Positioned for Providence

Positioned for Providence

Esther 5

Chris Logan wasn't sure how he wanted to spend his 4th of July. He could sleep in, he could chill out at his apartment until it was time to go to the holiday barbecue he was invited to, or he could swelter in 95 degree weather at the AT&T National Golf Tournament. That was probably the thing he least wanted to do but a friend talked him into it and before long he found himself standing at the 18th hole waiting for one of his favorite golfers, Sean O'Hair, to tee off. Uncharacteristically, O'Hair's shot was off and it struck Chris Logan in the left temple.

Logan was rushed to the medical tent and as the doctor examined him for a concussion, he happened to ask about a lump just below his throat. That lump turned out to be a malignant tumor on his thyroid and shortly afterwards Logan found himself being operated on to remove the tumor. Thankfully it was caught early enough - due to a bad golf shot - that Logan is now healthy and cancer free. A year later Logan got to meet Sean O'Hair, and as the golfer apologized for hitting him in the head, Logan thanked O'Hair for hitting him in the head. It was that bad shot that saved his life.

The providence of God is defined as the power sustaining and guiding human destiny. We can see God's providence in global events such as the rising and falling of nations, and we can see His providence in the mishot of a golf ball. How many sequences of events had to happen just exactly as they did for Logan to be in the exact path of a badly hit golf ball? Those sequences didn’t happen by accident, they were guided by God's invisible hand of providence.

This morning we continue our study of the book of Esther, and just to briefly recap, a young Jewish girl named Esther has been chosen as the replacement queen for the king of Persia, and her cousin Mordecai who has raised her like a father, has instructed her not to tell anyone that she is Jewish. Mordecai also exposed a plot to assassinate the king, but he got no recognition or promotion for saving the king's life. Instead an evil man named Haman is promoted to second in command after the king, and when he finds out that Mordecai refuses to bow down to him, in his rage he plots - and gets the kings authorization - to kill all the Jews in Persia as a way of exacting revenge on Mordecai. Last week we saw that Mordecai shared this evil plan with Esther and challenged her to seize her destiny: what if God had lined up the sequence of events that led to her being queen for exactly this purpose, to beg the king for mercy for her people? Esther accepts this as God's plan for her life and that brings us to chapter 5.

I gotta tell you, the more I get into this book, the more a thought keeps knocking on my brain. I have mentioned several times that one of the unusual characteristics of Esther as a book in the Bible is that God is never mentioned even once in the entire book. But the more I get to know this book the more puzzling I find that to be because very few books in the Bible provide such a clear and intricate picture of the providence of God. The path of God's providence in the book of Esther is as precise as a golf ball traveling hundreds of yards to hit one temple among thousands. So why does a bible book so clearly about God's providence never once mention God by name?

Maybe there's a lesson in it: the bible tells us that God's providence is powerfully at work in history and in every person's life, but often in ways that aren't totally obvious or easy to trace out. Often we don't see God's "quiet sovereignty" until we look back at how precisely things unfolded in our lives to bring us to a certain place or do a certain work in or through us. And that's the beauty of God's word, and the genius of the book of Esther: God's providence in this book isn't seen in some history-interrupting miracle like the parting of the Red Sea, or the stopping of the sun in its circuit. God's providence is seen in the unfolding of "normal" events that, when seen together, make it clear that it wasn't random, it was guided. Just as God's providence could not possibly have been detected in any of the events that day as Chris Logan wrestled with what he was going to do on that 4th of July, finally deciding to go to the golf tournament (no providence obvious in that), walking to the 18th hole - nothing special looking about that, pressing his way through the other spectators until a certain space in the crowd opened up and he stood in the exact spot, not six inches this way not 3 inches that way, but exactly where he stood, and no one on earth could have (or would have) been able to trace out anything providential about any of it. It wasn't until O'Hair uncharacteristically swung in bad form and the ball sped hundreds of yards to an exact location - the temple of Chris Logan - that the path of God's providence can begin to be seen.

Romans 11:33 says, Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! We can't figure out God's providence, we can't predict it, we can't reduce it to a formula, we can't fully understand it, and we can't always see what God is doing. But the Bible assures all Christians that our lives are held, and guided, and protected, and blessed by God's providential hand. Having said that, we must not think that God's providence removes the consequences of our choices and actions, like, everything is going to work out the right way no matter what we do, because that's not what the Bible says. Our choices have real consequences. Esther's life would have looked very different if she had rejected Mordecai's challenge to seize her destiny. God loves His children and is committed to His them no matter what, but as God's children there are ways that we can position ourselves to be in the right place at the right time to receive God's providential providence.

We see that in the opposite ways Esther and Haman positioned themselves in

relationship to God's providence. Esther and Haman are a tale of two paths. Esther takes the path of humble trust and Haman takes the path of prideful arrogance.

Title: Positioned for Providence

Esther 5:1-8

1. Esther humbles herself before God

We know that when she accepted that it was her God-appointed destiny to speak out on behalf of her people, she told Mordecai to have all the Jews in Susa to fast for three days, and she did the same. The word "prayer" isn't mentioned but when Jews fasted it was a way of mourning and praying about something. It was a humbling posture before God. Esther humbled herself with prayer and fasting.

Humbling ourselves positions us to be in the right place to get hit with God's good providence. Jesus said that those who humble themselves will be exalted by God. Proverbs 3:34 warns us: God has no use for conceited people, but shows favor to those who are humble (GNT). James and Peter both tell us that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humility positions us in the flow of God's grace.

2. Esther actively trusts God

I say actively because trust wasn't just sitting back and seeing what God would do. After three days, Esther was going to risk her life by going into the king's presence uncalled for. That meant certain death unless the king gave a stay of execution by holding out his golden scepter. Ancient depictions from the Persian empire show the king with a scepter in his hand, and a soldier standing nearby with an ax, ready to behead anyone intruding on the king's court uncalled for.

Esther resolved to approach the king, but she couldn't control his reaction. She was actively trusting God - taking the action she knew she had to take and leaving the results up to God. She got herself ready and she took a deep breath and she walked into the king's court. Everyone, including the king, was surprised to see Esther approach the king. They all knew that it likely meant her death.

There is a strange symmetry to this story. Queen Vashti was deposed as queen because she refused to come into the King's presence when she was called for, and here is Esther, potentially being executed for coming into the King's presence uncalled for. The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will. Prov. 21:1 God moved in King Ahasuerus' heart so that he felt great favor towards Esther - he wanted to hear what she wanted to ask. He was so moved with favor (grace) that he promised up to half his kingdom.

This seems like the perfect moment for Esther to blurt it all out. The king has promised to do whatever she asks, surely that must mean that God is giving her the go ahead to share everything with the king and plead for the lives of her people. But Esther doesn't, and that brings us to the next way that Esther positions herself for God's good providence.

3. Esther planned her steps and then trusted God to establish her steps

If you like formulas and predictable, controllable processes, this is going to drive you crazy. During the three days that Esther is fasting and praying, she plans out a path, and that plan positions her exactly where she needs to be. The king lowers his golden scepter to Esther and his heart is full of favor towards her, promising to grant her request (he knows for her to risk her life coming uncalled for into his presence that there's something big on her mind) up to half the kingdom.

God has answered her prayers! God has honored her active trust in Him. And Ahasuerus seems ready to give Esther what she wants. But she doesn't ask him for anything except that he and Haman come to her quarters for a feast that she has prepared for them. Why does Esther delay appealing to the king for the life of her people to be spared? Then, when they come to the feast, afterward as they're drinking wine, the king once again asks what Esther has on her mind and it seems as if Esther is going to answer. In the Hebrew it's clear that when she says, "my wish and my request is…" she leaves off not finishing it. She starts to tell the king and then redirects her statement: "If I have found favor in the sight of the king, and if it please the king to grant my wish and fulfill my request, let the king and Haman come to the feast that I will prepare for them, and tomorrow I will do as the king has said (I will tell you my request)."

Why yet another delay? I think there are two reasons, one has to do with Esther and one has to do with God: 1) Esther had planned all the time to hold two feasts for the king and Haman. Everything, including her own life, rests on the king's reaction to her request. What will he do when he learns that his queen withheld her Jewishness from him? What will be his reaction to her accusing his right hand man of treachery? So rather than blurt it all out Esther is following polite protocol which allows the anticipation in the king's heart to build. That was her plan and she's working her plan.

But there is a second reason that she knows nothing of, it's a part of God's providential plan: something is going to happen in the 24 hour gap that her delay has provided that needs to happen before Haman's plot is revealed. Esther doesn't know that, she has no idea what's going to happen in the time between the first feast and the second feast, so it could not have been a part of her calculations. But God knows it and it is a part of His calculations. We'll be looking at that next week.

Believing in God's sovereignty and providence guiding our lives does not remove the need for us to make plans. Just as our choices really do make a difference, so too our planning wisely or planning foolishly or not planning at all really does make a difference. When we plan we can't know everything, only God knows what tomorrow will bring. But if we, like Esther, plan prayerfully and humbly, God will bring us to the plans He means for us to have. And if the plans we have are wrong, if our heart is seeking Him and His will, He will interrupt our plans with His own.

The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps. Prov. 16:9

This means our plans aren't the ultimate determiner of what happens. If our plans are, as Esther's, divinely guided and put us in the precisely right place at the precisely right time to get hit with God's good providence, we won't be aware of it while we make the plans, but we'll see it as things unfold. And if our plans are wrong, but our hearts are right and we want God's guidance, He will interrupt those plans and move us to the right place at the right time so that we get hit with the golf ball of providence. If we make the plans in the wrong way, God will cause them to fail, and that is a great segue into the story of Haman.

Esther 5:9-14

We will talk more about this section next week, but I want to point out how proud and arrogant Haman is. He leaves Esther's banquet feeling pretty special - the only other person invited other than the king - but seeing Mordecai refuse to honor him or even fear him fills his heart with rage. He calls his friends over and he begins to show them the slideshow of his life, he brags to his wife and friends about how great he is. He recounts for them the splendor of his riches, the number of his sons (we assume his wife and friends knew how many sons he had), all his promotions, and now how he is the only other person invited to Queen Esther's feast. It is enough to make you sick, how full of himself Haman is. But Haman can't enjoy all this greatness because there is one man -Mordecai - who refuses to honor him. Mordecai isn't impressed with Haman and that infuriates Haman. So his wife and friends suggest that he eliminate the problem by making a gallows to have Mordecai hanged on, and then he can go to Queen Esther's feast with a light heart. That sounds good to Haman and he has this monstrosity of a gallows - about 75 feet high - built.

Just as Esther's humility is positioning her for providence, Haman's arrogance is positioning him for providence, but not a good providence. He is making the decisions and the choices, he is making the plans (with the counsel of his friends and family) but at the same time God is planning those plans to be Haman's utter downfall.

Conclusion

God's providence is way beyond our figuring out. Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! We can't predict that if we go to a golf tournament we'll get hit in the head with a golf ball and that will save our lives. We can't predict the path of God's providence at work in our lives so we shouldn't even try. God can use the smallest things, the most unexpected things, the most unplanned things, to forever change our lives.

My life was radically and forever changed at an all you can eat fish fry. It wasn't that the fish was so good that my life was never the same. It was there that a pastor asked me to prayerfully consider becoming the next pastor of the church we were in. Not only wasn't that on my radar, when he asked me I rejected the idea out of hand. I had no desire to be a pastor. But it was God's plan for me, and eventually, over a period of a few weeks, the Lord won my heart with that plan.

God's providence is like the air we breath - we can't escape it, it's all around us. But we can position ourselves for God's providential blessing in our lives by:

1. Humbling ourselves before the Lord. I am sure there are no Hamans here, but pride and arrogance is something all of us can struggle with. Pride delivers us to the wrong address if we're looking for God's blessing in our lives. Allow the Holy Spirit to honestly examine our hearts to see if we are walking in humility before the Lord or if we're walking in prideful arrogance.

2. Actively trusting God - taking the steps we know the Lord is calling us to, but not trusting ourselves or the steps we take, but trusting the Lord to bring blessing, grace, and favor from it.

3. Planning your best steps, but not trusting those steps - trusting God to establish your steps, which might even mean God changing your plans. God uses our plans to position us for His providence.

Several weeks ago Jeff and Rachel Perry shared about a difficult and heart-rending condition that they had that, among other things, made it impossible for them to have children. They struggled and prayed for over 6 years with no hope it sight, and it was on the evening of my daughter's wedding day that Rachel felt an overwhelming need once again to search for an answer. That night she found the one clinic in the world that treats this rare condition. It was God who pressed on her heart to search out plans for a solution. That became even more meaningful because it turned out - though no one knew it at the time - that my daughter would have the same rare condition. And she and her husband Jordan were able to go to the clinic and find help as well.

Frustration, sadness, determination in Rachel were simply the swing that was used by God to send the golf ball exactly where it was meant to go and two precious couples were incredibly blessed by God's providence. God's got areas in your life like that. Humble yourself before the Lord, actively trust God, and plan your best steps, trusting God will establish your steps -even if He needs to reorder your steps - in the best way possible.