God's Hidden Hand In Remembrance | Esther

Providence family, it is the joy to see you and to sing with you.

For those who are in the building, but over in the harbor, we're glad that you have joined us as well.

If you're a guest here at Providence, we're honored that you have joined us.

And in a moment, I want to pray for us.

But before I do, I want to share just um what we want to pray about.

Um I know there's a lot of burdens in a lot of our hearts.

Uh, there's 250 students from Providence that will be at camp this week.

And uh, and that is uh that's an amazing thing, really.

And the Lord is gonna use it in a number of ways.

We want to pray for their safety, and we want to pray uh that the Lord would offer them obviously a great time, but uh, in every single one of those students, God has a plan for their life.

And so we want to pray that the Lord would make that known to them, that he would engage their heart, that he would strike their own curiosity as to who he is and how they've been called to live in his world, and God can use this week to shape their lives.

We also know that when there's 250 people, um, that's a large group.

And the fact is, is um is sometimes the place that's the loneliest to be is in a large group where you don't know anybody and where nobody knows you.

And there is no doubt some students who will be going, and the only reason they're there is because their loving parents put their hands on their back and push them onto a bus.

And and so what we're praying for and hoping and asking the Lord, and He can do this, He does this every year, is that the Lord would provide meaningful friends and new friendships that would begin because the Lord changes people, not only through his word, but also through music and through his people.

So we want to pray for them.

We also want to pray for the people of Venezuela.

Um, I looked this morning, it was very early when I looked, so I'm sure it's more than that, but there's over 1,400 people who've been confirmed uh dead.

Um massive crisis, and there's still tens, it's said, of thousands, tens of thousands of people that are still missing.

And there is just that's that represents hundreds of thousands of people that are grieving and hurting and longing and who are in need of God's grace in their life.

And so we want to pray for them.

We also want to give to them in half.

You see, the fact is because you're so generous as a church family, and I genuinely mean this, and because every year we build a budget, and part of that budget has monies that are set aside that when there's a significant crisis like this, that we can quickly send money.

You've already approved that.

And so we had the opportunity in just a matter of days afterward to send$50,000 to our partners there to give out water and food.

Um, and uh, I don't know what we'll do next, but I know that we could do that.

And the only reason we could do that is because you are faithful to give and because you have a big heart and you said this is where it should go.

And so incredibly thankful.

So let's pray for them now, okay?

Father in heaven, as we open your time now, uh Lord, our time now in your word, we come before you.

You're the maker of all things, you're the sovereign one, and you know things that we don't know.

You hear the cries that we don't hear, and you have purposes for your permissions that we don't understand.

But we believe that you're good.

We believe that you're right, we believe that you're holy, and we believe that you have a very big heart for people.

In particular, people who are far from you.

And so I pray first for the students who are at camp that you would protect them, provide for them, give endurance also to all of the leaders, all of the counselors, give them wisdom as they interact with one another.

And we pray that you would engage the hearts of students who are at camp.

Pray that you would provide friends who perhaps went without one.

And Father, that you would open up people's eyes and those who don't know you, that they would be saved.

We pray, Father, that Jesus would be big at camp and that people would see his greatness and his glory.

That our students would see his greatness and glory and be changed.

We pray for the people around the world, in particular, or those who are suffering the death of a loved one.

As many are still looking for people, as many who have family members who are still missing.

I pray, Father, that you would draw near, that you would give strength to those who are seeking to rescue, that you would give grace to people who are already grieving, that you would give peace to the hearts of people that they would pass understanding.

And the fact is that we know that many people, many people there do not have that knowledge, that saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

And so our prayer is that through this tragedy, once again, that you would bring people to see that we need somebody, that we need a hero, we need a we need a savior, we need a friend, and one day that Jesus is gonna come back and bring the world to rights.

And I just ask, Father, that as they wait, that you would sustain and heal and protect and help us as a church family to not be forgetful of the pains all around us in this world, to not be so introspective that we fail to see the real needs of people and pour out mercy towards them.

And so thank you for your mercy to us.

As we open up your word now, would you please open up our hearts, give us, give us grace and one more time, Lord.

One more time, would you speak through weakness?

I pray in Christ's name.

Amen.

If you have a Bible, turn with me to Esther, Esther chapter nine.

If you're brand new with us or brand new to the Bible, you need to understand there's lots of rescue stories in the Bible, and Esther is one of those.

There's lots of stories in the Bible, and all of the stories, rescue stories or non-rescue stories, they all point to Jesus Christ.

They all tell one cohesive story about the greatest rescue that we all need.

And this story begins in the beginning with God creating the heavens and the earth, creating us in his image that we could have a relationship with him.

The Bible says that we sinned against God, that we broke fellowship with God.

We experienced brokenness because of that.

But God in his grace, he made a promise.

And the promise was that one day he would send a son, a special son, born of a woman.

And yet this special son would be the savior of the world who would bring us back into a right relationship with God.

He tells us that he would come from the Jewish line.

And therefore, throughout the rest of the Old Testament, what we find is God, in order to protect and fulfill his promise to his people, he keeps protecting and saving these Jewish people to protect the Jewish line.

It's really interesting that most of the time in the Bible, it's very visible, audible, it's dramatic in how he saves his people.

But in the book of Esther, as we've seen, this beautiful rescue story, he does so invisibly, meaning his name is actually never mentioned once in the whole book by name.

And interestingly, instead of it being a very dramatic rescue, what we find is a providential rescue.

And for those of us who have been here over the last seven weeks and have studied the whole book, what you find is that this book, maybe even more than most of the books of the Old Testament, feels more in alignment with our life, how life is lived, where God doesn't speak to us audibly, where we don't see burning bushes, where we're wondering and we're trying to navigate our own life and what's happening and what God is doing as he observes some of the injustice that seems to be all around us, and we think, God, what are you doing?

And Esther is the story that helps us to interpret our own lives as we are able to use the words of God to interpret the story of Esther in this book.

The story is set in what we know of as Iran or Persia.

There's a king, his name is Ahasuerus.

We know him as Xerxes.

And in chapter one and chapter two, we're told that the king deposed his queen Vashti because she refused his order, and that was for her to parade her body in front of a citywide feast of drunken men.

It was an unjust thing.

She had enough courage to say no, but in his anger and shame, he deposed her as queen.

He needed another one, and so he chose another one, and her name was Esther, a young Jewish woman.

But no one knew, including the king, that she was Jewish.

Interestingly, when we get to chapter three, we've already seen a number of ways where injustice, mistreatment, the objectification of people are on full display, and we haven't even got to the villain of the story.

He shows up in chapter three, his name is Haman, and we're introduced to Haman at the very moment that he's being promoted to the second in command of the entire Persian Empire.

His name is Haman.

And Haman had a uh, he had pride in his heart, a whole lot of pride in his heart.

And one thing that was supposed to happen is when people saw Haman, people were supposed to bow, but Mordecai, Esther's cousin, refused to do so.

And so Haman looked at Mordecai and wanted to kill him, but it wouldn't satisfy his heart just to kill him.

He found out that he was a Jewish man, and so he determined in his own heart the only way for him to find rest would be to annihilate the entire Jewish population of the Persian Empire.

And so he goes to the king and he seeks the king's authorization and gets it to send out an edict that 11 months from the day people kill, destroy, and annihilate any Jewish people within the empire.

When we get to chapter 4, Esther is in the palace and she determines that it's her responsibility that she's there for such a time as this, and she needs to mediate for her people.

And so in chapter 5, 6, and 7, she goes to the king at the risk of her life.

She appeals to the king, she exposes Haman's wicked plan.

And in a wild twist, a wild reversal, we're told that Haman was killed on the very gallows that he had built in order to kill Mordecai.

And a tremendous warning to people who abuse people on the earth, and a tremendous comfort to people who have been afflicted by abuse.

A reversal takes place.

The villain dies.

Justice is served.

But his edict had already gone out, and the hatred within his heart had already spread to many people within the empire, and they were all awaiting the thirteenth day of the twelfth month when anyone who hated the Jews could kill one.

So when we get to chapter 8 and chapter 9, Esther goes once again to the king and makes an appeal, and the king authorizes a second edict, a counter-edict.

It was written to the Jews, but it was sent to everybody, saying that if anyone attacks the Jews on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, that the Jews can defend themselves.

Well that day came, and on that day those who hated the Jews fell.

The Jewish line was preserved.

The Savior that we needed who would come from the Jewish line.

The promise was still intact.

And interestingly, the number of times in this book it could end.

If Esther had only been satisfied with her own comfort, it could have ended at chapter 7 with the death of morph of of um with the death of payment.

If it was only about a salvation, it could have ended in chapter 9 and verse 19.

But interestingly, the story doesn't end with a deliverance, it ends with remembrance.

And the reason is because forgotten deliverance erodes our faith.

So look what it says starting in verse 20.

After the people had been saved, and they spontaneously feasted with gladness and generosity.

Verse 20 says, And Mordecai recorded these things and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Asweris, both near and far, obliging them to keep the fourteenth day of the month, Adar, and also the fifteenth day the same, year by year, as the days on which the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month that had been turned for them from sorrow into gladness, and from mourning into a holiday, that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, days of sending gifts of food to one another and gifts to the poor.

So the Jews accepted what they had started to do, and what Mordecai had written to them.

For Haman, the Agagite, the son of Hamadatha, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast pure, that is, cast loss, to crush and to destroy them.

But when it came before the king, he gave orders in writing that his evil plan that he had devised against the Jews should return on his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows.

Therefore they called these days purim, after the term pure.

Therefore, because of all that was written in this letter, and of what they had faced in this matter, and of what had happened to them, the jer the Jews firmly obligated themselves and their offspring and all who joined them, that without fail they would keep these two days according to what was written and at the same time appointed every year, that these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation in every clan, province, and city, and that these days of Purim should never fall into disuse among the Jews, nor should the commemoration of these days cease among their descendants.

Then Queen Esther, the daughter of Abbail, and Mordecai the Jew, gave full written authority, confirming this second letter about Purim.

Letters were sent to all the Jews to the 127 provinces of the kingdom of Asweris in words of peace and truth, that these days of Purim should be observed at their appointed seasons, as Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther obligated them, and as they had obligated themselves and their offspring with regard to their fast and their lamenting.

The command of Queen Esther confirmed these practices of Purim, and it was recorded in writing.

King Asweris imposed tax on the land and on the coastlands of the sea, and all the acts of his power and might in the full account of the high honor of Mordecai to which the king advanced him.

Are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia?

Mordecai the Jew was second in rank to King Ahasuerus.

He was great among the Jews and popular with the multitude of his brothers, for he sought the welfare of his people and spoke peace to all his people.

So as we come to the end of Esther, I want to answer or try to answer with these words.

The question I think it begs, and that is how do we grow?

And in particular, how do we remember so we can grow?

What does God do providentially behind the scenes in order to create within us a remembrance of his faithfulness that allows us and our faith to be fortified?

The first thing I want you to see here is that God providentially moves us to establish rhythms of remembrance.

Rhythms of remembrance.

You notice within this story is that we never find God saying, Thus says the Lord, create a holiday.

Rather, what happens is God is inclining the hearts of people to recognize his faithfulness in their life and their writing and saying, we should do something to remember this.

But it was God who was providentially working in their heart to create and establish those rhythms.

And throughout the Bible, we find that God is very faithful to do this, to call his people to remember, to establish days and holidays, rhythms and even monuments in order to fortify our faith, but also to strike and embolden and create and stir the curiosity of the next generation who weren't around to see his faithfulness in our own life.

And so there's all kinds of feasts within the Bible.

There's the feast of Passover, there's the feast of booze, there's all kinds of times where they're remembering God's faithfulness in future generations or in past generations and for the future.

There's also days like the Sabbath day, where one day out of seven they were to remember God's faithfulness in their life.

There was also monuments.

You remember when the people they left Egypt and they had to go across the Jordan River, God dried it up.

They went on dry ground, but at that riverbed there were rocks.

And God says, I don't want you to forget this.

And so he commanded that somebody in every single tribe pick up one of these great big rocks and stack them up and make a monument, in order that later on that they would be able to see those and have a memory, a marker of God's faithfulness to them.

But it was also such to where at that river there was only one of these.

And so in future generations, they would be there and kids would walk up.

And God says, and one day your children are going to ask you, what it gives with the stones that are stacked up there, to give you an opportunity to be able to speak of the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his faithfulness to you, to people who have not yet seen it.

You see, each one of us is like a bucket with holes, in that we forget what we've all heard, and we also lose our sense of wonder in what we've all seen.

And so God, in his faithfulness and love for us, fills those holes.

And this is what we're told.

It says that he led Mordecai and Esther to send letters to all the Jews near and far, obliging them to set aside two days every single year to commemorate his salvation of their life.

And our passage tells us of some of the ingredients that were to go into this holiday.

It was to be a day or two days where they would remember.

They would remember not only the day they got relief, but the month that their sorrow was turned into gladness.

Not only memory, it was intended to be a time of celebration.

We're told that they were to feast and be glad and send gifts of food to one another and gifts to the poor.

In other words, generosity.

Now, this was what we find in verse 22 in the first letter that was sent out.

But if you notice when we read that Esther used her royal authority to actually authorize this in a second letter, and in verse 31, she adds some ingredients to the celebration.

And she adds fasting and lamenting.

And some of us are like, wait a minute, okay.

Like I get the whole food and gladness and generosity, but how does fasting and lamenting even fit?

Well, first of all, in the story itself, it fits because she chose to fast before she went to the king, asking God for favor in the king's eyes.

But it also fits in our celebrations.

You say, well, how so?

Well, think about it like this.

We celebrate Easter.

We celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

And there are some years and there are some people.

And even though they celebrate Easter, one of the things you find is this is that only those people who truly absorbed Good Friday are able to truly experience the joy of Easter.

Only those who first go into the depths of his sacrifice and his suffering, his death, his blood, and who feel that can actually experience the full joy on Easter.

And the reason is because there is a span of emotion between Good Friday and Easter that once we get to Easter, if we have absorbed the pain of Good Friday like we should, suddenly Easter feels all the better.

And so it is the Jews.

They fast on one day and then they feast on the next day.

And in doing so, the gap between fasting and feeling hungry and feasting and feeling full is all the more.

A third ingredient of this was to worship God.

The feast or the holiday was called purim.

Pure means lots, to cast lots.

And we know this because we're told that Haman, the enemy of the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them and had cast pure, that is, cast lots, to crush and to destroy them.

So if you remember, and this is the third time I've had to say this, I don't really understand how it worked, but it happened in the Old Testament frequently, where people were trying to figure out should I do this or shouldn't I do this?

And so they would go and they would cast lots.

In my mind, I imagine it like dice.

And somehow there was an outcome that they would look at, and there was an interpretation of the outcome that was either a yes or a no.

Well, he determined to kill all the Jews.

So he goes and he has to figure out what day he can do it.

So he casts lots.

How about today?

No.

Tomorrow, no.

Day after tomorrow, no.

Next week, no.

Next month.

And he finally gets, okay, 11 months.

How about this?

13th day, the 12th month.

Rolls them and it says, yes.

You see, that is just so man-centered.

He's controlling everything.

How could this be the avenue to worship God?

Well, because the people who studied the Bible, the Old Testament at the time, they had Proverbs.

And Proverbs chapter 16, verse 33 says that the lot is cast into the lat, but it's every decision is from the Lord.

Proverbs 16:33

In other words, it was God who knew the 13th day, 12th month.

It didn't surprise him.

In other words, this was not only a day to remember, it was not only a day to celebrate feast and to fast.

It was also a day to worship the Lord for his providential protection in their lives.

And friends, I realize that many of us are not Jewish and therefore we don't celebrate Purim.

But one of the things that would be utterly tragic is for us to study this and to fail to see God's faithfulness in our own lives and to find some way to account for them.

And so let me urge us to develop rhythms of to remember God's faithfulness.

Some moments, no doubt, are established for us.

We have things like Christmas, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, birthdays.

They're established.

They're there for us, and they're beautiful days.

And we can practice those days, and that can be a good thing.

But isn't it true that a vast majority of the things that have happened in our life, even over the last year, they're not represented in any of those days?

There's been all kinds of amazing things in your life.

And here's the deal: if you don't establish some way to remember them, they're going to be forgotten.

And this is something that's true.

This is true in every single one of our lives.

And that is that this, we've already forgotten most of what God has done in our life.

And one of the reasons we do so is because we don't establish rhythms to try to remember.

And without those rhythms, and in that forgetfulness, what takes place in so many people's lives is because they didn't establish that and they don't remember, they suddenly get into a season of life where there's all kinds of pain.

And they look around and say, Does God even care?

Is he even near?

Because they've already forgotten all the tangible ways that he's already intercepted his grace and his power in their life.

All of us need a way.

This is our way, the frost family way.

Okay?

We have a box, and this is the box.

And throughout the year, when we pray and God answers prayers, when we see reversals, when we see and experience blessings in our life, we try to put something tangible, something practical, some memento of some event.

It might be a receipt or something like it.

And we put it in the box on Thanksgiving.

We open the box together.

We start pulling stuff out.

Okay, who put this in there?

Now why?

And it gives us an opportunity to recount the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord.

And because my wife is amazing and thought this whole thing up anyway, she made a notebook.

And because the box fills and it needs to be emptied.

And so what she does is in this notebook, every one of the pages is a year, and she writes down everything that was put in there and everything that it represents.

And would you know it this week, just this week, in order to take this picture, I open up this little notebook and I read 2006, 7, and 8.

All the things we put in there and all the blessings.

And you know what's so sad is I forgot a lot of them.

I was reminded afresh.

This isn't the way, but do you have a way?

Do you have a way?

You see, to establish ways to attribute cause to the Lord.

If you don't attribute cause to the blessings in your life to the Lord, it's because you imagine that you're just so awesome that all those blessings are simply wages delivered.

But if you can imagine that it really is grace, the good things in your life.

And if you can establish a way to remember those things, it'll do two things for you.

It'll fortify your faith and it will also stir up the curiosity of the next generation who perhaps was not around to see his faithfulness in your life, and they'll be able to say, now what was that for?

You see, Romans chapter 15, verse 4 tells us that whatever was written in former days, which includes Esther, was written for our instruction, that through the endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope.

Romans 15:4

In other words, don't just read about some old people who thought it'd be really cool to have a feast called Purim.

Do something with it.

Establish a way.

Second is that God providentially inclines us to practice rhythms of remembrance.

And of course, you know this is true.

To establish rhythms to remember that you don't pay attention to, it really does you no good.

If you have a box and you never fill it, if you have a box and you never open it, if you have a box or a card or a journal and you never reread it, I guess it's good, but it's not as good as it could be.

So God not only inclines the heart in order to say, I need to remember this, but also inclines the heart to participate and practice it.

You see, many of the rhythms of our life, much like this cross that's fallen down, it's in disarray, and now it's covered by all kinds of weeds.

This is what happens to our life, the faithfulness of God and all these rhythms, when they're not practiced, what happens is they get overgrown by the busyness of life.

So God says, I want to help you.

And so He what does He do?

He inclines the people to engage.

In verse 23, it says the Jews accepted what they had started to do.

They said, This is a good thing.

And the very generation who erupted with spontaneous worship, now all of a sudden they say, We really should commemorate this.

In fact, it says that they firmly obligated themselves and their offspring and all who joined them that without fail these days should be remembered and kept through every generation.

It's now 2,500 years later, and people still do this.

They still celebrate Pura.

And the reason that that is such an important thing is because it only took one generation saying, No, we're gonna do it, for that generation not to remember.

You see, this is quite a commitment for one generation to say, you know what we're gonna do?

We're gonna do this every single year, and we're gonna do it forever.

But it's a commitment that only one generation can be faithful to.

Every new generation has to practice and participate.

So let me encourage you to practice rhythms to remember God's faithfulness.

You say, well, what would some of those rhythms be?

Celebrate holidays.

Some of you, in particular as parents, are bored with your traditions when it comes to holidays.

Let me encourage you with something.

If you happen to be a parent or the adult, the one person who shouldn't be bored with the traditions is you.

And if you are, try something else because your kids know you're bored.

Celebrate.

Find some way to recount his blessings.

Another way to practice these rhythms, you're doing it right now.

You came to worship and you're being reminded of the faithfulness of God.

In a moment we're gonna take the Lord's Supper and we're gonna be reminded of the faithfulness of God.

When we give to the Lord, we're reminded of his faithfulness to provide for us.

When we share our testimony, even though it's going out to someone else, we're reminded, as we're seeing it, of his faithfulness in our life.

When we speak it to others, when we teach, when we impart a truth that we have to somebody, when we impart it to children, when we impart it to students or adults, what we're doing is we're not only teaching people, we're also remembering his faithfulness in our own life.

And so I encourage you not only to establish rhythms, but also to practice them.

And third and last is that God providentially elevates servants for the good of his people.

I know that this sort of seems a little out of place from the first two.

We're talking about rhythms, and now all of a sudden we're talking about a person.

He elevates a servant for the good of his people.

You see, this story ends obviously in chapter 10, and it really ends in a very interesting way if you look at it.

In verse 1, there's taxes, and in verse 3, there's a man who seeks the welfare of the people.

Now, what's happening here?

Each one of us perhaps have gone through some season of our life where we've experienced some salvation, some deliverance.

But isn't it true that it wasn't enough?

I mean, it was enough for that moment, but now you're in the thick of it again.

Every one of us has within our heart this longing that one day that we're going to experience a final deliverance.

Where everything is turned to the right.

You see it, they have a problem again.

They've been delivered, but now they're overtaxed.

There's God's faithfulness in their life, and yet life is not perfect.

But you also notice the counterpoint that's given to us in verse 3 that there is a man that God raised to seek the welfare of the people.

So you have one person who's very powerful, afflicting, using his heavy hand on the people, but then there's another that God raises up to make that heavy hand lighter.

We're told that this exile named Mordecai, who used to sit outside the king's gate, is now second in command to the king.

He was great among the Jews, popular with the multitude of his brothers, and he sought the welfare of the people and spoke peace to all his people.

It's an amazing thing.

Then the story ends.

But it really doesn't end.

You see, each and every one of us, we go through these salvations, a deliverance, and yet life is not perfect yet.

We need something more.

What you and I all need, we need a true and better Savior, a true and better Esther, a true and better Mordecai, a true and better servant, a true and better mediator, a true and better deliverance.

This story, like every other story, it's a rescue story in the Bible, it points to Jesus Christ, who is the true and the better.

Mordecai won't take long before Mordecai will die because his race was run.

Yet the Bible says in the fullness of time, God Almighty made good on his promise to send us that perfect Son.

Mordecai, we're told sought the welfare of his people.

You see his people?

And yet Jesus came and he sought the welfare of all people.

Both were crowned when all eyes were drawn.

One wore gold and the other thorn.

Mordecai, he escaped Haman's plot to be hung on a tree.

And yet it was Jesus, who had no sin of himself, who allowed himself to be crucified to set us free.

Interestingly, as Jesus hung on the cross, the Jewish leaders they mocked and they said, He trusts in God.

Let God deliver him now.

It may be the most important question you've never thought of.

How could God in his justice not deliver the only righteous man who ever lived?

How could he ever do something good in my life to deliver me?

A sinner?

Someone who has made intentional choices to violate his will?

How could I expect a deliverance?

How could I hope for a deliverance?

And not answer the question: how could God Almighty not deliver his son?

And the answer that the Bible gives to us is in Romans chapter four, and there it says that he was delivered up for our trespasses, and he was raised for our justification.

You see, friends, God is just, and he has determined that the wage of sin is death, and therefore he delivered up his son for our sin, to pay that penalty.

And then on the third day, he rose him from the dead.

The wage of sin is death.

When he rose from the dead, it was proof to the world that he wasn't dying for his own sin, because if he was dying for his own sin, he would stay dead.

He was dying for my sin and for your sin.

To justify us, to give us his righteousness so that we could live and have eternal life, that we could experience a final deliverance after which we wouldn't be burdened by heavy taxes.

That deliverance is coming for people who put their faith in Christ.

You see, because when Jesus rose from the dead, an invitation literally went forth, and this is so important.

If you remember Mordecai, it says that he wrote this letter to Jews near and far.

In Isaiah, we're told of the Christ, that when he comes, he will preach peace to those who are near and those who are far.

Jesus comes and he preaches in Ephesians 2.

What does Paul say?

Jesus came and preached peace to those who are near and those who are far.

Then he went to the cross.

He was buried after he died.

He rose from the dead.

We come to the first Christian sermon in the history of the world in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And what does Peter say after they say, What must we do to be saved?

And he says to those who are near and to those who are far, if you will put your faith in Jesus Christ, acknowledging you have a sin problem that you cannot pay, believing that he did it for you, and confessing him as Lord of your life, you will be forgiven.

And I urge you today, if you haven't done so already, would you put your faith in Christ?

Would you put your faith in Christ?

You see, Mordecai and Esther were definitely the man and the woman of the moment, but Jesus Christ is the King of the ages.

But is he your king?

And I tell you that you will not know rest in your soul until he is.

And for those of us who have put our faith in Christ, just as God gave the people a feast and a way to remember his deliverance, so God has given us the Lord's Supper to remember Jesus' deliverance.

The Bible tells me that if you have never put your faith in Jesus Christ, oh, I urge you to do so.

In a moment, I'm going to give you a time to pray.

And I urge you in that moment, would you please call out to him in faith?

You can be saved today.

You can be forgiven.

But if you are not ready to do that, I urge you not to take it, for to take it is to tell other people that you treasure the realities of Christ's body and blood that are represented in the symbols of the bread and the cup.

He tells those of us who have put our faith in him never to do this unless we first prayed, confessed our sin.

But because we've just finished a book called Esther, and there's a lot of themes within this book, what I want to do is something we don't always do, and that is I want to guide us through a time of confession using themes that we found and studied throughout this book.

So would you bow your head?

And I would encourage you simply to begin to pray to Him, and in particular, for those of you who are here who've never put your faith in Christ, but you've just heard the gospel and you believe, would you take a moment now to confess Christ as your Lord?

To confess your sin to him, to confess that you believe and to confess him as Lord.

And for those of us in the room who already have, would you take this moment and confess your gratitude for the salvation that you enjoy?

Now I want to ask you to simply ask the Lord if there's anything offensive in me and confess any sin that he brings to your attention.

In this story, we read about a king who couldn't see that people were made in the image of God and therefore he mistreated people.

He objectified people.

He hurt people.

Let's look in that mirror and confess any ways that we are mistreating people, objectifying people, hurting people.

Bitterness, unforgiveness, self-promotion.

Any hatred, any unforgiveness, any self-promotion in our own life.

So let's confess any anxiety or fear that lives in our heart for not trusting His providence.

So let's confess any spiritual forgetfulness in our life.

Father in heaven, thank you for your promise to forgive us and cleanse us of our unrighteousness if we will confess it to you.

And we thank you, Jesus, that it is your life and death and resurrection that makes that promise possible.

We pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.