“God calls everybody for His work in the world.”
Sermon Title: LIVING THE CALL
Scripture Text: ESTHER 3 – 4
Sermon Series: ESTHER: GOD BEHIND THE SEEN
Sermon Notes:
ESTHER 4:13-17 NIV
12 When Esther's words were reported to Mordecai,
13 he sent back this answer: “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape.
14 For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?”
15 Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai:
16 “Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”
17 So Mordecai went away and carried out all of Esther’s instructions.
“The great paradox of Esther is that God is omnipotently present even where God is most conspicuously absent.”
KAREN J. JOBES
ESTHER 3:7 NIV
7 In the twelfth year of King Xerxes, in the first month, the month of Nisan, they cast the pur (that is, the lot) in the presence of Haman to select a day and month. And the lot fell on the twelfth month, the month of Adar.
ESTHER 3:13 NIV
13 Dispatches were sent by couriers to all the king’s provinces with the order to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews--young and old, women and little children--on a single day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods.
ESTHER 4:7-8 NIV
7 Mordecai told him everything that had happened to him, including the exact amount of money Haman had promised to pay into the royal treasury for the destruction of the Jews.
8 He also gave him a copy of the text of the edict for their annihilation, which had been published in Susa, to show to Esther and explain it to her, and he told him to urge her to go into the king’s presence to beg for mercy and plead with him for her people.
I. HEAR THE CALL
“God calls everybody for His work in the world.”
“I am only one,
Edward Everett Hale
But still I am one.
I cannot do everything;
But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”
2 CHRONICLES 16:9a NIV
9 For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.
JEREMIAH 5:1 NIV
1 Go up and down the streets of Jerusalem, look around and consider, search through her squares. If you can find but one person who deals honestly and seeks the truth, I will forgive this city.
EZEKIEL 22:30 NIV
30 I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none.
ESTHER 3:15 NIV
15 Spurred on by the king’s command, the couriers went out, and the edict was issued in the citadel of Susa. The king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Susa was bewildered.
ESTHER 4:3 NIV
3 In every province to which the edict and order of the king came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing. Many lay in sackcloth and ashes.
II. SEE THE HAND BEHIND THE CALL
ESTHER 4:10-11 NIV
10 Then she instructed him to say to Mordecai,
11 “All the king’s officials and the people of the royal provinces know that for any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned the king has but one law: that he be put to death. The only exception to this is for the king to extend the gold scepter to him and spare his life. But thirty days have passed since I was called to go to the king.”
ESTHER 4:12-14 NIV
12 When Esther’s words were reported to Mordecai,
13 he sent back this answer: “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape.
14 For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?”
ESTHER 4:14 NIV
14 For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?”
“We all work with talents that we did not earn but was given to us. And we went through doors of opportunities that we did not produce but were opened for us by God.”
DEUTERONOMY 8:18a NIV
18 But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth…
1 CORINTHIANS 4:7 NIV
7 For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?
III. HEED THE CALL
ESTHER 4:15-16 NIV
15 Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: 16 “Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”
“If there’s one thing we must remember with (the story of) Esther, it’s that we still have to make the choice to live the call.”
- HEAR the call.
- See the HAND behind the call.
- HEED the call.
PROVERBS 16:33 NLT
33 We may throw the dice, but the LORD determines how they fall.