Pastor Jason kicked off the first sermon of 2011 by asking the congregation, "What will be your legacy this year?" Most people want to leave a legacy when they die, but Pastor Jason urges us to leave a legacy each year. What do you want to be known for this year? What legacy will you leave for the kingdom of God. Martin Luther King Jr. left one of the most well known legacies in the history of this nation, because he did what he did not for himself, but for a people.
This sermon revolves around the legacy of an influential woman in the Bible's history: Esther. Specifically, the event that take place in Esther 3:1-4:14 (don't worry, I'll summarize all the important events):
After these events, King Xerxes honored Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, elevating him and giving him a seat of honor higher than that of all the other nobles. All the royal officials at the king’s gate knelt down and paid honor to Haman, for the king had commanded this concerning him. But Mordecai would not kneel down or pay him honor.
Then the royal officials at the king’s gate asked Mordecai, “Why do you disobey the king’s command?” Day after day they spoke to him but he refused to comply. Therefore they told Haman about it to see whether Mordecai’s behavior would be tolerated, for he had told them he was a Jew.
When Haman saw that Mordecai would not kneel down or pay him honor, he was enraged. Yet having learned who Mordecai’s people were, he scorned the idea of killing only Mordecai. Instead Haman looked for a way to destroy all Mordecai’s people, the Jews, throughout the whole kingdom of Xerxes.
In the twelfth year of King Xerxes, in the first month, the month of Nisan, the pur (that is, the lot) was cast in the presence of Haman to select a day and month. And the lot fell on the twelfth month, the month of Adar.
Then Haman said to King Xerxes, “There is a certain people dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom who keep themselves separate. Their customs are different from those of all other people, and they do not obey the king’s laws; it is not in the king’s best interest to tolerate them. If it pleases the king, let a decree be issued to destroy them, and I will give ten thousand talents of silver to the king’s administrators for the royal treasury.”
So the king took his signet ring from his finger and gave it to Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of the Jews. “Keep the money,” the king said to Haman, “and do with the people as you please.”
Then on the thirteenth day of the first month the royal secretaries were summoned. They wrote out in the script of each province and in the language of each people all Haman’s orders to the king’s satraps, the governors of the various provinces and the nobles of the various peoples. These were written in the name of King Xerxes himself and sealed with his own ring. 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 children—on a single day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods. A copy of the text of the edict was to be issued as law in every province and made known to the people of every nationality so they would be ready for that day.
The couriers went out, spurred on by the king’s command, 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.
When Mordecai learned of all that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the city, wailing loudly and bitterly. But he went only as far as the king’s gate, because no one clothed in sackcloth was allowed to enter it. 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.
When Esther’s eunuchs and female attendants came and told her about Mordecai, she was in great distress. She sent clothes for him to put on instead of his sackcloth, but he would not accept them. Then Esther summoned Hathak, one of the king’s eunuchs assigned to attend her, and ordered him to find out what was troubling Mordecai and why.
So Hathak went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king’s gate. 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. 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 instruct her to go into the king’s presence to beg for mercy and plead with him for her people.
Hathak went back and reported to Esther what Mordecai had said. Then she instructed him to say to Mordecai, “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 they be put to death unless the king extends the gold scepter to them and spares their lives. But thirty days have passed since I was called to go to the king.”
When Esther’s words were reported to Mordecai, 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. 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 your royal position for such a time as this?”(NIV)A little background on this story. Ruth, a Jew, was currently the queen of Babylon (a city in which she was a captive and did not want to be queen of). She was originally an orphan and being raised by her cousin Mordecai. When King Xerxes of Babylon's wife lost her queenship, Xerxes ordered all the virgins in the area be brought before him. Ruth, who was very beautiful, was selected as the new queen. The passage above picks up when Mordecai insults Haman by refusing to bow or kneel to him. Enraged, Haman asked the king for permission to kill Mordecai's people, the Jews. When Mordecai finds out that the Xerxes gave Haman the go ahead for his plan, he sends a message to Ruth, asking her to stop the king. Her response was that she was unable to do that, because the king had not summoned her. If anyone appeared before the king without being summoned, that person would be put to death - unless the king pardoned them. Mordecai warned his cousin that she shouldn't expect to be spared from Haman's edict even though she was in the king's palace. In fact, he asserted that she was gifted with her position for just a time as this.
Pastor Jason asserted that today we are facing a similar situation in this nation. It may not be to the point that people in the United States are being killed for being a Christian, but there is a battle for our generation. Just as Haman wanted to wipe out an entire people, there are several groups of people fighting to wipe out the church, so they might have control over the next generation - our generation. Christianity is currently the most persecuted religion in all the world, and experts say it is on the verge of dying out.
Looking at the passage in Esther, what was it about the Jewish people that Haman wanted so back to wipe them out? He tells King Xerxes, "There is a certain people dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom who keep themselves separate. Their customs are different from those of all other people, and they do not obey the king’s laws; it is not in the king’s best interest to tolerate them." Haman hates the Jews because they are a people set apart from everyone else.
Pastor Jason stated his wished people could still say that about God's people, that there was something about them that was set apart. We are called to be in this world, but not of this world. He recognized that Jesus did hang out with the sinners and the tax collectors. However, he also noted that Jesus changed sinners; we tend to hang out with sinners and become sinners.
With this sermon, Pastor Jason calls us to two things - to adopt this battle as our own and to use your gifts not for yourself but for the kingdom of God.
Adopting the Battle as Your Own
When Esther tells Mordecai that if she went to the king, she could be put to death, Mordecai's response was, "Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. 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." Pastor Jason echoes this warning. Do not think that because you are already secure in the kingdom of Heaven, that because you go to church somehow this battle will pass you by. There is a famous quote by Pastor Martin Niemöller that says:
They came first for the Communists,If you don't speak up for your generation - for your God - now, there may be no one left when they come for you. And they will come for you.
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.
If you are not convinced that we're facing a battle, Pastor Jason recommended reading a book called "Battle Cry for My Generation" by Ron Luce. The first course of action for both the homosexual and abortionists' agenda was to discredit the church. They knew, that if they could silence the church, they would win the battle. Pastor Jason asks why the people inside the church refuse to see that there is a battle, when those outside the church are calling it a battle. We have things like the battle over Proposition 8 here in California, which really isn't about rights. In the end, it's about overturning a law in order to control the church - telling pastors what they can and cannot preach. Already in Canada, pastors can be arrested for preaching from certain parts of the book of Romans. That's Canada, not some Middle Eastern country on the other side of an ocean. Canada.
Those outside the church know. If they can control what the church preaches - or more importantly, tell them what they can't preach - then they've won this generation. Now is the time for the body of Christ to rise up and take this battle on. One of Pastor Jason's favorite quotes is: "All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing." So this year, find a burden for your generation. Find standards in God's truth and stand for them. As the saying goes, "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything."
God has Given you Gifts, but They're Not for You.
Esther was given a gift; she was very beautiful. It was not a gift she wanted. Because she was beautiful, she ended up queen of a country she didn't even like - a captive. But as Mordecai told her in the final line of his message, "And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?" If God hadn't given her that gift, she would not have been in the perfect position to save her people from the hand of Haman.
Every person has a gift that is meant to be used for God's kingdom. Even if you haven't yet discovered what that gift is yet, you have one. Not one person alive today was an accident - despite what their parents might say - because when God created you, He had a specific purpose in mind.
For a young woman in the 1800s, Amy Carmichael, her gift was brown eyes. Those brown eyes saved hundreds upon hundreds of young girls from sex trafficking in the Hindu temples of India. Because she was inexplicably born with brown eyes, though the rest of her family had blue eyes, she was able to disguise herself as an Indian woman and sneak in and save these girls one at a time. Growing up, Amy Carmichael hadn't wanted brown eyes - blue eyes like her family's were what were considered beautiful - but those brown eyes were God's gift to her for His kingdom.
In The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Father Christmas (Santa) gives the children gifts. The thing about it was, he gave them these gifts before they had any use for them. They hadn't accepted the battle for Narnia as their own. God has done the same for you. He's given you a gift that you may have had no use for yet, but when you adopt His battle as your own, you will discover how to us it.
All too often, people use the gifts God gave them for their own purposes. How many of today's popular singers started out as worship leaders in their church? God gave them this gift, but it was not meant for them. Still, they use it selfishly and many of them end up ruining their lives.
It's time for Christians to stop playing church. We must enter into this battle for our generation now. Pastor Jason is letting out the call for everyone in this generation to leave a legacy for God. Make your life be like a crime scene. So that people know where you have been, because they can trace the Love of Christ you leave behind.
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