Such a Time as This

Ishmael LaBiosa: Well, good morning, Liberty Baptist Church. We are glad that you're here on Memorial Day Sunday. You could have slept in, you could be preparing for a big cookout. Maybe you still are preparing for a big cookout, but yet you are here this morning, and we are glad that you are here. And we have a lot to be thankful for, don't we? Amen. Well, this was a big weekend for our family. ⁓ Mr. Ethan, our oldest son, graduated from high school and so y yeah, praise the Lord for that. That's right. We're glad that Ethan did. We know we have a lot of graduates this year and ⁓ so he graduated from LCA, so we were on Liberty Mountain yesterday and people were asking me, Ishmael, have you has it hit home yet that you've got a son that's graduated high school? I said, ⁓ not yet. My wife has given me such a long honey to do list to get ready for things at the house for people to come over. I haven't had time to think about it. But that honey to do list just continues to grow, you know, never goes away. And that's okay. ⁓ so we've been working hard getting everything ready and so we were at the ceremony yesterday morning and they started the ceremony out with these two sweet songs by the ⁓ school choir and it started to hit old Ishmael and ⁓ man, my son is graduating. And so I got a little emotional on those first two songs and then I got that out of the way and then was able to focus on the you know, support my son for being there and but ⁓ we're certainly glad that ⁓ all these graduations have taken place. I know many of you have been impacted by that as well. Lynchburg has been busy, Appomatto County's been busy with all the graduations. And so here we go. Summer begins. Well, today we're gonna get a message from the book of Esther. And I was thinking about this message, Esther, I'm sure you know the story well. ⁓ maybe think about some people who've been greatly impacted through God's ministry, God's mission. And I thought about one name in particular. And when I say the name, I know you're gonna think immediately some details about this person. But the name Billy Graham. When you think of the name Billy Graham, you probably have a lot of things that may come to mind. I was born in 82, so I had the privilege of growing up and watching him on TV, my old tube TV box, you know, growing up as a kid. And I remember my parents watching this and made me and my siblings watch it, even though we wanted to watch other things. But it still amazing to watch thousands of people come to these crusades that Billy Graham would lead and share the gospel message. And thousands and thousands and thousands of people would make decisions. My brother was one of them back in the day. He became a Christian because of Billy Graham's crusade. We went to Charlotte, North Carolina to to see him at the Panther Stadium down there. And so but before, you know, Billy Graham started this big ministry, He had to make a decision at some point to follow Christ himself. And I don't know if you know the story, but I think it's pretty fascinating. ⁓ he was born in nineteen eighteen. I I know kids today will say phrases like, Dad, what was it like growing up in the nineteen hundreds? Well, Billy Graham was one of those guys that grew up in the nineteen hundreds. And so he he actually grew up during the Great Depression. And ⁓ he was on a dairy farm near Charlotte, North Carolina, actually. And as a teenager, he did not enjoy going to church with his family. His parents were Christians and wanted him at church and wanted him to sing and read the Bible, but ⁓ young teenage Billy Graham was kind of rebellious and didn't want to do it. And yet his parents encouraged him to continue doing it. And just before he turned 16 years old, local pastors invited Dr. Mordecai Ham, a traveling evangelist, to hold a series of revival meetings in Charlotte, where they live. And so this evangelist came in, preached for six days a week, morning and night, for ⁓ eleven weeks, and thousands of people would come to hear this traveling evangelist. And so Billy is a almost sixteen year old. his parents were begging him to go, Billy was refusing to go, and after a month of it going, a friend of Billy's came up to him and said, Hey, look, if you go to attend one of these meetings tonight, I'll let you drive my old vegetable truck into town. And so Billy Graham was like, Well, man, that's a treat. I want to drive that old vegetable truck into town. And so Billy Graham took that opportunity and drove it into town with the agreement to sit in and listen to the meeting. Billy Graham recalled that Dr. Hamm began preaching loudly, recounting the night. Many years later he said this. Billy Graham said this. I have no recollection of what he preached about, but I was spellbound. In some indefinable way, he was getting through to me. I was hearing another voice, the voice of the Holy Spirit. Billy Graham returned the next night and the night after that, and he was eager to hear more of God's word. And for the first time, Billy learned about heaven and hell. A few weeks into the meetings on november seventh, Billy Graham remembered hearing doctor Ham quote Romans 5 8, and when he was finished with his message, the pastor invited the people to accept Christ, and Billy Graham went forward. Billy said, I walked down to the front feeling as a as if I had lead weights attached to my feet. It was then that a family friend came beside Billy Graham, explained God's plan for salvation, how Billy needed a savior to save him from his sins, and there Billy Graham on his knees prayed Jesus Christ into his heart. But you see, Billy Graham needed people around him to point him to our Savior. Thanks to Billy's godly parents. Thanks to the local pastors praying for revival. Thanks to the friend with the old vegetable truck that let Billy drive into town, and thanks to the family friend that explained the plan of salvation there at the altar, Billy Graham got saved. And Billy Graham went on to be America's pastor. Even though some of us here might think that might be Pastor Rusty. Billy Graham was known as the America's pastor, and Billy preached to over two hundred and fifteen million people live in person. Across one hundred and eighty-five countries. His legacy includes pioneering mass media evangelism, promoting civil rights, advising numerous US presidents, and authoring more than thirty books. Billy Graham certainly had a significant impact in spiritual lives across America and the world. And Billy Graham needed each one of those people to speak into him. And your salvation story might be like that. Where a lot of people witness to you, encourage you to get into church, understand the message of Jesus Christ, and here you are today. Or perhaps you're sitting here today and you've never made that decision to follow Christ as your Savior. Today is the day, my friend, to make that decision. I hope you do make that decision. And just like Billy Graham, Esther had a big role to play in our spiritual journey as we read in scripture. You may know this, but Esther is actually the only book in the Bible that never explicitly mentions the name God in it. And yet, while his name is not mentioned, we can see his love, salvation, all wrapped in through this entire story, pointing Esther to do his work. The Old Testament book gives us a look at how God is always working, even even when we don't see it, to protect his covenant people. Esther and her cousin Mordecai are making are among the very few Jewish people who obey the Lord God and yet live in a very selfish culture in the Persian Empire. I encourage you today as we look at this scripture that you contemplate how God is working in your life and how you can get involved in God's mission today. So if you have your Bible, if you want to open up to Esther chapter one, we're going start at the very beginning. Here we go in verse one. These events took place during the days of Ahasirus, who ruled one hundred and twenty-seven provinces from India to Cush. In those days King Ahasirus reigned from his royal throne in the fortress of Susa. He held a feast in the third year of his reign for all his officials and staff, the army of Persia and Media, the nobles and the officials from the provinces. He displayed the glorious wealth of his kingdom and the magnificent splendor of his greatness for a total of one hundred and eighty days. At the end of this time the king held a week long banquet in the garden courtyard of the royal palace for all the people, from the greatest to the least who were present in the fortress of Susa. White and blue linen hangings were fastened with white, fine white and purple linen cords to silver rods on marble columns. Gold and silver couches were arranged on a mosaic pavement of red, feldspar, marble, and mother of pearl and precious stones. Drinks were served in an array of gold goblets, each with a different design. Royal wine flowed freely, according to the king's bounty. The drinking was according to the royal decree. There are no restrictions. The king had ordered every wine steward in the household to serve whatever each person wanted. Queen Vashtai also gave a feast for the queen of King Ahasarus's palace. On the seventh day, when the king was feeling good from the wine, Ahasarus commanded Mehuman Bestha Harbona. Bigtha, Abagatha, Zethar, and Carcass, the seven eunuchs who personally served him, to bring Queen Vashtai before him with her royal crown. He wanted to show off her beauty to the people and the officials because she was very beautiful. But Queen Vashti refused to come at the king's command and was delivered by his eunuchs. The king became furious, and his anger burned within him. So here we are in chapter one of Esther, taking place in Susa, one of the three capitals of Persia. This location is what we know today is in the southwestern part of Iran. The king is Ahasirus, the Hebrew name for King Xerxes, who reigned from 486 to 465 BC. He was a son of Darius the Great. ⁓ Ahasoris held a feast for 180 days for all his officials and staff to treat them. But you know, they don't think that scholars don't believe that it was actually 180 days of this. It was just because the the empire was so vast. They had to have time to come in and visit with the king, and so they made it for 180 days. And then after this period of time, the king held another seven day feast, and that was open to all the people of Susa. Guests could drink as much royal wine as they wanted. And Queen Vashti was the k was the queen. And the scriptures tell us that Queen Vashshai was very beautiful. And Hasarus, after he got intoxicated with wine, decided that he wanted to show off her beauty to all the people who were present. But during this time, Persian modesty required women to be veiled in public. It appears that the king wanted her to be degraded in front of everyone by revealing her her face, ⁓ removing her veil, and Vashti refused to do this, and so she publicly disobeyed the most popular man in the empire. Upset from her decision, the king went up to his wise men for counsel, and these seven wise men told the king that Vashti's behavior would prove to be a bad example of To the women and their kingdom. And so they made it a dec decree to get rid of Queen Vashti. And in a weak moment, the king did that. He made an irrational decision to remove the queen. And she could no longer come back to the palace. She was banished. You know, in a weak moment we see King Ahazarus making this decision. And it's easy to point the finger at the king here, but we too make Irrational decisions at times. There are times when we get kind of caught up in the world. Maybe you're busy doing honey to do lists and you kind of get carried away and make the wrong statement or make the wrong decision along the way. I'm not saying I did that, but I could do that. I don't think I did that. I might need to check with my wife, make sure I haven't. But sometimes we make irrational decisions. And we have to be careful as Christians, especially when the world is watching us, our every move, our every word. Are we truly looking like a disciple of Jesus Christ? Do we look any different than the world around us? Sometimes we can say, Yeah, I've done that before. I can raise my hand to that. And we we must avoid the pitfalls of of chasing and pursuing this selfish culture that the world chases. You know, the grass looks greener on the other side, you know, we hear that all the time. Doesn't really, does it? You know, we get the thing that we we were hoping to get maybe a car, maybe a boat, maybe a degree, a diploma, a job, whatever it might look like. And we're hoping that's the answer to our problems, but it it never satisfies us, does it? The world doesn't satisfy us. There's only one who does. That's King Jesus. And the more we lean into that idea, the more we lean into the idea of true salvation in Jesus, the less we have to worry about in chasing these things, these worldly pleasures, these worldly desires. Because you see, that's how Satan wants to distract you. That's how Satan wants to destroy us. He doesn't want us to be happy. He wants us to chase things. He wants us to think that there's happiness and worldly pleasures. But we know that's not true. The king here made an irrational decision because he was chasing down his worldly pleasures, being intoxicated, not making right decisions, being surrounded by bad influences. And if we aren't c careful, we as Christians could very easily end up in that same scenario. And we have to guard our hearts and guard our minds. So how do we avoid this pitfall? We do this by humbly submitting. To the Lord God Almighty. We do this by simple ways, starting our day off with just simply saying, Thank you, God. Thank you for all the things that you have given to me. Thank you for salvation in my life. Thank you for my my spouse. Thank you for my children. Thank you for a roof over my head. Thank you for food in my belly. Thank you for your healing hand. Thank you, Lord, for saving those around me. Thank him for all the good things in your life. And be ready to do something good for his glory. Be excited about wanting to do something good for his glory. There are times, you know, I mean, at least where I am in my life, I feel like there's just not enough room in the schedule to do anything or think. And by the time I get home and have dinner, I mean, it used to be nine o'clock, now it's starting to look like seven o'clock. I'm ready to get in that bed and go to bed, you know, and start all over again the next day. We just get so busy in our schedules, and there's not enough room to fill it with the Lord. In his word and want want to do his mission. And sometimes we miss it, you know? We're we're so blinded by chasing the thing that we're chasing that we're missing God's work all around us. So I encourage you to invest in doing something good for his glory. And this means spending time in God's word and understanding who he is and having a relationship with him. It's hard to know what to do good if we don't have a relationship with our Heavenly Father. We have to have that important relationship locked in. And requires commitment. Every day, waking up, renewing our minds, and who God wants us to be. The choice, friends, is yours to make. The choice is yours to surrender to the Lord God Almighty. I encourage you to do that today. Well, in the second chapter of Esther, we read that King Ahazarus searches for a new queen to replace the deposed Vashti. A realm-wide beauty search leads to the palace where a Jewish orphan named Esther Was discovered, guided by her ⁓ guardian Mordecai, and she wins the king's heart becoming queen. Mordecai then uncovers an assassination plot saving the king's life. That all takes place in chapter two. We're going to skip ahead to chapter three, and this begins with my second point, which is this: surround yourself with a God-honoring community to help you live wisely. Esther three, verse one reads this. After all this took place, King Ahazarus honored Haman, son of Hemadatha, the Agagite. He promoted him in rank and gave him a higher position than all the other officials. The entire royal staff, the king's gate, bowed down and paid homage to Haman, because the king had commanded this to be done for him. But Mordecai would not bow down or pay homage. The members of the royal staff of the king's gate asked Mordecai, why are you disobeying the king's command? When they had warned him day after day he still would not listen to them, they told Haman in order to see if Mordecai's actions would be tolerated, since he had since he had told them he was a Jew. When Haman saw that Mordecai was not bowing down or paying him homage, he was filled with rage. And when he learned of the Mor of Mordecai's ethnic identity, it seemed repugnant to ⁓ Haman to do away with Mordecai alone. He planned to destroy all of Mordecai's people, the Jews, throughout the Azarus's ⁓ kingdom. In the first month, the month of Nisan, in King Ahazarus' twelfth year, the purr, that is the lot, was cast before Haman for each day in each month, and it fell in the twelfth month of the month Adar. When Haman informed King Ahazarus, there is one ethnic group scattered throughout the peoples, and every provenance of your kingdom, keeping themselves separate. Their laws are different from everyone else's, and they do not obey the king's laws. It is not in the king's best interest to tolerate them. If the king approves, let an order be drawn up authorizing their destruction, and I will pay three hundred and seventy-five tons of silver to the officials for deposit and the royal treasury. The king removed his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman, son of Hamadath ⁓ Hamadatha the Agagite, the enemy of the Jews. Then the king told Haman, The money and people are given to you to do with you with as you see fit. The royal scribes were summoned on the thirteenth day of the first month, and And the order was written exactly as Haman commanded. It was intended for the royal satraps, the governors of each of the provinces, and the officials of each ethnic group, and written for each province in its own script, and to each ethnic group in its own language. It was written in the name of King Ahazarus and sealed with the royal signet ring. Letters were sent by couriers to each of the royal provinces, telling the officials to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the Jewish people, young and old, women and children. And plunder their possessions on a single day, the thirteenth day of the Adar of the twelfth month. A copy of the text issued as law throughout every province was distributed to all the peoples, so they might get ready for that day. The couriers left, spurred on by royal command, and a law was issued in the fortress of Susa, the king and Haman sat down to drink while the city of Susa was in confusion. Haman was a bad dude. Haman was a dangerous threat. And Haman was unfit to be on any leadership team. Haman was a scary dude. I wouldn't want to be on the team with him, I can tell you that. But because of his selfish desires, he was okay with the murder of all Jewish people and developed a plan to see it through. Haman influenced the king to eliminate the Jews, and while this massacre begins, confusion is visible throughout the entire empire. And looking at the damage that Haman created, this should shout out to us. That we should be careful where we spend our time. We should be careful to the voices that we're listening to. We should be careful of what we're absorbing. It impacts our speech. It impacts our decisions. And while we must live in this world, we must not be of this world. There are so many bad influences of around us, so many loud voices begging us to listen and follow them. And the more we listen, The more we start ending up looking like them, don't we? If it doesn't sound like the Bible, I wouldn't follow it. And I would compare it to what the Bible says. It's so easy for us to go along with what's popular in the world today. It's much more difficult to be a Christ follower. It's much more difficult to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and stand up for what is right. When we're at work and you might be in an environment where you don't have many Christians around you, I've been in environment like that. And it's difficult to express the joys that you have in salvation. But friend, let me encourage you, do it anyway. Give God credit for all the glory and all the honor that He deserves. Be unashamed of the gospel. Tell people about why you have peace in your life. That's because of the one who gave it to you. And so many people are chasing everything else, they can't find that peace. And eventually they're gonna notice and they're gonna ask you questions. They're going come to you for for wisdom. And you're going to give it straight out of Scripture. You're going to tell them it's the one who created you, the one who saved you from your sins. He's the one that we trust. Our lives should look completely different from unbelievers. It shouldn't even compare. People we encounter should see a hope and a joy that only salvation brings to us. We need to be careful with the bad voices that are around us. You know, there's a difference in in witnessing to to people, and it's a difference in living with people or opposite of the scripture. S the Bible tells us this in Proverbs thirteen twenty the one who walks with the wise will become wise, but a companion of fools will suffer harm. I don't know about you, but I want to be wise. I want a good group of people around me who can lean into me and say, Hey Ishmael, you know, you're messing up in this area. You shouldn't you straighten that up. ⁓ I want people to encourage me when I need it. the last fifteen years we've been here at this church, and years ago before God called me to to lead more, I was in Larry and Susan Shorter's Sunday school class. And it was a a phase of our life where we had three young children, my wife and I, and we were just going through a lot of things. You know, life was getting tough and we were outnumbered at home and all these things and we needed that extra support. I'm so glad we had a Sunday school class that we could lean into. To give us that support, ⁓ to give us that encouragement when we needed it. ⁓ you never know what challenge might you might face. It could be tomorrow, you know. And the question is, do you have that circle around you to help you in your times of need? And God also gives you gifts too. And you can provide those gifts into that circle of of influence that you're hanging out with, that Sunday school group, that small group. I would just say I know there are a lot of people who are faithful and and attend small groups. I say keep going. But if you're not involved, get involved. There's so many opportunities through our church to get involved. And it made me think about ministry opportunities that are taking place across our church. you guys may have heard of the Good News Club. this is a a ministry that's taking place at the Appomattox Elementary County School. And our church is a part of that. ⁓ Don Thompson, he helps lead that over there at the school. And I he reported to me Some numbers from this year of what took place. I thought this was very interesting that I thought I want to share with you since our church supports this ministry. He was telling me that there's they've experienced since last year a 33% growth in numbers of kids who attend. They've they've had a regular attendance of 51 students in third, fourth, and fifth grade there after school on Wednesdays. And Don told me they have eight trained and vetted volunteers who help serve that. But here's the good news: because of all the efforts of this past school year. Four students decided to put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ. Now who knows yeah, praise the Lord for that. I praise the Lord for that. But here's the thing: one of those four could be the next Billy Graham. And you could be a part of sending them out to do God's mission. That's why this is important. Another thing that's taken place recently, the Fellowship of Christ Christian Athletes, the FCA. We've had a club at the high school for a long period of time, done great things. Doug Smith over there, the coach who's really helped lead that. And ⁓ Tim Hill, ⁓ who's part of FCA, who's our local guy that helps ⁓ keep things operational, they just started one in the middle school. And so just a few weeks ago, ⁓ they had a big event over there. And they invited all the middle schoolers to be a part of it. And ended up almost about a hundred students showed up for this thing. And Liberty Baptist Church student ministry ⁓ invested and took care of the pizza. So we we fed the kids while they came, and then they invited ⁓ this ministry impact church from Lynchburg. They have this power source ministry. ⁓ they had they have these ⁓ strong actually they're they're two pastors, but they do the strong men kind of competition stuff. And so they they showed up with like a metal bar, Danny. I don't know what what kind of metal bar this thing was, but it was a big old metal bar and in front of everybody they're like bending this thing. This straight bar, and they able they were able to make like this fish symbol, you know, just to represent, you know, Jesus, which is pretty cool. They took soda cans that that were full, not opened. crushed it in their hands. They ⁓ took a a wooden bat, broke it on their on the back of their own body, and then they had a a stack of cinder blocks they were able to punch through. Just really cool things that, you know, Pastor Rusty does on a regular Monday. maybe he does. he's not here to defend himself, so maybe he does do that. and ⁓ just an amazing thing. And then but the the beauty of it all, they they presented the gospel and they told the students, hey ⁓ you're a sinner and you need a savior. Gave them the whole gospel story. And so at the very end, they asked the entire group of about a hundred kids, hey, if you made a decision, whether it was the first time make a decision to follow Christ or rededicating your life, stand up. And from what I saw, about 90% of the kids stood up. Right, Luke? There was about 90% of the kids that were like stood up in that room. And I was just amazed at like what was taking place in a public school. Praise the Lord for that. But our church is a part of making disciples. We're a part of God's mission. And you can be a part of that. Any those two ministries that I mentioned, hey, if you want to be a part of it, call the church office. We'll get you plugged in. There are many other opportunities, but those are just two amazing things that are taking place right here in your backyard. So we praise God for that. So I just share this just to say our our church has opportunities to not only for you to grow in your walk with Christ, but to help others. Grow in their walk with Christ as well. Point number three is this recognize God's instruction when he wants you to be a part of his work. Skipping ahead to Esther chapter four, I'm gonna summarize verses one through twelve here, and then we'll kind of get into the meat of this. Mordecai tears his clothes, puts on sackcloth and ashes, and weeps bitterly when news is heard about the elimination of the Jewish people. Across the Persian Empire, Jewish people go into deep mourning. Fasting, weeping, and wailing, because their people are about to be destroyed. Esther's servants inform her of Mordecai's distress. She sends him fresh clothes to replace the sackcloth, but he refuses them. Esther then sends Hak Hatak, one of King's ⁓ one of the king's eunuchs, to find out what is happening. Mordecai explains the situation to Hatak, revealing the exact amount of money that Haman promised to pay the royal treasury to wipe out the Jews. He gives Hatak a copy of the decree to show Esther, commanding her to go to the king, implore her her his ⁓ favor, and plead for her people. Hatak relays this to Esther. Esther sends a message back to Mordecai explaining the strict law of the palace. Anyone, including the queen, who approaches the king in the inner courtyard without being summoned, faces the death penalty unless the king extends his gold scepter. She adds that she has been summoned by the king. She has not been summoned by the king for thirty days. So here's the scenario, and then we go into verse thirteen of chapter four. It says this Mordecai told the messenger to reply to Esther, Don't think you will escape the fate of all the Jews, because you are in the king's palace. If you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will come to the Jewish people from another place. But you and your father's family will be destroyed. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to your royal position for such a time as this. Esther sent this reply to Mordecai, go and assemble all the Jews who can be found in Susa, and fast for me. Don't eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my female servants will also fast in the same way. After that I will go to the king even if it is against the law. If I perish, I perish. So Mordecai went and did everything Esther had commanded him. The key verse here, I believe, in this scripture is in verse where Mordecai says to Queen Esther, who knows? Perhaps you have come to your royal position for such a time as this. God is revealing to Queen Esther, you have an opportunity to be a part of my mission. I'm inviting you to be a part of this mission. Whether you accept it or not, I'm gonna take care of the mission. But Esther, come be a part of saving the Jewish people. And so Esther has a decision to make here. And she makes the right one. She makes the right one to the point where she says, even to the point of death, I will take care of this. And so she risks her own life by going to visit the king to beg, to please, do not kill my people. And the king listens. You know, you may have experienced moments in your life where you have felt the Holy Spirit nudging you to do something. Have you ever felt that? Where you knew something good you should do, whatever that looks like, I know I have. And the one thing we need to do is be obedient to God's nudging. When the Holy Spirit is telling you to do something, don't waste a minute. Go after it. Of course you should compare it to scripture just to make sure this is the Lord that's asking you to do something. But my goodness, to be a part of God's mission, to do his work, to see people get saved and changed. What an amazing thing to be a part of, isn't it? The moment could happen today, just like Esther. You have a choice to do something for such a time as this, and as you're living for Christ, don't hesitate to honor his name. My fourth point is this, I'm gonna wrap it up. Hold on to the truth that even in seasons of chaos, God accomplishes his mission. We find in the remainder of the story that God works a miracle through Queen Esther to save his people. We're gonna pick this up in chapter eight, verse fifteen. It says this Mordecai went from the king's presence clothed in royal and white with a great ⁓ gold crown and a purple robe of fine linen. The city of Susa shouted and rejoiced, and the Jews celebrated with gladness, joy, and honor. And every province and every city where the king's command and edict reached, gladness and joy took among the Jews. There was a celebration and a holiday, and many of the ethnic groups of the land professed themselves to be Jews because fear of the Jews had overcome them. We see the glory we see the story go from an evil plot of eliminating a certain people To God completely turning it around and saving the Jewish community through Queen Esther. You know, this story is viewed as a testament to God's ultimate plan of redemption, as the perservation ⁓ preservation of the Jewish lineage was necessary for the eventual coming of who? Who was coming? Jesus Christ. This is a part of the big story of Jesus coming later on. Now God didn't need East ⁓ didn't need Esther to do this, but He chose her to be a part of it. Just like He chooses you to be a part of His mission too. So I don't know what your story looks like today, Fred. You may have never put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, and you have no idea what I'm talking about. But today, you can make that decision. I invite you to come forward and give your life to the Lord. We live in a crazy world, place where all kinds of things are being said. You don't know what's true, what's not. What you can believe is this to be true: God's word. It never changes. And he loves you so much that he sent his son Jesus to die for you. A cruel death on the cross. And the story doesn't end there. Jesus rose from the grave three days later. And he's preparing a place for you, for those who believe. If you've never made that decision, will you make that decision today? Will you trust the Lord? Will you stop listening to all those crazy voices around you and listen to the one who created you, has a purpose for you? I'll be down front and I'll be glad to answer some questions in the Bible about that. And you as a Christian today, I encourage you, if you're not part of God's mission, get involved. Super easy. Super, super easy. It just takes one step forward. And then just watch God work. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I just thank you for who you are. I thank you, Father, that you loved us so much that you gave us the greatest gift that we'll ever receive. Father, I'm thankful that I. Have salvation in you. I'm thankful, Father, for so many people in this church, in this community who also have that same assurance. And Father, we just we want to glorify and honor you in all that we do and all that we say. So, Father, help us to be faithful in that. Help us to be faithful in the little things. We don't know what you have for us in the future. You might Have a Billy Graham sitting right here in this sanctuary. You want to be sent out. You want you want to send him out to do good good work for your glory and honor. And there might be some others who you assign to be way behind the scenes that we don't even know their names, maybe. Father, we just pray that that we would just do something good for you. We'd be unashamed of your gospel, be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to get angry, and just love you. And we thank you, Lord, for all the goodness that. Given to us. Father, I pray for this church family you protect us from the evil one. I pray that we continue to grow in your word. And I pray, Lord, that we continue to make disciples of Jesus Christ for your glory. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.