Anyone can have a spiritual high.
It is easy to trust God when the prayer is answered, the relationship is strong, the bills are paid, and the future looks promising. It is easy to worship when you just received good news. It is easy to serve when people notice your effort and thank you for it.
Faithfulness becomes harder when the emotions fade, and life does not improve as quickly as you hoped.
There is a noticeable difference between a spectator and a participant.
Think about your favorite sports team. Thousands of fans fill the stadium every game. They cheer. They celebrate. They complain when a play doesn't go their way. They debate coaching decisions. They wear the jersey. They know the statistics.
But when the game ends, the fans go home.
The players leave exhausted.
There is something about waiting for an important event that changes the way we live before it arrives.
When parents are expecting their first child, they do not wait until the baby is born to begin preparing. They paint the nursery, buy a crib, install a car seat, rearrange schedules, and rethink the family budget. The baby has not arrived yet, but the certainty of what is coming has already begun to reshape their priorities.
That is the picture Paul gives us of the Christian life. Jesus has promised that He will return. We do not know the day or the hour, and we cannot control when it happens. But the certainty of His return should change the way we live right now.
There are moments in life when you know God is calling you forward, but every instinct tells you to stay where you are.
You know you need to forgive.
You know it's time to serve.
You know you should share your faith, lead that ministry, make that phone call, or trust God with the next chapter.
Yet we wait.
Not because we don't believe God is able—but because we're hoping He'll make the path obvious before we take the first step.
God promises that if you obey Him, He will protect and provide for you. This is the truth we see developed for us in Esther 8. But too often, we look for loopholes that only make us partially obey. While they haven’t been perfect, Esther and Mordecai have tried to live in obedience to the Word of God and have been attempting to live in a way that honors God.
Today we enter the second half of our study on The Story of Esther. And today, we will observe a “Plot Twist” in the story of Esther.
We left off last week with Haman becoming offended at Mordecai (again) and doubled down on his plans to destroy him and the Jews, even going so far as to have a large gallow set up to hang Mordecai from. The gallow casts a shadow over us as we walk into chapter 6. Things seem hopeless. We still aren’t seeing God mentioned in the book, but God is still working.
So far, Esther has hosted meal #1 and is getting ready to host a second meal in today's first passage…
One of the things I have enjoyed about preaching this book thus far is that it's much more like storytelling than just straight preaching. Almost as if I get to leave you on a cliffhanger each week so you’ll come back for more. And today will be no exception.
At this point in the story we have met the King, Mordecai, Esther, and now Haman…
