Pride and Providence

Pride and Providence

Please turn in your Bibles to Esther 5 as we continue our study of the book of Esther. Just a heads up, this will be our last time in Esther for the next couple weeks as next week is Easter and the following week I'm excited to announce that Luke Smallcomb will be bringing the message and sharing the burden that he and Lauren have for Thailand as they prepare to move there within the next year.

Outside the Petit Ice Center where US skaters train for the Olympics there's a billboard that reads "Without ice, Titanic would be a boring movie". When we think of the Titanic sinking it's natural that the first thing we think of is the iceberg, but the truth is that ice wasn't the biggest culprit in the sinking of the Titanic, pride was. It was pride that caused the White Star Line and its captain to think the ship was pretty much unsinkable. It was pride that caused the radio operators to ignore a series of warnings about giant ice floes ahead. It is possible that the Captain ordered the ship to go faster than normal in order to arrive in NY on Tuesday night rather than Wednesday out of a prideful desire to exceed public expectations. It was pride that caused the White Star Line to think having 20 lifeboats was sufficient even though it was only enough for half the people on board. More than anything else, it was pride that sank the Titanic. The billboard could just as accurately read, "without pride, Titanic would be a boring movie."

The Bible tells us that pride sets our course for bad things. Proverbs 16:18 says, "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." James reminds us that God gives grace to the humble but opposes the proud and Jesus tells us that those who humble themselves will be exalted but those who exalt themselves will be humbled. This morning we're going to see all these warnings lived out in the life of a man named Haman, a man who navigates his life by arrogance and pride. But before we start reading, let me just briefly recap what's happened so far. In chapter one the Persian king Ahasuerus becomes very angry with Queen Vashti because she refuses to come when he calls her to show off her beauty for his nobles and officials and out of anger he deposes Vashti as queen.

In chapter two we meet a beautiful young Jewish girl named Esther who had been raised by her cousin Mordecai after her parents had died. When the king decides to hold an empire-wide beauty contest to choose the next queen to replace Vashti, Esther wins the kings favor and she becomes the queen of Persia. As chapter 2 closes, we learn two important things: 1) Under the orders of her cousin Mordecai, Esther never tells the king that she is Jewish and 2) Mordecai overhears two men plotting to assassinate the king and he tells Esther about this plot who warns the king, being sure to give credit to Mordecai. The king's life is saved but Mordecai is never recognized or honored for his role in saving the king's life. The affair is recorded in the book of Persian history and then completely forgotten.

In chapter 3 we meet a proud man name Haman who is promoted to second in power only to the king himself. The king issues a command that everyone is to bow as Haman passes by, but Mordecai refuses to bow and that enrages Haman so much he determines not only to kill Mordecai, but to kill all the Jews in the Persian empire. Talk about out of control pride, to Haman having one man refuse to honor him is a crime worth exterminating an entire race. And so he's able to convince the easily-influenced king to authorize his plan and an edict goes out across the land that on the 13th day of the 12th month every Jewish man, woman, and child in the Persian empire is to be put to death.

In chapter four Mordecai goes to Esther and urges her to use her influence to appeal to the king to save her people from genocide, but at first she refuses, explaining to Mordecai that anyone, even the queen, who approaches the king without being called for will be executed on the spot unless the king decides to show mercy and extends his golden scepter to that person. Mordecai challenges Esther to seize her destiny - could it be, Esther, that this is the reason God put you here, to save your people? Could it be that this is your destiny? Esther is won over by this and she decides she will go to the king even if it means her life. She calls all the Jews to fast and pray for three days and then she will approach the king and she says, "if I perish, I perish." She is going to seize her destiny and leave the rest to God.

Last week we saw in the first half of chapter 5 that Esther does approach the king, he does hold out the golden scepter and promises her anything she wants, up to half the kingdom. This seems to be the perfect time for Esther to ask the king to spare her people but Esther doesn't ask for anything yet except that the king and Haman come to a feast she has prepared at her place. They come, and afterwards the king again asks what her request is, promising that whatever it is he will grant it to her, but she still doesn't make her request known, she simply asks the king and Haman to come the next day to another feast and then, she promises, she will make her request known to the king. In His providence God had put it in Esther's heart to delay bringing her request to the king, in part because there was one more thing that needed to happen and that's what we're going to read about this morning.

Even though the book of Esther never once mentions God by name, His fingerprints are all over this book. In fact there are few books in the Bible are more clearly centered on the providence of God. But the providence of God is a two edged sword: it can be a very good thing, a "providential" thing, when His providence is for you, but it can be a devastating thing when His providence is opposed to you. Haman's pride is on a collision course with God's providence and it ain't going to be pretty. With apologies to Jane Austen I've titled this message Pride and Providence. Read Esther 5:9-14

Haman's pride is pretty stoked - he's the only person honored with an invitation to a private feast with the king and the queen and then she invites him to join them again the next day. Haman figures he must be pretty important to rate such an exclusive invitation. So Haman does what any man will do after a good day at the office: he calls his wife and best friends over to brag about how great he is! Now wives, you know that the only thing more enjoyable than hearing your husband brag about what a great man he is, is having all your friends over to hear him brag about what a great man he is. Actually I find with my wife that even a little bragging gets old pretty quick.

Years ago I found a great task manager called Todoist and this task manager actually rates your productivity with rankings that go from beginner to novice to intermediate to professional to expert, and so on. One day several months ago I got a notification from Todoist that I had achieved the "master" level! Master! I was pretty impressed with myself so as my wife walked by I said, "hey, hon, I've attained the master level on todoist." I thought she'd be as impressed with me as I was, but she just said, "well, that really doesn't measure whether you're doing everything you should be doing." I could literally feel my self-greatness balloon deflating. But I'm pumping it back up: I'm only 4782 tasks away from becoming a Grand Master, and I know that Janice will be impressed when she hears I’m a Grand Master. I might even call some of you over to my house when I announce it.

The person who keeps letting the air out of Haman's self-greatness balloon is Mordecai: the man simply refuses to bow down or stand up or even tremble with fear to him. That burns Haman up! Chapter 5 ends with his wife and friends counseling him to put Mordecai in his place by having a huge gallows built and hanging him on it. That pleases Haman and he goes to bed looking forward to the next day: he's going to kill Mordecai and he's going to an exclusive feast with the king and the queen. It's gonna be a great day! But what Haman doesn't know is that God's providence is about to slam into his pride. Let's read Esther 6:1-3

Again no mention of God, but look at the "coincidences" that begin to pile up: of all nights that's that the night the king can't sleep so he orders that the chronicles of Persian history be read to him to help him fall asleep and "coincidentally" they read about an assassination plot that had happened five years earlier and how a Jew named Mordecai had exposed the plot and the king is suddenly wide awake as he asks, "what did we ever do to reward that guy?" The answer: nothing. Absolutely nothing. The king determines right then and there he's going to right that wrong, but he's not sure how best to show his appreciation and honor to the man who saved his life. It's early in the morning and his advisors aren't around so he asks if there's anyone in the court who can help advise him about this.

VV. 4-9

Haman was there extra early to ask the king's permission to hang Mordecai on the gallows he had built, but the king interrupts him with a question: what should be done to the man whom the king delights to honor? Haman is so full of himself that the first thing he thinks is: "whom would the king delight to honor more than me?" Who else is so worthy of honor but me? And so, convinced he's planning his own party, he shares his deepest fantasy with the king. Haman lusts for the title of king and the honor, the glory, the power that comes with that position, and so he replies, "treat me…I mean, whoever this man is, like a king. Give him the king's robe, the king's crown, and the king's horse, and have someone lead him through the city shouting out what a great man this man is. Haman's pride is so great, he makes everything about himself. Haman is centered on Haman.

It may be a cliché but it's true that "i" is at the center of pride and that's what pride does: it puts us at the center of the universe and tries to bend everything inward towards us. There is an old Latin phrase to describe this inward curve of the soul: incurvitus in se. Pride makes everything about us. Some people are more obvious about it. Have you ever known someone who dominates every conversation? They are so interesting in their own eyes that they can't imagine anyone else saying anything worth hearing. They take every conversation hostage and bend it towards themselves. Or have you ever complimented one person, "hey that's a nice outfit" or "hair looks good today" only to have someone else say, "what are you trying to say about me?" I didn't think I was trying to say anything about you. Listen, some people might be more obvious about it, but this prideful tendency to bend everything in towards ourselves is something we all struggle with. This inward curve of pride doesn't always take the form of bragging. Sometimes it takes the form of putting oneself down (maybe in the hope that others will puff them back up). Or it might take the form of withdrawing from others, not reaching out to others, because pride convinces them they're not good enough, they're inferior. Pride takes many shapes but it always has this inward curve, bending everything back in on ourselves.

At the core of pride is a wrong belief about our identity. Pride convinces us that our identity is wrapped up in what people think and say about us. Like Haman, pride isn't concerned with being great, it's concerned with people saying we're great. The Bible says that is a false belief. Our identity isn't based on what people say about us. Our worth isn't measured by whether people are impressed by us or not. Our identity is based on what God says about us, and God doesn't say He's impressed with us, He says He loves us with an everlasting love. That's SO much better! Our worth, our value, our significance isn't found in the marketplace of people's opinion, it's found in Christ. Nothing on earth can shake that. When our souls are secure in the love of Christ, we won't need to barter and broker our image in the eyes of others because we'll be secure that our identity isn't determined by others, it's determined by God. And we can live out of that security, out of our identity in Christ, freed from thinking that our identity and our significance comes from what people think or say about us.

Haman wants the reward he's planning for himself so bad he can taste it, but he's in for a surprise that's going to rock his world. Let's continue reading.

Vv. 10-12

I love the way the Bible is so understated. We are left to imagine the pain, shock, and humiliation that Haman feels as he has to lead the procession honoring Mordecai. The man Haman hoped to lift up high on a gallows, instead is sitting on the king's horse and Haman has to shout out his praise as they walk through the city.

Today is Palm Sunday and there's an interesting contrast between Haman's fantasy of being paraded through town on the king's horse wearing the king's robe and crown as a testimony to how great he was, and Jesus who also headed up a parade on a donkey, but as a testimony to his humility. The prophet Zechariah predicted the triumphal entry hundreds of years before it happened: behold your King comes to you, humble, and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zech 9:9) Jesus was great beyond words, but he wore the clothes of humility. Haman was small beyond words, but he wore the clothes of greatness. Jesus calls s as his followers to follow him into true greatness, the greatness that doesn't come from pride, it comes from humility.

Mordecai is a humble man. It didn't bother him that he wasn't acknowledged for saving the kings life all these years, and it didn't go to his head that now he was being publicly honored by the king. Look at verse 12: then Mordecai returned to the king's gate. When it was over he went back to work. Ok, that was nice, but let's move on. What Haman lusted for, Mordecai was indifferent to. He didn't live for people's honor, he had bigger things to live for.

One of the marks of humility is that we can take praise and honor in stride without it going to our heads. Someone can compliment us or praise us and we don't replay it in our heads over and over again. We don't start writing or believing our own press releases. It's not wrong to be praised. Enjoy it for a minute and then get on with life. Mordecai went back to the office. No big deal.

Haman, on the other hand, was devastated. He covers his head (a sign of humiliation, not humility) and mourns like someone just died - and his pride had died a thousand deaths. He left home that morning puffed up, he hurries home devastated. And I think the last two verses of this chapter are fascinating.

Vv. 13-14

It was only a few hours ago that Haman was bragging to his wife and friends about how great he was, and now he has to recount how humiliated he is. Pride goes before a fall, but it also goes before destruction. Listen to how different his wife and friends speak to him now. A few hours ago they counseled Haman to hang Mordecai on the gallows, now they are predicting Haman's doom before Mordecai. They see the handwriting on the wall, they see the iceberg looming in the dark waters: You've begun to fall before Mordecai, you will be destroyed.

There's some question about whether a giant ocean liner like the Titanic, when it sinks, if it can suck people on the water down with it. Mythbusters did an episode and determined that it can't, but they used a 20 foot boat for their experiment. One thing that is certainly true is that a massive ocean liner would produce so many air bubbles as it went under that it would completely aerate the water around it so that the water would lose it's buoyancy and someone on the surface would sink.

Haman's wife and friends are saying, you're going down Haman. You're caught in a vortex that will suck you under and completely destroy you and there's nothing you can do about it. They may not know it, but they're talking about the hand of God. Haman's pride has set itself against God and God is opposed to Haman - and God never loses. Pride goes before destruction and Haman who only a few hours ago thought he was on the fast track for greatness is now seeing his life sink before his eyes and there's absolutely nothing he can do about it. And that's the ominous undertone of the last verse, that as his wife and friends words are echoing in Haman's ears, the king's men come and hurry Haman to his final feast. All of a sudden this feast doesn't feel happy, it feels sinister. The iceberg is just ahead and Haman is just beginning to see its outlines.

Conclusion:

We can learn a valuable lesson from Haman. No one in this room is a Haman, but there is a Haman that lurks in all of our hearts and God wants to set us free from the dark grip of pride by rooting our hearts in His grip of love. I want to ask the Holy Spirit to do some searching in our hearts now. The inward curve of pride can be cultivated in us by people always praising us until we begin to believe we're pretty special, or it can be the result of feeling like we never measure up to people's expectations. Either way pride roots our identity in what others say and think about us. God wants to set us free from the downward spiral of promoting ourselves so that we can do what God created us to do: glorify Him. He is the source of all greatness, goodness, glory, holiness, and love. As we orbit around God, knowing His great love for us, knowing that He sees us as having great worth, knowing that He has called us to serve Him that becomes the greatness we desire, and we are set free from orbiting around ourselves, incurvitus in se.

You don't need pride to establish your identity or prove your worth. In Christ you are saved, redeemed, accepted, loved, forgiven, and adopted as God's precious son or daughter. That is your identity and it doesn't get any better than that. Let God set you free from the pride of Haman so that you can live for God's glory. That's the destiny God wants for you and me.

And if you're not a Christian, will you consider receiving this humble king as your Lord and Savior? It starts with humbly confessing that you are a sinner in need of a Savior. Admitting to God that you can't help yourself when it comes to salvation, you need God's help. As we close in prayer, if that's the cry of your heart, will you pray with me?