Esther 4:15-5

Alright, good evening everyone, it’s good to see everyone here, another evening, another chance to worship together, to hear from the word together, what a blessing in all of our lives. I seldom give a lot of shoutouts to my own family, but I have to give Justina a shoutout, a small one. I had to wrestle extra hard with the text this time, and she really held on to the fort. Every time I’d turn around in my office, in our office, I’d see Harper’s face smushed on against the window, against the glass, saying, hold me, hold me, and I couldn’t get up, and so she had to really hold it down with the two of them, so thank you for helping me get through the preparation for this. If you know me, you know why this next slide is here.

If you’ve known me for any length of time, John MacArthur, who passed away I think this month or last, was a huge influence in my life. This is a picture I took of a picture in 2019 when we went to a conference with several of us actually were there, where I got a chance to fulfill something very big on my bucket list, which was to see him, and I tried to see him in person, but his security details swiftly took him away, and so I couldn’t actually see him, except just a little dot on the stage, but I did see a projection of him, which sort of counts. John MacArthur was a big influence of mine growing up. The story of a lot of us growing up in our churches is that word, strong word is a little hard to come by sometimes, especially when there’s no message in English, and so you’re kind of getting scraps and bits and pieces growing up in the Malayali Pentecostal Church setting, Sunday school sometimes can fill that gap, but not always. And so starting around high school, I discovered John MacArthur’s app, which was just a bunch of sermons.

It was actually like two or three thousand sermons that he compiled over the course of his 40 or 50 year teaching career, pastoral ministry, and I learned a lot about what I know, and eventually leading into a few years in seminary from this guy, and so I owe him a lot, and one of the messages that he gave, I still remember hearing this, I don’t remember all of them distinctly, but I do remember this one, 10, 12 years ago, listening to a message on providence, and up until that point, my understanding of providence was nothing. In fact, I didn’t know what it meant at all, other than it just sounded like a cool word, it was a city in Rhode Island, but I didn’t really know what providence actually meant, and so for an hour, he’s expounding on what providence means, and Esther, the book of Esther just screams the word providence, right, and what providence means for us, what providence meant for the Israelites, for the exiles in Persia, from the very first word to the end, providence is the core of the book of Esther. And so we’re gonna spend a lot of time in the few minutes that I’ve left, but first, I’m gonna start with reading our passage for the night, from Esther 4:15-17, and then we’ll read the next eight verses of 5:1-8. Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai, go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, 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. So Mordecai went away and carried out all of Esther’s instructions. Chapter five, on the third day, Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the palace, in front of the king’s hall. The king was sitting on his royal throne in the hall, facing the entrance. When he saw Queen Esther standing in the court, he was pleased with her and held out to her the gold scepter that was in his hand.

So Esther approached and touched the tip of the scepter. Then the king asked, what is it, Queen Esther, what is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be given to you. If it pleases the king, replied Esther, let the king, together with Haman, come today to a banquet I have prepared for him. Bring Haman at once, the king said, so that we may do what Esther asks.

So the king and Haman went to the banquet Esther had prepared. As they were drinking wine, the king again asked Esther, now what is your petition? It will be given to you. And what is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be granted.

Esther replied, my petition and my request is this. If the king regards me with favor and if it pleases the king to grant my petition and fulfill my request, let the king and Haman come tomorrow to the banquet, I will prepare for them. Then I will answer the king’s question. So we are overly familiar, right, with the book of Esther. It’s been well produced by movie studios and Superbook, and I’ve seen every variant of Esther that you can on the screen.

There’s a lot of romanticization. There’s a lot of idealization of Esther going through this beauty pageant and becoming queen. The whole orphan to queen story seems to be very idealized in the depictions that we see and hear sometimes about the book of Esther. But if you take Esther at a very high level, if you look at the plight of the people in the story, it’s actually a really, really sad story. You start with this orphan.

She’s being taken care of by her cousin. They’re Israelites. They’re Jewish people. They’re not supposed to be in the kingdom of Persia. They’re supposed to be in their own country, in the nation of Israel.

But year by year, decade by decade, Israel, the northern kingdoms, the southern kingdoms have been picked off one by one. The Syrians come and take out the northern kingdoms. Those tribes are lost forever. The Babylonians, they come and they pick off the best in waves. The Babylonians come, they pick off the best of the southern kingdom, Israel, and here we are in this very pitiful state where God’s chosen people, the people of God who are supposed to worship in Jerusalem, whose home, whose promised land of Israel is no longer theirs, are now stuck in exile in the land of the Persians.

Not only that, they’re subject to this king who’s kind of crazy. He wants to parade his previous queen all around. She says no. He gets really angry, and he’s probably really drunk at the same time, and he starts this beauty pageant. It’s basically a harem where he gets a bunch of women.

He tries them all out and tries to see which one is best. This is not what the children of Israel should be subject to. They shouldn’t be subject to a vicious, villainous, murderous, drunk king. They shouldn’t be in a land that’s not their own. Esther shouldn’t be.

Esther should have a family. She should have kids. She should be in Israel. Mordecai should be with his family. They should be in Israel.

They should be worshiping in the temple. They should be reading from the law. This is not God’s plan for these people except something that happened. You have a lot of this has been covered, but Haman at one point offers up to 10,000 talents of silver for the annihilation of the Jewish people. That’s a quarter of a billion dollars in today’s money worth of money to eradicate an entire race of people, and the king is like, no, you keep your money.

I’ll just sign off on it. It’s no big deal to him. The God’s people, he’s willing at a bow of an eye just to completely eliminate from the face of the planet. There’s no temple. There’s no homeland.

What we see in Ezra, and again, there’s a lot of parallels, Ezra to Nehemiah, Esther’s nestled in between Ezra and Nehemiah. You see rounds of people going back to Jerusalem eventually, but not nearly enough the people that went into the Babylonian and Persian kingdoms. It’s a sad state of affairs if you really think about the book of Esther from start to finish, and yet God is moving. Why are we here? And this is where Deuteronomy comes in.

So if you want to turn there, Deuteronomy chapter 30. We’re going back a thousand years. Moses makes an offer to the people through God, of course, Moses makes an offer to the people. C, this is 30:15, C, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. This is the offer that he’s making the people before he dies and hands the reins over to Joshua.

For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments, decrees and laws. But if, going to 30:17, but if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing, the Jordan to enter and possess. And we see, if you ever want to be really scared going to sleep at night, or if you want, instead of watching a scary movie, to be really, really scared, just read Deuteronomy chapter 28. I can’t read all of it, but I’ll read some highlights of the state that the people of Israel are in now in the land of Persia.

Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, and they will wear, and you will wear your eyes out watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand. A people that do not know, that you do not know will eat what your land and labor produce. 28:36, the Lord will drive you out, and the king you sent over you to a nation unknown to you, to your fathers. There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone. You will become a thing of horror and an object of scorn, and ridiculed to all the nations where the Lord will drive you.

This is why we’re where we are. Go back a thousand years, there was an offer, it was not met, it was not fulfilled by the people of Israel, and God destroyed the nation. And thankfully, there’s a chapter 28 of Deuteronomy where there’s a promise, sorry, chapter 30. When all these blessings and curses I’ve said before, you come to you, and you take them to heart, and wherever the Lord your God disperses you among the nations, and when you and your children return to the Lord your God, and obey him with all your heart, with all your soul, according to everything I command you today, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes. Again, this is what’s promised still a thousand years ago.

God foretells the destruction of Israel, their disobedience, but then he also foretells their restoration. The fact that they’ll one day come back again, the Lord will restore them, he’ll have compassion on them, that the nations that they were scattered to, they’ll come back from. So there’s this hope that’s foretold even a thousand years ago. Now go forward to the book of Jeremiah, a verse that we very often quote, sometimes for selfish purposes, I would say, is this, for I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. This is not technically meant for our personal lives, right, our tests, and the programs we want to get into, and finding a spouse, and our houses, and our things.

Technically that’s not really what this verse is meant for. This is actually for the exiles of the time, that God will restore you, that God still has, despite everything that you’ve gone through, and everything that you’ve wrought on yourself, God still has good plans for you, that there’s still hope, and there’s still a future for you. And that if you call on me, and come and pray to me, I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. And so coming back to our text in Esther chapter four, and this goes back to what Becca talked about last time, Mordecai possibly recalling these words from the book of Deuteronomy a thousand years ago, possibly referring to the promises that have made in Deuteronomy, in Jeremiah, possibly from word of mouth this has been passed on, there’s still a hope, there’s still a future.

And so this is why he can confidently say in Esther 4:14 to Esther, if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place. He says it confidently, as if no matter what, Esther, you can take that leap of faith, you can go to the king, you can take that courageous step or not, but somewhere, somehow, some way, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews. There is a promise that Mordecai is aware of. And he encourages his cousin, who’s basically a father figure to her, and who knows but that you may have come to a royal position for such a time as this. That it’s possible that for some reason, through this crazy story that we’re in, that through this beauty pageant slash total objectification of women that takes place by this crazy king, that somehow, you were placed in this royal position for a time as this.

It’s almost as if Mordecai has a sense that something is being woven together, that something is being weaved together through God, again, who is not mentioned in the entire book, through God weaving together a story that will eventually lead to the deliverance of his people. So this brings up the word providence. If I read this, hopefully this makes sense. The lack of theology is the theology of the book of Esther, and the silence of God proves his presence through something called providence. And let me try to illustrate this.

I have a little quarter in my pocket, and I’m just going to, hopefully I can catch it, because it would be embarrassing if I couldn’t, but I’m going to flip the quarter, oh, nice, and it is tales, right? Seemingly complete chance and luck that this is tales. The sovereignty of God dictates that everything, even the flipping of this quarter and it landing on tales. Proverbs says this very clearly. Even the lot that is cast is the Lord’s lot. The Lord has decided that.

Even the lottery, right? Even this chance flip of a coin landing on tales. Everything is in the sovereign hand of God. Everything is under his control. Think about it. My hands that God created, he knows that my arms don’t really work out that much, you know.

He’s going to flip this coin with a certain amount of power, and with the atmospheric pressure in this room. You think Baidu controls the temperature, it’s actually God at the end of the day, right? Through the temperature variations, the atmospheric pressure, it’s going to leap into the air at a certain velocity. I was terrible at physics. Go into the air and somehow land on tales.

Every part of it, God has controlled, right? He controls the guy who determined that the quarter will be a certain makeup of copper and whatever else it’s made out of. The ridges on the quarter and how that affects the velocity and the flipping of the quarter. Every single detail to the most atomic, subatomic, and below that level. Everything is under the control and the sovereignty of God. Everything.

He knows the number of hairs on your head, even though it’s seemingly insignificant. He watches over the lilies of the fields, the birds of the sparrows of the air. He makes sure that not one single one of them falls without his knowledge. God’s sovereignty is one of the incommunicable attributes of God. Just like his eternality, his infinity, his omnipotence, his omniscience, sovereignty, his foreknowledge of everything, his strength over everything, his power over everything is his attribute.

So if sovereignty is the what, providence is the how. Basically providence is, and you can see it on this next slide, providence is God’s sovereign and purposeful orchestration of all events, both large and small, to accomplish his ultimate will and bring about his desired ends. So there’s a difference. There’s a distinction. I’m trying to build up the scene for why the book of Esther is laid out the way that it is.

God’s sovereign and purposeful orchestration of all events, whether big or small, whether the simple coin flip, whether the basic exhalation of the breath in your body, whatever it is, at the galaxy level, at the subatomic level, everything is under his control. Everything that he controls, whether small or great, somehow is accomplishing his ultimate will and bringing about his desired ends. That’s what divine providence is. And despite the fact that God isn’t mentioned in the book of Esther, every single thing in the book of Esther is happening through divine providence and achieving a certain and specific end. God uses a beauty pageant.

There’s 25 million women, by estimation, in the nation or in the province of, in the area of Persia. And somehow, Esther is the one to win this pageant or win the favor of the king. He uses Esther’s beauty, Vashti’s rebellion, her feminism, whatever you want to call it, her anger. He uses the king’s drunken rage and love for lots and lots of women. And he uses Mordecai, Mordecai sitting randomly at the gate, overhearing the conversation between two advisors and their plan to assassinate the king.

God has Mordecai in a certain spot, in a certain place, on a certain time of the day of the year to overhear a certain conversation that will eventually play a part in this story. He uses the king’s insomnia, right? The king was sleeping one night, he couldn’t sleep, he wakes up and he’s like, hey, read the records to me, to his advisors. And in that reading of the records, that’s this recollection of Mordecai, what Mordecai did years before. He uses Haman’s gallows, right? What Haman built for Mordecai, God uses those gallows against Haman and his family.

And get this, forget the story itself, go back 500 years, Saul, king of Israel, he’s asked to do one thing, kill all the Amalekites, kill them. That’s another message of killing and all that stuff, but kill all the Amalekites, don’t spare a single person. He spares the most choice people. He spares the king of the Amalekites, Agag. And Samuel comes in and he chops everyone up and he’s like, no, why did you not kill the Amalekites?

This was God’s one command to you. And now we see 500 years later, Haman and Agagite also slashed an Amalekite that Saul was supposed to kill 500 years ago, rears his ugly head, rears their ugly head 500 years later to annihilate the Jews. Everything, going back hundreds, thousands of years is weaving their way into the story of Esther. So bringing it to the present day, if what we know to be true about Romans 8:28, if all things work together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose, if all things, which means everything under the sovereign purpose of God, works together for the good, as in for our good, for his purposes, for his ultimate will, which is the providence, if the sovereignty and the providence work together hand in hand for those who love him and are called according to his purpose, how does this apply to us personally? Right?

If sovereignty is the case and providence is the case, how does it weave together in our lives? If you can go to the next slide, I know the text is really small and it gets into the nitty gritty of this. It’s really small, sorry guys, but how does, okay, it’s great that God is sovereign over everything and he’s providential over everything, but how does that affect us? How does that get into the human heart? How does it affect change in the human heart?

The human heart, it’s the center of thoughts and behaviors and actions. It’s the center point or the wellspring, Proverbs says, and the heart is physically embodied by a body. It’s aging, it’s aching. It goes through forgetfulness and dementia and cancer and then it’s socially enabled. It goes through the traumas of growing up.

It goes through possible physical and sexual abuse and it goes through education and it goes through all sorts of things over the course of life and it’s going through spiritual tax left and right. How is the human heart ultimately affected by the providence of God? If all things, like Romans 8 says, if all things work together, that means all things, including the spiritual, including the social, including the physical, all things secondarily, God is slowly and meticulously crafting to affect the human heart and change the human heart. And we see that here in the book of Esther, in chapter 4, where Esther makes this proclamation and this is a proclamation of the ages that we see throughout the Old and New Testament. If I perish, I perish, right?

No matter what happens, no matter what happens, if I perish, I perish. This is the queen of Persia at this point. She makes this proclamation understanding the will of God, understanding the will of of God for the people of Israel, understanding the sovereignty and the providence of God, everything that Mordecai has taught her from the youngest age up until now, culminates to this point where she boldly declares, if I perish, I perish. This isn’t like, OK, I’m going to buy this motorcycle. If I perish, I perish.

Or I’m going to put my life savings in a bitcoin. If I perish, I perish. This is, if everything I am, everything I have, everything I’ve become, even if I lose everything, if I perish, I perish, if it means saving his people. There is this heart’s cry that takes place on account of Esther’s acknowledgment and understanding and realization of God’s sovereignty and his providence. And that’s this powerful statement of, if I perish, I perish.

And how is that manifest? It’s this sense of, it’s this abandonment, right? She declares a fast for all the Jews in the nation or in the province. Three days, day and night, I want all of you fast. I myself will do it, and so will my maids.

I want everyone to humble themselves before the Lord in contrition. It doesn’t say pray, but we assume that that’s what they do. They humble themselves. They are contrite. They seek forgiveness.

She’s interceding on the people’s behalf. They’re submitting themselves in humility and abandonment, self-abandonment to the Lord and utter dependence and humility before the Lord for three days. This isn’t recklessness. This isn’t just ignorant decision-making. This is knowing the facts.

This is knowing everything about the God that she serves, and she is able to make this declaration, if I perish, I perish. She declares a nationwide fast, and she’s preparing herself, her heart, her mind, her intellect, every part about her to now prepare to meet the king. And at a moment’s notice and a flick of his fingers, she can have her head cut off. But it doesn’t matter, because when you understand the plan of God, the sovereignty of God in the providence of God, it doesn’t matter. You can put yourself, abandon your desires, abandon your position, abandon everything, laid at the feet of God, and make that declaration of faith.

If I perish, I perish. We see it all throughout the Old Testament, right? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel chapter three makes this statement, even if we burn, even if our God doesn’t save us, even if we have to go through the fire, even if he doesn’t save us, we will not serve your God’s majesty or worship the image of gold that you have set up. There’s this lesser known story in the narrative of David where Joab and his brother are having to face the Syrians and the Ammonites. And they make this kind of interesting statement.

I’ve always missed this. I learned this in studying. Abishai tells Joab, and Joab tells Abishai, look, you get that side against the Syrians, you get that side against the Ammonites, and may God do what seems good to him. Look, we’re gonna do our best. You get my back, I’ll get yours.

We’re gonna fight against God’s enemies. But at the end of the day, but may God do what seems good to him. And you flip to the New Testament. Paul, we just went through this in the series on Acts. Paul is, the people of Caesarea are pleading with Paul, don’t go to Jerusalem.

Do not go to Jerusalem. You’re gonna get hurt, you’re gonna get killed. Don’t go to Jerusalem. And what is the proclamation that’s made there? Thy will be done.

And then it says, reading from the slide, and when he would not be persuaded, we ceased and said, and the people said collectively, the will of the Lord be done. When you understand the purposes of God and the sovereignty of God under the shelter of the providence of God, these are declarations of faith that not only Old Testament saints and New Testament saints can make, it’s the same ones that we can make. I’ve outlined them all, just one after another. May God do what seems good to him. If I perish, I perish.

But even if he doesn’t, even if he doesn’t save me, save us from the flames. Let the will of the Lord be done. One after another, after another, after another. Proclamation after proclamation. These aren’t dumb people.

These aren’t crazy risk takers inherently. These are people who God has shaped and molded and the sovereignty and the providence of God is a present reality in their lives. During COVID, we had lots of time to think, and something I thought a lot of, and I still do, is a story that I saw in Christianity Today. I think I’ve mentioned this once. It’s a story of Joyce Lynn, who was a pilot.

She was a self, she was a pilot of a twin engine or single engine plane, and what she decided to do was forsake her MIT career. She was a degree holder, a master’s degree holder from MIT. She was a Taiwanese Christian, so probably lots of pressures to do the typical Asian Christian things of meeting all the, dotting the I’s, crossing the T’s. Forsook all that in late 30s and culminating at age 40, she decided that she, during the midst of COVID, that she would fly this single engine plane around in the country of Indonesia, going from remote village to remote village, carrying around hand sanitizer, COVID tests, critical treatments for people who had no way of going to a hospital of any kind in rural and remote villages in Indonesia. One day, her plane, she was riding solo in a plane to a remote village, her plane crashed.

It crashed into a river, her body was later recovered, and that was the end of Joyce Lynn. And I remember sitting there, I remember this story kind of ruminating on it and just kind of simmering in my mind, I was like, look, it’s COVID, there’s no way in the world that anyone’s gonna remember this story, right? Everyone’s, things are going crazy in COVID, right? There’s no way that this singular woman who made this tremendous sacrifice, that her story will ever be remembered again. At some point in her mind, in the course of her Christian walk, her walk with the Lord, she had to come to this sense of herself that, if I perish, I perish.

That even if my plane were to crash, even if my career were to fail, even if I were to never have a family, never to have kids, never to be able to meet these so-called milestones of life, even if none of those things happen, if I perish, I perish, because ultimately what matters is God’s sovereignty and his providential will for my life. And I think about this so many times, I’m like, look, how is she different from any one of us, right? What’s keeping us from taking that leap? And at some point she had to take the leap, right? Some point she had to quit her career, take flight lessons and do crazy things for the Lord and take that leap.

No one forced her to do it. But at some point she had to come to a self-realization that nothing else matters other than helping these people in remote areas of the world that couldn’t get medical care without the help of these single engine or double engine planes. Church and friends, how are we any different? What’s obvious in this text in the book of Esther is obviously the gospel connection, right? Esther is kind of this type of Christ, right?

She assumes the need of the people. She condescends herself. She fasts, she makes this tremendous sacrifice, i.e. someone else we know in the New Testament that does the same thing, right? We know that there’s a very strong gospel connection here.

And I don’t wanna allegorize it too much, but there’s a very strong gospel connection. Just as the gospel weaves itself through the pages of scripture, through every single book and chapter of the Bible, we know that for a fact, that Esther is a type of Christ. But for our purposes, for our thinking and for what we need to get out of this, I want it to go a slightly different direction. What parallels do you see in Esther in your own life? Most of us don’t routinely witness skies opening up and rivers parting and fire falling from the sky, though those things could happen.

Supernatural events happen all the time, but probably not commonly in our lives. Instead, what we experience and what we experience, we can say with boldness, with complete confidence, is the miraculous work of Christ and God in our life through His providential work, through things, the ordinary things of life that are weaving themselves together in our lives that create miracles in our life. And for some people, that could be taking this side of the road and not that one. It could be taking that flight and not this flight. It could be going with this career, not that career, going with this person or not that person in life.

It could be one of a gazillion things, but what we know for a fact, if you reach a certain age, is that you are not your own. You’ve been bought with the price in every single thing, every little knit, even the most minute detail of your life is being orchestrated by a sovereign God, every single bit of it. How does that inform our lives? What it should do, first and foremost, is it should inform our worship. In fact, worship should be an exercise of the providence of God.

What does that mean? Every time we gather, every time we sit in our homes, in our cars, wherever we are in times of worship, that could look like numerous different ways, but every time we’re in before the Lord in worship, every time it’s an exercise of the providential ways that he’s worked in our lives, and not just our lives, in redemption, in scriptures, in the way that he saved us, in the way that he’s redeemed us, in the way that he’s brought the church this far, Capital C Church this far, in the way that he’s providentially moved through pastors in our lives, through saints and parents, and all sorts of events that have taken our lives. Every time we worship, every time we sing, no matter how good or how not as great it sounds, every time we gather, whether we’re on the floor, whether a cottage meeting, big conference, church like this, in the hub, every time we gather, it’s an exercise of the providence of God, in the way that it’s moving, not only in our lives, but through scripture, through the redemptive history that we see, that we’ve experienced ourselves. It is an exercise, every single time, of his work in our lives, of the grace that he’s imparted in our lives, of the mercy that he’s imparted in our lives. MacArthur, Piper, several have said this exact statement here.

The safest place, and the joyous, and the most happiest place, is to be in the middle of conflict or dilemma, where we have no control, because where our control ends, God’s control fully and entirely and supremely begins, and that is the safest, happiest, joyous place that we can be in in our lives, is when we have no control, in the conflicts of our lives, in the dilemmas of our lives. And we see that in the members of our church, our church family, in the lives of many who have suffered and lost loved ones recently, even in MacArthur’s own life, who said this, MacArthur’s own life, who went through countless health issues in the last few years of his life, he’s saying, he’s declaring at the end of his life, that the safest, happiest, most joyous place is the place where I have no control anymore, where I can’t control anything about my life anymore, that’s the best place to be. Safety, joy, happiness is found in that place. Piper follows it by saying, in the way that Piper does, the place where I have most satisfaction is when I’m in the providential will of God. Safety, joy, happiness, and ultimately satisfaction is yours when you can humbly admit that, when you can humbly submit to the providential will of God, that He’s working in the little things, that He’s working on your behalf, even when you don’t see Him working, even when you don’t see Him moving.

When we come to an abandonment, a reckless, a radical abandonment of ourselves, when we can put all of the accolades and all of the efforts and all of the achievements in every one of the things that make us us seemingly, when we can cast it all aside and we can declare, if I perish, I perish, thy will be done, even if I burn, even if nothing works out, may God’s good work prevail in me. These providences reveal God in greater ways that we’ve never seen to us. And they shape us and they make us into the kind of people who find our treasures more fully in God. We know God, we learn God, we experience His goodness in ways that we can never imagine when we’re in the darkest, most vulnerable points in our lives. On a personal note, some of you might be shoppers of Timu.

I’m not, my parents have bought a few things. But what my understanding of Timu is, is they take a \$500 thing from Home Depot and they can sell it to you for \$5 and 50 cents. I don’t know how they do it, but they sell it to you for \$5 and 50 cents. And I’m not a shopper. I’m not a shopper.

I don’t know how they do it, but more often than not, the quality is kind of suspect, right? You might buy from Timu a few times. We probably won’t do it a lot of times for things that you really need to be high quality, right? Like appliances and those sorts of things. I believe, especially our generation, mostly the generation present in this room, that we have this Timu form of Christianity.

It’s a lot of show, it’s a lot of pomp and circumstance. It’s a lot of stuff and it’s a lot of songs and it’s a lot of productive value. And it’s a lot of even coming to things and even coming to church, but it’s void of substance. It’s a void of depth. And it’s a void of the things that bring us to our knees.

It’s void of the things that make us do well and linger in the presence of God. I don’t need to remind you of that because it’s something that I’m sure burdens us all. It burdens me especially, that there is a lack of depth to our faith. There’s a lack of substance to our faith that it’s sometimes a lot of show. And so as we pray in a few minutes, I want everyone to think, young and old alike, everyone in this room about what it means to kind of take that next level.

And unfortunately, unfortunately, that takes risk. And if that’s, if you’re young, if that means having to forsake friends that are pushing you to be mean to people and to gossip and to cheat and do things, maybe it means kind of letting some relationships go. As you get older and as you position yourselves in certain careers and as you make decisions about your future, about your financial life, about your spouse, about whatever else that happens in your life, there might need to be a place that we reach, that Esther reached, that Paul reaches, that Joab reaches, that the saints of old reach of this place of radical abandonment, of the things that make us happy, of the things that give us joy in this life and replace those trinkets and replace it with things that can only give us true joy, true satisfaction in life. And that could require taking risk. I don’t know what that risk is for you.

I can’t possibly be in your feet and your shoes and say it’s this, this, and this, but maybe the Lord is speaking to you. Maybe the Lord has been speaking to you for months or years leading up to this point. Where there is something in your life that you have to do, say, become something that will take a lot of risks that you don’t yet realize you need to have and that we need to pray for, that we need to yearn for and linger for in the presence of God. I don’t know what that is. For some of you, that’s meant going into ministry.

For others, it’s meant giving a large amount of something of your life, time, money, something, and sacrificing way more than what you’ve ever been expected to give. I don’t know what that is. I don’t know what sort of risks that entails for you, but the Christian life can’t just be making this dent in our pews and then going to the cascade. It can’t be that, right? It can’t be just that.

Who are gonna be the Joy Slins of our church, of our church family for those of you who are joining us? Who’s gonna make that ultimate sacrifice? I don’t know. I don’t know what that looks like for me even, but what I know is that this can’t be enough. Let’s rise and let’s pray.

Father, we thank you, Lord, for providentially leading us to the service. Everything from the subatomic particle to the largest galaxy, to the trillions of galaxies out there, everything is yours. Everything is under your control, your power. You’ve never not been in control of any of those things. You certainly haven’t lost control of our lives.

That you might let us wander, that you might let us stray, Lord. We are still under the sovereign control of your mighty hands, oh Lord. And God, we submit to your will for our lives, whatever that is, oh God. And Lord, we look to the saints and the examples of old. We look to the apostles.

We look to the examples set down by prophets and theologians and the church before us and the church that is to come aboard, members of the church of God. We thank you for the examples set by people like Joyce, people like so many, Lord, who have forsaken everything for the sake of the gospel, for your kingdom, for the further and serving kingdom, oh Lord. And God, help us to not be comfortable anymore with the same old, oh Lord. I’ve heard this message countless times, oh Lord. God, as a reminder to ourselves, help us to yield ourselves to the providential will of God, to the inner workings, the ordinary workings, the big and the small that you’re carefully weaving into our lives, oh God.

The accidents that didn’t happen, the mistakes that weren’t made, the mistakes that were made, the addictions that were in, the addictions that we were spared from. How you’re carefully crafting our lives, keeping us from falling or allowing us to pick or picking ourselves up, picking us up, oh Lord, when we do fall, oh Lord. And everything that you’ve weaved into our story, good and bad alike, oh Lord. Everything, oh God, that you’re weaving for a certain purpose, oh God. Help us to realize that purpose.

Help us to yield ourselves to that purpose, oh Lord. Help us to be in awe and help our worship to be changed and moved and shaken, oh Lord, by the exercise of providence in our lives, oh God. Lord, strengthen us, oh Lord, to make decisions, to take those risks, to take those leaps of faith, oh Lord, that we wouldn’t have been able to otherwise without your grace and your strength in our life, oh Lord. God, whatever that is, oh God, I pray one thing and that’s to make us uncomfortable, Lord, with what we are and what we’re doing, oh Lord. Help us to abandon ourselves, oh Lord, at the altar.

Submit ourselves raw and broken before you, oh Lord, that you would use us, oh Lord, that we can boldly proclaim, if I perish, I perish. Place all these things in the mighty hands of Jesus Christ. Amen.