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, a copy of what was written was to be issued as a decree in every province, being publicly displayed to all peoples, and the Jews were ready to be ready on that day to take vengeance on their enemies.

So the couriers, mounted on their swift horses that were used in the king's service, rode out hurriedly, urged by the king's command.

And the decree was issued in Susa, the citadel.

Then Mordecai went out from the presence of the king in royal robes of blue and white, with a great golden crown and a robe of fine linen and purple, and the city of Susa shouted and rejoiced.

The Jews had light and gladness and joy and honor, and in every province and in every city, wherever the king's command and his edict reached, there was gladness and joy among the Jews, a feast and a holiday.

And many from the peoples of the country declared themselves Jews, for fear of the Jews had fallen on them.

This is the reading of God's holy and infallible and inerrant word that we better listen to because of his word.

So let's pray.

Father, we thank you for your deliverance of the Jewish people in Esther's day.

We thank you for the deliverance of all of your people throughout all the days.

This morning we ask especially that you would teach us about spiritual leadership.

Lord, would you teach every person here in this room this day of what this gospel growth looks like in each of our lives?

Show us, empower us by your spirit to live as such people, we ask in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Spiritual leadership.

Seems appropriate this day that we ordain and install these new officers.

So we've got the story continuing.

This morning we're going to think about a bold petition.

We're going to think about fast horses.

And we're going to think about great reversals.

A bold petition.

We see that clearly demonstrated by Queen Esther.

The text tells us in verse 3, then Esther spoke again to the king.

And if you've been with us in this series, and I'm sorry I don't have too much time to go back and review this morning.

But Esther has already gone to the king at the risk of her life with a bold petition, because once she discovered the plan, the evil plan by Haman, an evil man, to destroy all the Jewish people because Haman had taken offense over one Jewish man, Mordecai.

And after three days of prayer and fasting, not only by Esther, but by all of God's people who knew to pray.

And that's why we fast and pray.

She had the courage to go into the king's palace uninvited at the risk of death.

She went in and she told the king about that evil plan.

And the king rescinded his order.

He drew up another edict.

And he stopped the planned mass execution holocaust.

See, that memorial up the road is not the only memorial of the Holocaust.

And this was evil plan by Haman.

And God stepped in in his providence and it was averted.

But now Esther realizes that she has a problem because even though the king had hanged Haman, the king had punished Haman, the king had given Esther Haman's property, his wealth, there was still that edict that went out by horses before to all 127 provinces from India to Ethiopia.

And Esther knows I need to go back again.

I need to go to the king again.

And the king had not summoned her to come back in.

The king didn't say, oh, by the way, Esther, I'm thinking this through with you.

And I think I'm going to have to issue another edict.

He was kind of clueless.

He was a pretty selfish king.

He was focused mostly on his harem, his kingdom, his world.

So the point is, is it took a lot of courage, again, for Esther to say, King, this conversation is not over.

I have another word, please.

Esther spoke again to the king and listen to her petition.

And here's the point if you're wondering where this is going.

Every spiritual leader is a bold prayer.

Every spiritual leader is learning how to pray bold petitions.

You can't grow as a leader if you're not learning how to pray bold, courageous prayers.

Listen to her prayer.

If it please the king, this is her petition to the king.

If it please the king, if I have found favor in his sight, if the thing seems right before the king, if I'm pleasing to the king, do you know what we have here?

We have a model prayer.

We don't just learn from Jesus' prayer, which we do, there are many prayers in the scriptures that we can learn from.

Take note.

Isn't this the way that God would have us pray?

Bold prayers?

Father, if it please you, the King, with this request.

If I found favor in his sight, well, what we just sang reminds us that in Christ we have found favor.

And so we go to the Father's presence with boldness.

If the thing seems right before the King, Father, not my will, but your will be done.

I think what I'm asking, I think is in accordance with your will.

As far as I know my heart, as far as I know my motivation, as far as I know my intent, I think this is something that you would be pleased to answer.

And if I'm pleasing in your eyes.

Are you learning how to pray that way?

Does that mark, does that characterize your praying?

Learn from Esther.

And then the king's response.

I'm gonna paraphrase the king's response.

Esther, I've already given you Haman's property.

I I killed the bad guy, right?

The gallows, the 75-foot-high gallows that he planned to hang Mordecai on.

I took care of that.

I took care of Haman.

I've given you his wealth.

Esther, what more do you want?

He's a king who's kind of clueless about a lot of things going on in his kingdom.

And Esther says to Xerxes the king, this is not just about me.

This is about my people.

And I need legislation to be decreed so that all those people of the Jews who have the sentence of death over them now, because of what you decreed that was irrevocable, the law of the Medes and the Persians, will require further legislation.

And let me just stop again and just say, because this is an important part of this sermon series.

I want you to hear that when God builds his kingdom, he uses an Ezra about this same time period.

He uses the clergy, okay.

He uses people like Nehemiah, city planners, and he also uses legislators like Esther.

So you people that are working on Capitol Hill, God bless you.

And you people who are advocates for the helpless, for those who can't protect themselves.

God bless you.

We all have a work to do in building the kingdom.

This is not just about preachers and evangelism.

We build God's kingdom one brick at a time, we build God's kingdom one sermon at a time, and we build God's kingdom one ethical decision at a time in your business.

In your legislation.

And for those of you that say, well, I don't have a title like that.

I stay at home.

I raise families.

You're raising your family, you're raising your children to know the kingdom of God and to believe that every square inch on this earth belongs to King Jesus.

This is a holistic approach that we must all understand, that we must all believe.

Esther is writing legislation.

And she says, we need one more edict.

We need one more piece of legislation, O King.

This is a pleading prayer.

This is a desperate prayer.

You cannot be a spiritual leader if you're not learning how to be desperate.

It just doesn't work that way.

Are you desperate enough?

Do you see the enemy poised against you to strike against you?

Do you see the enemy poised to strike against the kingdom of God?

You don't have to make anything up, friend.

You just have to have your eyes open.

And don't have your head buried in everything else but this.

You just need to have your eyes open to see the evil that's being plotted.

You just need to have your eyes open to see the evil that's being perpetrated against the kingdom of God.

And you will be a person who is praying desperate prayers.

Not desperate because you don't have a chance, desperate because you see what the kingdom of evil is doing against the kingdom of God.

She came into the king's presence weeping and pleading, hear this, for others.

She already had her good.

Her life was already going to be spared.

She already had all the wealth that she could ever spend in one lifetime.

Do you get this?

She's coming in for others.

She had a whole new attitude.

We've seen that.

Take comfort.

Esther did not have it all together.

Esther grew radically in the gospel.

For years she was in the harem.

For years she was enjoying all the perks of being the queen.

She didn't even reveal her identity.

She was playing it safe.

Are you still playing it safe?

Are you coming out of your palace?

Are you revealing your identity?

Are you saying I'm a child of God?

And I'm a worker in the kingdom of God.

And I don't care what that means.

Esther had a new attitude.

She's well beyond her own self-interest.

And so before we move on, I have a question for you.

Who are you pleading for?

Who are you going to the king for other than yourself?

Yes, your family.

Yes, your marriage.

Yes.

If you're not doing that, you're not even in the game.

Yes.

But who else?

Who else are you going to King Jesus for?

Secondly, fast horses.

Verse 10.

When the new legislation is written with the signet ring of the king, with the authority of the king, I think what the king just, the king did, he said, here, here, here's the royal paper.

Here's the royal signet.

Write the legislation.

And Christians are still doing that, especially in our city.

Write the legislation.

Write the best legislation you can write that will do the greatest good.

And then get the word out fast.

Riding on swift horses that were used in the king's service, bred from the royal stud.

Why?

Because death was imminent.

To make no decrees would be terminally fatal for these Jews throughout the kingdoms.

Get the good news out as fast as you can.

That's the point.

Do you have a fast horse?

What is getting the good news out look like in your life?

You can't be a spiritual leader if that growing conviction is not taking over in your mind, in your heart.

What are we doing with the good news?

Are we just sitting on it?

Or are we finding a fast horse?

And you know what that news is.

Jesus saved you.

Jesus brought you into his kingdom.

Jesus has given you eternal life.

Don't sit on it.

Share it.

Find a fast horse.

And get on that horse.

And ride.

That's how you become a spiritual leader.

You don't need to be an elder, you don't need to be a deacon to do that.

You need to be a child of God who is who understands how much you've been saved from, how much you've been saved for, and you'll find your horse.

I promise.

Let me say to my friends here this morning who still haven't heard this message from King Jesus that you come to Jesus Christ, you acknowledge your sin against that King.

You acknowledge your sin this morning, and you confess your sin to him this morning, to God Almighty.

And perhaps for the first time in your life, you understand how much guilt you have before a perfect God.

And you understand, maybe for the first time in your life, that this is why Jesus Christ came to save sinners like you and me.

And you understand that.

You come to Christ this morning.

You come to the King this morning.

You don't go to Xerxes, you go to Jesus.

Let me say to you, my friend, don't wait.

Don't wait.

You know what?

This is one fast horse this morning because you're hearing it this morning.

You're hearing it this morning.

What are you gonna do with this news?

To make no decision is to decide.

Time waits for no man or woman.

You know that, right?

Time doesn't wait for us.

If you don't decide for Jesus, time will decide for you.

It's true.

Don't wait.

Respond to Jesus' invitation to you.

And you come to him today.

And that's why we need fast couriers.

Verse 17.

In every province and in every city, wherever the king's command went, wherever the edict reached, listen to this.

There was gladness and joy.

There was a feast.

There was a holiday.

That's what happens when Jesus' grace touches sinners.

There's always a feast.

There's always rejoicing.

What do the scripture say?

Every time somebody comes to Christ, the angels in heaven are rejoicing.

Last Sunday I had the privilege of doing an adult baptism in the other campus.

There's a lot of rejoicing.

Where's your fast horse?

Do you have one?

If you don't, pray for one.

Which province in your life is the good news reaching?

And if you say to me, Tom, I don't have the gift of evangelism, Tom, I've never been trained.

That is not insurmountable.

What we need most is the joy of the Lord.

What we need most is the filling of the Holy Spirit.

You don't need to go to seminary for that.

God can give you that where you are.

Ask Him.

Thirdly, the great reversal.

I honestly don't have much time to get into this.

We could take an hour on holy wars, right?

We're going to take five minutes.

This decree permitted the Jews only to defend themselves, not to go on the offense.

And I'm speaking to many people who have been troubled by holy wars in Scripture, particularly the Old Testament.

I get that.

That can be troubling.

Note, it was only to defend themselves.

But you can say, but wait a minute.

What back in remember back in Samuel, 1 Samuel chapter 15, when God told King Saul to destroy the Amalekites, the ancestors of Haman?

1 Samuel 15 · chapter mention

What about that, Tom?

Good question.

We have to see the holy wars in Scripture in a redemptive context.

It's the unfolding of the plan of God redemptively.

And so we see that even throughout the progression of God establishing a kingdom of righteousness and justice, even throughout the Old Testament, particularly in the New Testament.

Our weapons are not swords or guns, except in defense.

Our weapons are the mighty weapons of God's spiritual armor.

We've talked about that in this sermon series.

The Jews were not to initiate the attack, only to defend themselves.

And so we, as one scholar put it, it's important that we see why we're not called to this kind of war.

It's not because holy war was somehow wrong in its original historical context or that it was sub-Christian, unworthy of the followers of Christ.

It's not even because holy war seems out of date and old-fashioned, a barbarious and uncivilized practice.

We have not abandoned holy war simply because we have become modern people and grown more civilized.

Rather, we have abandoned holy war in its Old Testament form because we live in a different era in the history of redemption.

We live in the era of the outpouring of grace in which we fight with spiritual weapons.

We fight with the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God.

Tremper Longman, an Old Testament scholar, put it like this.

Seeing it in context, God's irrevocable decree of death and destruction has been countered by his decree that all who believe in his son should not perish under his wrath, but come to new life.

The violence of God against sin and evil can therefore be rightly understood only in the shadow of the cross.

Are you with me?

You see this progression?

Jesus Christ is the ultimate divine warrior, the king of Israel who waged the final war against sin and evil on the cross in behalf of all of us who deserve sin, excuse me, who deserve death because of our sin.

The paradox of the divine warrior is that while he fights off every effort to hijack Israel's destiny, whether it's from enemies outside like Haman or the unfaithfulness within, he's also bearing the suffering of human misery within himself.

The God of battle carries sin and suffering with his own groans.

And finally on the cross, he draws the sword against himself.

Didn't he?

Holy war takes on new meaning in this light.

Yes, it does.

Yes, it does.

But I have a question of application.

First a comment and then the question.

The comment is this you can't be a spiritual leader if you're still trying to take vengeance on people who have harmed you.

You can't be a spiritual leader if you're still trying to pay back people for your own personal offense.

You can't become a spiritual leader if it's about getting back at people who have wronged you.

That will rob you of your gospel joy.

That will rob you of your kingdom heart.

Rather, give it to Jesus.

And that can be one of the hardest things we ever do is to learn how to give that to Jesus.

Let the courts address what the courts are called to address.

We're not called to that kind of holy war.

Because Jesus brought about the great reversal.

Jesus is the divine warrior.

Although Xerxes' edict was irreversible unless another edict was issued, until another decree was commanded, we were all in trouble.

What was the first edict from King Jesus?

You're sinners.

Your sin deserves death.

You are under the sentence of death because of your sin.

That was the first edict from King Jesus.

What was the second that reversed the first?

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

Nothing can get you, nothing can touch you, nothing can harm you.

That was the second edict that came from the throne of God.

And that's why we sing with joyful hearts in worship.

The great reversal.

The vengeance that was due to us for our sins has been satisfied in Jesus' body on the cross.

True holy war has ceased in this life because Jesus has brought the last episode upon himself on the cross.

But I say this last, I say this last with a heavy heart because it's true.

And I think in this day and age the message oftentimes is lost.

So if you're here this morning and you're still on the sideline, and you're just going to continue to debate this, and you're just going to continue to delay this decision.

Revelation chapter 19.

Revelation 19 · chapter mention

Verse 11.

John says, I saw heaven open, and behold, a white horse, the one sitting on it, called faithful and true, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.

His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diamond diadems.

And he has a name written that no one knows but himself.

He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is the word of God.

And the armies of heaven arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses.

From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations.

And he will rule them with a rod of iron.

And he will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.

On his robe and on his thigh, he has a name written, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

And that ought to frighten every one of us in a good way.

The holy war is not over.

Jesus did everything that was required in this life.

But the fact is that one day our King is going to come back, and John pictures it symbolically in the way I just read.

But he's going to come back and he is going to execute judgment against all of his enemies who have refused to bow before him.

Who have refused to acknowledge their sin.

Who have refused to run to a savior with his arms open.

And that's why we need fast horses.

But that's why we need the grace of God.

And that's why we need spiritual leaders.

The final word: no condemnation to you in Christ.

Now get on your horse.

Tom, get on your horse.

Pray with me.

Oh Father, our hearts are breaking even now this morning.

They're breaking with joy and gratitude at the cost of our salvation.

We will never, ever, ever begin to pay you back, Lord Jesus, for the gift of new life.

But we still live in an age where you're calling us to get on our horse and to share the good news.

Father, forgive us when we make all kinds of excuses why we can't.

Forgive us when we make all kinds of excuses why we don't need to.

Forgive us.

But change us.

Change us within.

Let us linger in passages like Revelation 19.

God, judgment's coming.

You promised that.

Send us now to our neighbors.

Send us now to our workplace.

Send us now to our families with the good news.

And Holy Spirit, would you bring many to new life in Christ by your work and by your power using people like us?

We pray, King Jesus.

Amen.