Esther 8:1-17 - Missional Living

You are listening to a message from Southwood Presbyterian Church in Huntsville, Alabama.

Our passion is to experience and express grace. Join us.

Well, good morning. It is good to be with you. Not only have we had a long association awareness of Southwood,

Jean LaRue and I have been in a pastor's group for a long time.

I always told him, I said, you are the most interesting man in the world from the Dos Equis commercial.

And by contrast, I feel like the least interesting man in the world.

We have learned and wept and walked with each other through a lot.

So I'm grateful to be a part here with you this morning.

I asked Will, knowing you're going through the study of Ephesians, if I should just step in right where you left off.

He says, please don't. So he said, maybe it'd be good to do something different.

So we're going to do something really different and step into an Old Testament narrative.

The challenge is going to be we're going to step into the middle of the book.

So if I just had to stand up and read it right now, your brain would be mush by the end of the passage.

So it will help if we kind of approach it like a play and do a scene at a time.

So we'll look at the scripture in the body of the message.

Okay.

We'll be in Esther chapter 8.

Esther 8 · chapter mention

If you want to turn here, turn there, it'll also be on the screen.

Let me pray for us as we come to God's word.

Father, you've been wooing and drawing our hearts through words penned by people weak and wounded by the fall of a hope that takes our breath away.

We've celebrated the sacraments, that mystery of your presence being manifest in an unusual way that we don't even fully understand.

Your scripture tells us that when we gather here, what's happening here, though much is pressing in on us from outside this room,

that it's a picture.

It's the closest that we get to the heavenly courts and the presence of Christ, the fullness of Christ's body,

worshiping in patterns that have been long established that mirror what's happening in heaven.

As we live in this already-not-yet season, would you touch and woo and take our breath away and melt our hearts by your story?

As we step into an ancient story, would we find ourselves there?

Would the dots connect to our lives?

And may we have a sense that you're wooing and calling, whether we've never believed before or have heard this story over and over again.

Oh, Spirit, would you be so present as to exalt Jesus in this story and meet us, we pray.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.

Crazy busy pace.

24-7 connectivity.

Aren't you glad how technology has saved you so much time?

The insecurity, financial and otherwise, in a post-11 world equals overwhelmed.

Culturally, more than any other time that I've been an adult, I just sense, I'm here not just busy, I'm here, I'm completely overwhelmed.

Young families, young moms show up on this door just so glad to be in the doors because life can feel so overwhelming.

The pace just keeps ramping up.

And then you turn on Fox News or MSNBC.

And you discover we live in such a polarized culture, they're so afraid of one another, we can't even hear one another talk.

We're just screaming over one another and missing one another, and there's this huge cultural divide.

And then you think about being the church, where you know a big part of what we're called to be is outward facing, impacting our culture.

And overwhelm in the midst of a culture where we cannot hear one another leaves us feeling guilty and often not knowing where to turn as the people of God.

But what we're going to unfold as we step into this ancient story this morning is how an overwhelmed people of God live missionally in a culture where we can barely hear one another.

How can an already overwhelmed people who are called to live missional lives live missional lives in a culture where we can't hear one another?

Esther chapter 8 will unfold the story in four scenes.

Esther 8 · chapter mention

It's a scene, just to help you remember, of a ring, a plea, a decree, and a party.

A ring, a plea, a decree, and a party.

Here's scene one.

Esther chapter 8 verse 1.

Esther 8:1

On that day, King Ahasuerus 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 signerine for which he had taken from Haman and gave it to Mordecai.

And Esther set Mordecai over the house of Haman.

Now there's a tremendous backstory that's been going on.

Let me help you fill it in if you've heard it before or maybe have not heard it before.

Ahasuerus was king of Persia about 450 years before Jesus came to earth.

It's in present-day Iraq, Iran.

It was kind of his area, massive territory.

And he was the king on the block.

With incredible wealth, they had captured from all the nations.

And he decides to throw an incredible, world's most raucous fraternity party for six months.

And they don't go to class.

I know some of you went to school like that too, but probably not so much in Huntsville.

They partied for six months.

At the end of the six months, during the last week, he says,

let's let everybody in on this party because he was just kind of throwing a party

for his inner circle buddies who extended his role around his empire.

But they have a party for the whole people.

And he gets this great idea as he and everyone else is completely sloshed.

Let's have my, according to Ricky Bobby, smoking hot wife Vashti come and perform for us.

I mean, every girl's dream, right?

To come before a room full of drunken men and dance.

Queen Vashti says, I'm not coming.

I've got my own party with my own girls.

We're staying here.

See, you didn't tell kings no back then.

Telling a king no meant you're gone.

And that's what happened with Vashti.

She was smoking hot, but she was no more.

The king, to fill her place, decides, you know what we're going to do?

The first episode of The Bachelor.

We're going to invite the most beautiful women from all over my empire to come and try out to be my wife.

In the midst of these women from all over the empire coming like in all bachelor-like, you know, craziness,

to try out to be the queen.

There is one who is discovered.

She's a little bit undercover, but she is stunning.

Her name is Esther.

She's orphaned.

This is a time where the Israelites had come back to the land,

but she is still a part of a small minority who live abroad,

having been taken in the Babylonian empire.

She's being raised by an uncle who we saw about.

Her uncle is Mordecai.

Mordecai had great respect as a servant of the king,

but he instructed Esther to keep it quiet that they were Jews.

But Esther's beauty was such that she could not be ignored,

and she was invited into the contest,

and she replaces Vashti as this beautiful queen of King Ahasuerus.

Meanwhile, there's a prime minister that gets appointed.

His name is Haman.

Haman loved his power, and it was driven by pride,

and the king issued an edict at his request

that wherever he would go, people would have to bow.

Mordecai was a servant in the king's court,

and he was at the city gate one day when Haman walks by,

and he doesn't bow, and Haman could not get over it.

As his wealth and his stature and his power grew,

he still couldn't deal with the fact that Mordecai would not bow.

So he came up with a plot.

He came up with a plea that became an edict of the king

because he had discovered that Mordecai was a Jew.

And the edict with the king's signet ring that went out across the empire was this.

Every Jewish man, woman, and child were to be killed because they were a threat to the empire.

Mordecai hears about the plot and comes out dressed in sackcloth and public weeping,

and then he goes privately to Esther, who the king still does not know is a Jew.

And he says,

It is for such a time as this that God has appointed for you to go before the king.

Esther protested because she had kind of kept undercover Christian or undercover Jew working up till this point,

but also culturally working against her was for you could not request to come to the king's presence.

The king had to request you.

The only exception was if a golden scepter was extended,

then your life would not be taken.

Otherwise, it would.

She risks and she goes.

Meanwhile, Haman is thinking of all the glory he's going to receive because one night,

King Ahasuerus falls asleep and can't stay asleep,

wakes up and reads his chronicles where he discovers that Mordecai, his servant,

had exposed an assassination attempt against him and saved his life,

but Mordecai was never awarded.

Meanwhile, King Ahasuerus is planning to award him.

Haman is not knowing it.

Haman has a way to take the life by building a gallows to take Mordecai's life.

But at the second feast, when Esther comes clean on her identity as a Jew,

the edict that Haman has proclaimed,

his participation in a plot that would erase her people,

he's exposed.

And the very gallows upon which Mordecai was to die,

Haman is executed.

And so what we find here as we open up the storyline in this first scene in chapter 8,

is Mordecai becomes prime minister.

It's marked by receiving a signet ring.

Two Jews oppressed in the land with a signet ring,

a position of influence to do redemptive things in the kingdom for their people.

Scene 1.

Scene 2.

Let's look at the passage, the plea.

It's a ring, a plea, verse 3.

Then Esther spoke again to the king.

She fell at his feet and wept,

and pleaded with him to avert the evil plan,

Haman the Agagite.

That's easy for you to say.

The Agagite.

And the plot that he had devised against the Jews.

Here's what's interesting.

Agagite also means Amalekite.

Now if you, like, paid attention in Sunday school growing up,

you may have a little distant memory of Amalekites.

When Israel was going in the wilderness to enter the land,

they opposed Israel so dramatically that God had to show up through Moses holding his hands up.

And when King Saul came into power,

he was commissioned to completely, completely annihilate the Amalekites.

But you remember what happens?

It's where God's favor falls from him.

God's favor falls because he did not completely wipe out the Amalekites.

And here we have Mordecai, a Jew, a descendant of Saul,

facing an Amalekite in a foreign land again.

Interesting thing, Herod, who was in charge when Jesus was born,

was an Amalekite as well.

This ongoing conflict.

Look at verse 4.

When the king held out the golden scepter to Esther,

okay, she's going to be alive,

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 him,

and I'm pleasing in his eyes,

boy, she's building a case, isn't she,

let an order be written to revoke or reverse the letters devised by Haman the Agagite,

the son of Hamadathah,

which he wrote to destroy the Jews who are 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?

Then King Ahasuerus 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.

He's actually saying two things.

I can't make Haman's edict go away.

But if you can figure out a way, Mordecai and Esther,

to preserve the lives of the people in light of that edict going out,

I will let you take my signet green.

And in her plea for her people,

because of the great effect of the curse,

living in a fallen world,

perpetrated by a fallen man, Haman,

she intervenes with a plea,

a need that moves her to tears at the feet of the king,

to intercede not just on her welfare,

but on behalf of the welfare of the entire people.

In response to her plea,

King Ahasuerus gives an okay for an alternate decree to be made.

In scene three, we see that decree.

Verse nine.

The king's scribes were summoned at that time in the third month,

which is the month of Sivan, on the 23rd day.

And an edict was written according to all that Mordecai commanded concerning the Jews.

So the satraps and the governors and the officials of the provinces from India to Ethiopia,

that's a stretch,

127 provinces to each province in its own script.

Can you imagine the translation work?

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 Ahasuerus and sealed it with the king's signet ring.

Then he sent letters by mounted couriers,

riding on swift horses that were used in the king's service,

bred from the royal stud.

I like that.

Saying that the king allowed the Jews who were in every city to gather and defend their lives,

to destroy, kill, and to annihilate.

That's in Esther chapter three.

That's a reversal of the command.

Israel, Jews were supposed to be destroyed, killed, annihilated.

And that they could do that against 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 Ahasuerus,

on the 13th day of the 12th month,

which is the month of Adair,

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 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 and hurriedly, urged by the king's command,

and the decree was issued in Susa, the citadel or the capital.

You see what happened?

Esther and Mordecai penned a decree that would give Jews the right to defend themselves,

to thwart the decree that was made by Haman.

What are they doing?

They're reversing the curse.

The curse that had been pronounced upon the Jews,

that intersected their lives in a very profound, real way,

not just for them, but for all their kindred spread throughout the kingdom of Ahasuerus.

They reversed the curse.

So that instead of a decree of death,

the Jews, the people of God, could experience a decree that would bring life.

It's a ring.

It's a plea.

It's a decree that turns into the foreseen a party.

Look at verses 15 through 17.

Then Mordecai went out from the presence of the king in royal robes of blue and white,

with a golden crown and a robe of fine linen and purple.

The city of Susa shouted and rejoiced.

This is how Haman thought he was going to dress.

And now we find Mordecai as the curse has been reversed in his place.

Verse 16,

The Jews had light and gladness and joy and honor.

They're restored from shame, restored from the curse.

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 get this,

And many from the peoples of the country declared themselves Jews they wanted in the party,

for fear of the Jews had fallen all on them.

You see the wonder of a story,

of a ring for such a time as this,

a plea that met the woundedness,

the fears,

and yet the hope for a reversal by a decree

that turned into a party for the whole country

to celebrate a reversal of the curse

so everyone else wanted in.

You see the beauty of this story in those four scenes

is it really helps us understand the whole gospel storyline

that's woven throughout the pages of scripture.

The ring corresponds to the story of creation

where we're made to flourish and exercise benevolent rule

that brings flourishing and shalom and wholeness to all of earth.

But the fall means we're all broken and wounded.

Despite having the image of glory in us,

we limp big time

because of the effects of the curse in our world.

The biblical story goes on from the fall though

as you open the pages of the New Testament to redemption.

of one who came to issue an edict and a decree

that would make all things new

and the good news of the gospel.

And one day there will be a party

like no other party before

when every tear will be wiped away from our eyes

and everything is made new.

Heaven comes down

and everything that's sad becomes untrue.

Esther's story was the gospel story.

Mordecai's involvement with Esther

in reversing the curse

pictures the gospel storyline.

And it pictures the storyline

of each of our lives as well.

Connect to that feeling of overwhelm.

Connect to that sense of awareness

if you're a part of Christ's church

and probably even if you're not a part of church,

you know the church is called to mission.

What does missional living mean

for an overwhelmed people

in a culture where we can't even hear one another?

Based on this story,

I would suggest missional living is this.

Missional living

is reversing the curse

right where you feel the need for it most.

Missional living is reversing the curse

right where you feel the need for it most.

Now because the church I'm at

at Oak Mountain Prez

and this church really treasure

the gospel,

we probably share some similarities.

Here's what we're finding out at Oak Mountain

that you may have experienced as well.

Coming to Oak Mountain for many people

has offered and I've just been there a year and a half

so I have like zilch contribution to this hardly at all.

It's just the faithfulness of the free gospel

being preached powerfully.

Most people have found in the church

a fresh drink of the gospel

that makes their souls say yes

after having been beat up and bruised

by the legalistic church for a long time.

Then we've also experienced real safe community

where you don't really have to pretend

and can come clean about the struggles in your life.

I mean, a fresh drink of the gospel,

a safe community where I can come clean

and hope in the gospel

and we're like, home run.

We're done.

We're here.

Ah, yes.

It's kind of like we've hit a triple

and hitting a triple is really exciting.

The whole crowd cheers.

You dust yourself off,

but you still got to get home.

The richness of the gospel that we experience

between us and Christ

and in community with one another

is the same power

that needs to bubble over in our lives

with the needs that we experience

right alongside real and normal people

with whom we do life.

Missional living

is where you feel the weight of the curse the most

and you begin dreaming

and moving to reverse it.

If you've read Jeremiah 29 before,

it talks about the commission

to the people of God

prior to the story of Esther

when the people were in captivity

and Jeremiah's in Jerusalem

and riding back.

I won't turn there for the sake of time,

but he says,

hey, people are saying

you're about out of here,

so don't invest in the city.

He's saying you're going to be there for 70 years.

You are exiles,

but here's how I want you to function.

Get jobs.

Build homes.

Cultivate gardens.

Have children.

Give away children.

And in the midst of just the normal stuff in life

that you're already doing,

seek the welfare,

the Hebrew word actually,

seek the shalom,

the fullness,

the wholeness,

the peace,

the world as it should ought to be.

Seek the welfare

or the shalom of the city

and you know what the promise is next?

And in it,

you will find

your welfare,

your shalom.

For a people

who have experienced

a fresh drink of the gospel

in a way that's transforming your lives

and the contents of your friendships

and families,

that good news

in the midst of your brokenness

is extended to those

outside the walls of this church

in breathtaking ways,

but in the normal stuff of life.

Thursday night,

I got together with a group

of college students

from our church

and we watched way, way back.

It's really weird

anytime Steve Carell

is in a serious movie.

the first line,

the first scene

slayed me.

Steve Carell's character,

I think he's Trent,

is dating

a woman

who has two kids.

I don't know

where they found

an old station wagon,

but do you remember

old station wagons?

If you saw the movie,

there's a back seat

that faces back

and there's a little boy

named Duncan

who's about 13,

as awkward

as he can possibly be,

shoulders slumped over,

who's just trying

to look out

to get away

from what else

is happening in the car.

He wants nothing of it.

Trent refuses

to let him be disengaged

and so he begins

conversation like this,

Duncan,

what are you?

On a scale of one to ten,

what are you?

Duncan,

like most adolescent boys,

says,

I don't know.

He doesn't want to answer,

comes up with a grunt.

Trent keeps pressing,

no, what are you?

Like ten being really good,

one being nothing,

what are you

on a scale of one to ten?

Duncan finally relents

and says,

I don't know,

like six or a seven?

Trent goes,

no,

no,

you're not a six

or a seven,

that's way too high.

You're a three.

That's what you are.

You're a three.

I'm undone.

I know the feeling of shame

so powerful

where people treat you

as if you're a three.

It's like I may as well

have been in the back seat

with Duncan.

As the storyline goes on,

he finds his way

to a water park,

which is run by a guy

who probably did not win,

most likely to succeed

in high school.

His name is Owen.

Owen leads a group

of people

who are like an island

of misfit toys

at this little water park.

But every life

that Owen touches,

even in their awkwardness

where the world

would bring shame,

you know what Owen does?

he lifts their heads.

He treats them

as the image bearers

that they are.

His own story

filled with shame,

but wherever Owen goes,

he lifts people's heads

from the shame.

That's what the people

of God are called to do.

In a world

that feels like a three,

we lift their heads

to see the beauty

and wonder

of being created

in the image of God.

Here's what I've found

within the evangelical church

is we're really strong

on two of the four movements

of the gospel storyline.

We're big on sin

and the reality of that,

sometimes in really healthy ways,

sometimes in very judgmental ways,

and we're really big

on redemption as well.

But you know what we forget

in relating to people?

We forget stage one,

scene one, creation.

That everyone,

whether they name the name

of Jesus or not,

are image bearers,

but who are also fallen,

living with this deep-seated unease

of I'm not okay

with who I am.

The people of God

in every age

and every sphere

are people who bear the image

and treat people to the image

so that we are people

who call out the glory

and the wonder

of how one another

are made

in the midst of the world

that just presses

their shame,

calling you a three.

A people on mission

lift the heads

right in the normal stuff of life

from the place of shame

to a place of honor

and glory

so that that curse

is reversed.

There's a sociologist

from UVA,

Charlottesville,

who's really a fascinating man.

I've had a chance

to interact with him.

His name is James Davison Hunter.

He came out,

he's a follower of Christ,

he came out

of the evangelical movement,

but grew disappointed

in his development

at two main projects

of the evangelical church

in the past 30 years.

One was,

we're going to change the world

through sharing the gospel

with individuals,

and eventually

the grassroots of that

will just bubble up

and change our culture.

The other project

at work in evangelicalism

was the Christian right,

which had a political agenda

and created a huge culture war

that created and helped fuel

an MSNBC, Fox News

kind of culture today.

I might make you mad,

he said it,

offers research,

you get the book,

you read it,

weigh his arguments.

He's saying,

neither are ways,

neither are ways

to change the world

and change our culture.

Now he's not saying,

not arguing against evangelism,

okay?

He's not arguing against

some of the values

that the religious right

have advanced.

He's just saying

those approaches

on their own

will not reverse the curse.

Instead he argues,

what would?

which he terms

faithful presence

in key places

that God has called us

for such a time as this.

Faithful presence,

just in the normal arenas

in life

and platforms

that God has entrusted to you,

where you're CEO

of a company

or you're wiping bottoms

at home.

whatever the place,

faithful presence

over time

for such a time

as this

to reverse

the curse

wherever we are.

As I've been trying

to help people

flesh out

what this looks like,

I've thought of it

in three phases.

Normally,

if you think about

moving out,

you think of the third phase

of where you have to

announce good news.

Who,

if you're a church person,

has heard before

that you should

announce the good news

to others?

You heard that?

Who here feels

really guilty

for how little you do it?

And it's because

we think we've got

to start right here.

A great way

to think

in light of the story

in which we're

stepping into

in the gospel storyline

is to remember

the creation story

and to live

for the flourishing

of shalom

right where you are,

where you seek

the common good.

My experience

has been

that when I seek

the common good,

locked arms

with people in the city,

that because they have

the image of God

within them,

they're aspiring

for the same kind

of things

that we would want

to see when all things

are renewed.

And oftentimes,

the church

has not been

in the game,

but linking arms

where we're seeking

right where we are

the common good

creates an incredible

dynamic for establishing

common ground.

I had a friend

who I was on the

North Chattanooga

Chamber of Commerce

with who had

kind of one of the

wildest reputations

in town,

even in his mid-50s,

he was a handsome

looking guy,

and he went for it

big time in the city.

In the midst

of me just participating

and dreaming big dreams

for North Chattanooga,

we began to have

heart dialogue

that we could never

have had

if I had started

over here.

In fact,

he wanted to change

the motto

of the North Chattanooga

Chamber of Commerce

from where you live,

work, and play

to where you live,

work, play, and pray.

I said,

I'm not asking for that.

But his heart

was moving.

We were finding

common ground

as we began

to dream

for reversing

the curse

kinds of things

that he knew

his heart longed for

because he was

an image bearer.

And when we're

able to connect

and pursue

people's hearts

in common ground,

then we can unfold

the good news.

In every sphere

of life,

vocation,

neighborhood,

recreation,

just social

kind of things,

the gospel storyline

infuses it

with meaning.

I've been working

with a group

of lawyers

and trying to say,

okay,

what's the worldview

at work

within the

lawyering profession

right now?

Here was essentially

what it was.

Win at all costs,

now,

and build the most hours

was the worldview

in which many

who practice law

function.

I said,

how does that compare

to the gospel storyline?

I said this,

do you know

you're made to win?

Like to flourish

as a lawyer

in your vocation

pleases God?

It's the,

when I run,

I feel his pleasure

of your vocation.

It's great

to want to flourish

for the power

of justice,

for the welfare

of your clients,

for the welfare

of your family.

It's wonderful

to think of flourishing.

But the at all cost part,

that's fall.

Like the at all cost

really says,

justice is not

our ultimate goal.

The bottom line is.

And then build

the most hours now

essentially says this,

you're your own redeemer.

Go for it.

And the now says

there is no future.

So go for it now.

You know what

the gospel storyline

for law would be?

It's simply this,

we're made to flourish

with justice.

You know why

they're lawyer jokes?

Because everyone

deep down knows

that we were made

for justice.

You're traffic,

as a lawyer,

you're trafficking

in a commodity

of justice.

You're made

for it to flourish.

But you're redemptive.

You're not

when at all cost.

What you're trying

to do

is picture for people

justice

that's just

breathtaking

because it honors

both parties

as image bearers.

And you're picturing

what full justice

one day will be

when Jesus' reign

is fully established.

You see,

in our vocations,

in our neighborhoods,

we're to think

of the gospel storyline

to see how

our spheres of influence

are infused

with vibrant color

and rich content

that reverses

the curse

to take people's

breath away

with what they know

that they were made for.

When you get

from seeking

the common good

to establishing

the common ground,

what I'm trying to do

as I'm pursuing

people's hearts,

I'm trying to do

gospel storyline

in their lives

of what they were made for,

how they're weak

and wounded

by the fall,

what redemption

would look like

if Jesus

were to come vibrant

in that area

of their woundedness,

and what might

they look like

one day

fully redeemed

and glorified.

And then I share

my story

of how God

made me

of how I'm

weak and wounded

with shame

by the fall,

but how Christ

is redeeming,

and one day

those tears

and that shame

will be completely gone,

and then I can

unfold God's story

of creation,

fall,

redemption,

and the restoration

of all things.

Missional living

is seeking

to reverse

the curse

right where you feel

it the most.

Think about

Jesus'

embodiment

of the truth

of this passage.

Look at Colossians 2,

13-15.

When you were dead

in your transgressions

and the uncircumcision

of your flesh,

he made you alive

together with him,

having forgiven us

all our transgressions,

having canceled out

the certificate of debt,

that decree,

consisting of decrees

against us,

which was hostile

to us,

and he has taken it

out of the way,

having nailed it

to the cross.

When he had disarmed

the rulers

and authorities,

he made a public

display of them,

having triumphed

over them

through him.

What a beautiful summary

of a picture

of the ultimate

fulfillment

of the Esther story.

You have,

in essence,

an overwhelmed,

weeping,

and pleading son,

who gave his very life

to reverse the curse

so that you and I

might be invited

to the party.

What do you think

with me as we think

about the richness

of Christ

embodying this,

of what this might

mean for us?

What's the ring,

the station,

and life

that God has given you?

right where you are,

not signing up

for one more thing

in an already

overstuffed life.

What's the stamp

of glory

and the position

in life he's given you

in which you're called

to bring about

shalom

in the place

of shame?

What's the ring?

What's the place?

What's the place

of honor and position

that God

is burdening

your heart

with the most?

Second,

what's your plea?

How is the shame

of the fall

pressing in?

Like if you're

in survival

young mom mode,

it just might mean

you think you're

going to go crazy

if you don't have

a play group.

That would count.

The weak and woundedness

of the fall

and the station

in life you're in.

Maybe there's

an injustice

at work.

Maybe there's a need

in your neighborhood.

Maybe there's lack

of community

in your neighborhood

or in your kid's school.

What is a need

that would give you

great joy

to move towards it?

You know what

Frederick Buechner

called call?

It's where your

greatest joy

and culture's

greatest need

meet.

I think you could

also say it.

Call is where

your greatest wounds

and culture's

your sphere

of influence

greatest need

kiss.

It's not different

than that.

It's right

in that place.

And then

what's the decree?

How can the decree

of God's good news,

the decree

of the gospel,

go at work

in that particular

sphere of influence

that you're in

to reverse the curse?

What needs

reversing?

What if

if I approached

it

and brought

life,

would put

defenses

down

so that we

could hear

one another

and take

someone else's

breath away

as that need

was met,

both in my life

and those

I'm trying

to serve?

And then finally,

have a party.

Invite others

in to the beauty

and the wonder

of reversing

the curse

because when we

move to reverse

the curse,

right where we feel

it the most,

others want

to enter in.

Missional living

is reversing

the curse

where you feel

life's

hardness

pressing

most in.

Let me pray

that this story

would become

true of us as well.

Would you join me?

Spirit of God,

at the beginning,

I ask that you

would connect the dots.

Would you?

Would you move

the story?

Would you move

the conceptual

things that I

argued for?

Not just to

stay there,

but would you

cause them

to intersect

where we live?

Would you help us

see just the

relational spheres

in which we're

already engaged

and yet we're

experiencing

great need?

Would you give us

ridiculous

spirit-led

creativity

to move

towards those

simple needs

in ways that

reverse the curse

and take the

breath away

of us as we

do it

and those

to whom we

do it

so that many

others

can be

invited

to the party

where they

can know

the restoration

that's only

found in the

gospel story?

Would you

continue to

grow and

nurture

Southwood

Prez

to be a

people who

do life

missionally?

Not just

absorbed in

themselves,

but on the

move.

Not just

overwhelmed,

but diving

into the

midst of the

things that

overwhelm

others too,

so that gospel

hope might

dawn and

shalom might

be known in

Huntsville.

We pray this

in Jesus,

King Jesus'

powerful name.

Amen.

For more

information,

visit us

online at

southwood.org.