For Such a Time as This | October 18th, 2026

>> Welcome, morning fellowship. May I want to join us to be here with you all today singing songs and praises to Christ, our firm foundation, our solid rock to the one who truly is our all and all. Wouldn't that worship good today? I mean, we could just come here and do that and go home. I don't really need to preach after the lyrics of that song and after the passion with which you guys were praising God with it. That is worth showing up right there. And pretty, who relatively knew this this morning? Ben Parkinson and I'm one of what we call teaching pastors here at Fellowship. We have the privilege of coming alongside Mark and Justin and Brandon to teach and lead the church and the team oriented way that we do here. So if I don't have a chance to meet you yet and you have some time after the service, please come and say hi and reduce yourself. That'd be a huge blessing to me today. And I do want to start this morning before we get into the book of Esther just thanking so many of you for engaging with us as a church family in the Foster and Adoption Initiative that we just finished up this last weekend. I mean, I know it was a lot of communication over the last month about picking up cards and what do I do with them and what do I buy and where do I bring it and all those kind of things. And I know it was a ton of work for a lot of you, a ton of work for our staff team. Brock Dowdy, our local missions pastor spearhead with the missions team for our staff. I know it was a lot of communication, a lot of work, a lot of time, a lot of effort and energy. I know as one of the pastors here, what encouragement it has been to me to see so many of you take those cards and go and buy those gifts yourself

for these kids that have been thrust into a really hard situation, just their life stone to chaos in an instant. And then to see you take that and fill the plaza here on our Whistler Rock campus for those of you that came and may impact those packs for kids, for families, DCFS staff and workers that work so hard for our state to help facilitate the transition of these hard moments for some of the biological families that would love their kids back to trying to encourage in that way. If you ought to come and fill this plaza and pack those packs and write those meaningful notes to those families and kids and workers. And then, man yesterday, I got to go up to paragold in the northeast corner of the state and get to deliver those and see the looks on the faces of these kids and to get to meet and talk to some of the families. You get to pray with them knowing that so many of you were also doing that yesterday in 30 locations all over the state handing those out to people. Man, it's just a huge blessing. It's a huge blessing for me. It's a huge blessing for our church. And it's one of the ways that we are more than just a Sunday morning gathering that we are truly what Jesus called his body on the earth, right? That's what the church is, the body of Christ. Left here doing the kinds of things he did when he was here until he returned. And so I just want to thank you all for doing that with us, engaging that with us, for serving in that way. Man, just a really, really meaningful month for our church. In this morning, we are kicking off a series preaching through the book of Esther. If you want to join me there, if you have your Bibles with you today, of course, we'll have the verses on the screen if you want to follow along that way as well. That's the book of Esther in the Old Testament. You're looking for it. If you come across Ezra or Nehemiah, you're almost there.

Keep turning. Keep heading to the right and you'll get there. If you get to Job, man, which we actually preached this spring, looking at God's perspective on some of the hard things we struggle with and rest within our lives, you've gone too far. Back it up a little bit. It's right there in between those books. We're going to look at the book of Esther over the next six weeks together. If you're wondering why we decided to preach through this book this fall, we kicked off this year on Vision Sunday saying, "One of the main things we want to grow in is a church family. One of the main things that we want to develop deep in our walk with Jesus is to believe more and more the reality that God is able. God is able to do far more abundantly than all that we could ask or think. According to the power that's within us, that's our memory verse this month, Ephesians 3, I hope you're joining us in that. The God is able to do so much more than we could possibly imagine. And the book of Esther is a book that overwhelms us with that reality when you study it. We're going to see in this book how God is able to do a number of incredible things, how God's able to steer the heart of a king who doesn't even believe in him and yet he's going to orchestrate things to bring about the salvation of his people. Graciela God's able to thwart the plans of people who in selfish ways are out to do evil things for their own purposes like we'll see in the person of Haman in this book. Graciela God's able to position very ordinary people like Esther and Mordecai to do extraordinary things in his name, for his purposes, for his glory and to use them to save and rescue his people. And we're gonna see in this book how God's able to take

that which Satan intends for destruction and flip it completely on his head and use that very thing for the salvation of his people. Very picture of the cross of Jesus Christ. What Satan intended to wreck and to ruin the Messiah who came to save the world is the very thing God uses to save each and every one of us and bring us into relationship with him. Our God's able to do more than we could possibly think or imagine and we're gonna see that in the book of Esther as we preach through it over the next six weeks. And I also love preaching this book, coming right off the heels of preaching on the miracles of Jesus. Just like we did over the past month and a half because in preaching in the miracles of Jesus we reflected on the reality that God's able to do whatever he wants, right? Whenever he wants for our good and for his glory. No matter how impossible it seems to us God's able to do extraordinary things to recreate things that he created, to completely change things physically that he wants to, to raise people from the dead, to calm the waves, to make the lame walk, right? And these incredibly powerful ways to remind us that he's real, he exists even if we don't see him all the time, to remind us that he's God and we're not, he is the one who created all this, to show us at times even through a miracle

in one person's life. And that's really what we looked at a lot in that series, the spiritual deeper realities that are true for all of us whether he does a miracle in our life or not, right? That's what we saw. So I'm raised Lazarus from the dead and then say I'm the resurrection to life for all of you. He did a miracle in one man's life to show us, I'm gonna raise all of you from the dead one day to come and be with me in paradise for eternity. We saw him calm the wind in the waves in his disciples laws, but not really 'cause that was the important thing, it was powerful to see him calm the wind in the waves so that he could look at the disciples and say, see guys, if you believed I could do that, you would have understood why I was asleep in the boat during the waves, right? Jesus calmed the wind in the waves to show us why he can be calm in the wind and the waves. 'Cause he knows I'm in control of the chaos happening around you, I'm in control of these things you don't need to be afraid even if they don't change, right? We saw him heal a paralytic and forgive his sins to show the self-righteous scribes how their theology was messed up and saying, look, I'm gonna make this man walk to show you that I have forgiven his sins so that you'll believe whether I do a miracle in your life or not, your sins are forgiven. Your sins are forgiven through your faith in me.

So we saw in that series that the miracles are meant to show us the character of the God that we worshiped to help us trust in his power and love for us even more in the fallen broken things around us in our own lives, even if we don't see them change. Which is why I love preaching Esther right after that. 'Cause in this book, we're gonna see God do something just as miraculous, if not more, than what we saw in the miracles of Jesus. He's gonna rescue the entire nation of Israel wherever they are across 127 provinces in this kingdom of Persia at the time in the same day. It's crazy to see this miracle that he does for his people. Only he's gonna do it in a way that seems much more ordinary as we look at it to you and from a human perspective. What we're gonna see in this book really is that not only has God able to do miraculous things in miraculous ways for our good and for his glory like we saw in our last series, but he's also gonna show us that he's able to do miraculous things in very ordinary ways for our good and for his glory. And he's able to use very ordinary people like us to do it. Which I'm thankful for because that's much more the way that we experience the sovereign love of God in our lives, isn't it? And I don't know about you, but I haven't heard God's voice speak to me like Moses did at the burning bush. I haven't seen him part the Red Sea, the way that he did back in the book of Exodus.

He hasn't done those kind of miraculous things in my life personally, though the way that I experience his sovereign love in my life, the way that I experience the miracles that he does in my life, is in the way that he orchestrates things around me in the world around me to grow me and to change me for the better, to draw me closer to him, to help me let go of the idols that I'm clinging to Those are the miraculous things he does around me all the time that seem and feel very, very ordinary, and yet they are equally extraordinary, equally miraculous. And the Book of Esther highlights that in a unique way because God actually told the few books in the Bible where God's never mentioned. Do you know that? We're gonna preach this entire book over six weeks and you're never gonna see the name of God mentioned. You're never gonna see him show up and speak. You're never gonna hear anyone reference him at all. And yet you will not be able to deny he is all over this book. He's in this book. He's working through the events happening in this book. He is in control. He's sovereign. Only God could do it. We're gonna see the book of Esther. And yet he's never mentioned.

And I think that's important because quite honestly, that's how so much of us walk through our life with God. We don't see the things that we see in the scripture so many times and yet he's everywhere in our lives, working things in the details of our lives with his sovereign love in ways that if we look for it, if we believe what he's doing, we can't miss it. We're overwhelmed by it. And so I love that about this book. I also love that Esther is one of the parts of the Bible that reads like an epic novel. It reads like an incredible Broadway play. It has drama. It has danger. It has bad guys and good guys. It has tension. It has literary climax and resolution in the end. Yes, cliffhanger moments. One thing that's gonna frustrate you in this book is we're gonna preach these messages at times or we're gonna stop at the end of a message and you're gonna say, what happens next? Some of you that know the story won't say that, but for those of you that don't, you're gonna go home, you're gonna be tempted to read ahead and say, I don't know, I'm gonna say what happens to Esther here 'cause that was crazy. It has these cliffhanger moments as you walk through it, which is why a lot of times teachers teach the whole thing at one time because they want you to kind of see

and feel, hey, listen, I know it kind of feels weird to stop in the middle, so I'm just gonna tell you the whole thing and tell you some of the big picture points. But I think as we walk through it, as we preach through it and let you hang in the cliffhangerness of it and come back week after week to see what God's gonna do next. We'll be able to dive in a little bit deeper and see some of the things and the details of what God's doing that are really, really beautiful. So to give you a little bit of background to where this book falls in the history of the world and the history of God's people, the events of the book of Esther took place around 480 BC in the city of Susa, which is the capital of the kingdom of Persia at that time. So 480 years before Christ, okay? If you wanna wear that sits in the Old Testament history, this is after Assyria comes and kind of takes over the world and takes the 10 northern tribes of Israel into exile with them. And then this is even after Babylon conquers Assyria and becomes the empire that's ruling the known world at the time and takes the two southern tribes of Judah into exile with them. So the next kingdom to rise and to conquer Babylon and to take over the known empire world at the time was Persia. So that happens in this era. And that's where we find ourselves around 500 BC 480 BC. When the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great

conquered Babylon and everyone under its control. And one of the things Cyrus the Great does when he conquers is instead of like Assyria and instead of like Babylon saying, hey, we're gonna take you out of your lane to make you come live here, Cyrus the Great actually sends out an edict all over the empire saying, hey, listen, anyone that wants to return back to where they came from, feel free. He only goes back to where they live, feel free. Jewish people, no matter where you are on my province, you wanna go back to Jerusalem, you wanna rebuild the city, you wanna rebuild your temple, you wanna worship your God, feel free. You're still under my control, you're still under my empire, you should have to answer to me. But you're free to go do that, which is what we see in the Old Testament, right? Zerubbable takes a group of people back. And Ezra, Nehemiah take a group of people back and they begin to rebuild the city. We see those in those books of the Old Testament. But even though all the Jews were free to return to Jerusalem, no one was forcing them to go back. No one was making them leave where they were in return. They were also free to remain wherever they were living at the time and enjoying being a part of the Persian kingdom, wherever they liked, which is what a lot of them did. In fact, many Jewish people at this time, it made a pretty good life for themselves and the places where they were in this new empire of Persia.

A lot of them were comfortable. A lot of them had built up wealth. A lot of them had gotten used to figuring out how to worship the God of Israel without a temple. They've been doing it for at least 70 years if you were the southern tribes captured in the Babylon, hundreds of years if you were in the northern tribes taken before that. So they had learned how to worship the God of Israel without a temple, without the regular sacrifice they were used to doing without all of those things, they had figured out how to do that and learned how to do that. So although we might think to ourselves, oh man, they have a chance to go back and to live in Jerusalem and rebuild the temple and to do it, surely they're all gonna rush back. but not all of them did. We should be able to identify with this reality, as Americans in 2026 in our relationship with God, shouldn't we? I mean, after all, Jesus Christ has come and lived and dotted across for our sins and risen from the dead and told us he's going away to prepare a place for us in his father's kingdom, many ruins in my father's house. And he's promised us that one day, even if we die, we'll be resurrected to live with him, or when he returns, we'll just go to be with him in the air, and we will get to go and worship God in perfect unity, the creator of the universe, in the heavenly temple, that the tabernacle was patterned after,

in the heavenly temple, that the temple in Jerusalem was patterned after, this heavenly temple, where we're one with him, where we're in his presence, where there's no more suffering, no more crying, no more tears, we've been promised, our promised land, and this existence with him to worship God in perfection, one day. And yet, even though some of us, and some people around the world, man, they would love to get there, rush to get there, can't wait to get there, 'cause their circumstances down here feel pretty hard, and they are eager to get there. For a lot of us are being honest in this room, a lot of us, man, we know that's coming, and we're excited about that one day, but we're not in a rush to get there. We're okay enjoying the life that God's blessed with, down here, we're okay enjoying the grace he's given us. We figured out how to worship him and have a relationship with him, even though we're not in his presence, like we will be one day, even though our promised land is coming, we've learned and are okay with living here as strangers in a strange land, the New Testament calls us, as exiles on the earth, all right? That's what the New Testament calls believers in Jesus, citizens of heaven, ambassadors for Christ, left down here for a time to show the world around us what this kingdom's like, what's coming, what's on its way, what Jesus is gonna bring when he returns one day, and so we should be able to be sympathetic

to these people here living in the capital of Persia in Susa who had a chance to return, but didn't yet, and yet still are believers in God, the God of Israel, 'cause as we're gonna see in the opening chapter of Esther, on the surface at least, man, this capital city, it wasn't a bad place to live. It wasn't a bad place to be, there was opulence, there was wealth, there was leisure, there was a king who loved to be loved, and loved to be praised for being generous and kind, and lavishing on the people, all of these amazing blessings in his kingdom. Let's take a look at it with me, we'll just start off with the first nine verses, talk for a second, and then we'll finish the rest of the chapter together. And there are some names in here, you're gonna have to pray over me for, so we'll see how that goes, okay? So now in the days of Azerus, that's Azerus who reigned from India to Ethiopia, over 127 provinces, that's the Persian name for this king, by the way, in history, he's no more by his Greek name, Xerxes, so if you've ever heard of the Emperor Xerxes over the Persian Empire back in this era, that's who this is talking about. So in those days, when King Azerus sat on his royal throne in Susa, the capital. In the third year of his reign,

he gave a feast for all of his officials and servants, the army of Persia and media, and the nobles and governors of the provinces before him. While he showed the riches of his royal glory and the splendor and pomp of his greatness for many days, 180 days, get the eight to a six-month party for his nobles, right? That's not bad, okay? Says when these days were completed, after the six months that the king gave for all the people present in Susa, the citadel, both great and small, so now it's not just for his nobles, now he invites everyone living in the city, great and small, important, unimportant, rich and poor, everyone come for a week, for seven more days, it says, a feast lasting for seven days in the court of the garden of the king's palace, coming to my house, come on palace. This is the biggest supper club in world history probably, right? He invited them in. And there were white cotton curtains and violent hangings, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple and silver rods and marble pillars. Then listened to the opulence here, also couches of gold and silver on a mosaic pavement of porphyry and marble and mother of pearl and precious stones. I'm not sure if you're sitting on couches

of mother of pearl and gold and silver at home. That's some wealth, that's a different level that we're talking about here. Drinks were served in golden vessels, vessels of different kinds and the royal wine was lavished according to the bounty of the king. And listen to this, drinking was, according to this edict, there is no compulsion. That's the command he gave them. I want you to party like it's 1999, like there's no compulsion as much as you want. For the king had given orders to all the staff of his palace to do as each man desired. And Queen Vashti also- in the palace that belonged to king Azerus. I mean, who wouldn't want to live in a sea like that, right? That doesn't sound too bad at the end of the day where a king throws a six month feast for all his officials that culminates in a week long festival for everyone living in the sea that come over to his house personally and to be commanded by the king to do whatever they want, to eat whatever they want, to drink as much as they want with no compulsion. Whenever you think you might need to stop, keep going. That's what he commanded them to do. To kingdom at the height of its wealth, at the height of its opulence, giving people living under the freedom to do

whatever they want as much as they want. Now I can appreciate why a lot of the Jewish people didn't race home real fast to leave a place like that. And yet as we keep reading, we begin to see that this kingdom, like any kingdom that doesn't have its foundation, the God of love, is a kingdom that promises a kingdom of wealth and it promises a kingdom of pleasure and of freedom, but all that's built on a kingdom of inequality and oppression and fear. Now look at the rest of this chapter with me, verses 10 through 22. It says on the seventh day, when the heart of the king was married with wine, he commanded Mahuman and Bizta, Harbona, Bigtha, and Abigtha, Zethar and Sarkis, the seven eunuchs who served in the presence of King Ahazuras to bring Queen Vashti before the king with her royal crown, in order to show the peoples and the princes her beauty for she was lovely to look at. But Queen Vashti refused to come at the king's command, delivered by the eunuchs. At this, the king became enraged and his anger burned within him. Then the king said to the wise men who knew the times, for this is the king's procedure toward all who were versed in law and judgment, the men next to him, Bing, Karshina, and Shethar, Admothar, Tarshish, Mary's, Marcina, and Mimukin.

The seven princes of Persia and media who saw the king's face and sat first in the kingdom. He said, "According to the law, "what's to be done to Queen Vashti "because she's not performed the command "of King Ahazuras delivered by the eunuchs?" Mimukin said in the presence of the king and the officials, not only against the king as Queen Vashti done wrong, but also against all the officials and all the peoples who were in the provinces of King Ahazuras. For the queen's behavior will be made known to all women, causing them to look at their husbands with contempt. Since they will say, well King Ahazuras commanded Queen Vashti to be brought before him, and she did not come. This very day, the noble women of Persia and media who've heard of the queen's behavior will say, the same to all the king's officials. And there will be contempt and wrath and plenty. If it pleases the king, let a royal order go out from him and let it be written among the laws of the Persians and the Medes, so that it may not be repealed that Vashti is never again to come before King Ahazuras. And let the king give her royal position to another who's better than she. So when the decree made by the king is proclaimed throughout all this kingdom, for it's vast, all women will give honor to their husbands, high and low alike.

This advice pleased the king and the princes. And the king did, as Mimukin proposed, and he sent letters to all the royal provinces, to every province in its own script, and to every people in its own language, that every man be master in his own household and speak according to the language of his people. So we see in King Ahazuras, a king who on the outside appears generous, king on the outside appears kind. Like we said, notice his feast that he stems is for everyone great and small in the capital city. He appears like a man of the people in so many ways. And yet we also see, he's a king who's easily offended, isn't he? King who can make snap decisions based on emotion. King who treats his queen like a commodity instead of a person in his drunken state. He says, hey, it's hard to come and show off her beauty to everyone here in that moment. She's a thing to me that I can parade around whenever I like. A king who isn't afraid to use fear to control the people under his rule. Now the kingdom he's created and rules and reigns over, it looks good on the outside, but it's driven by things that wreak havoc under the surface. Well, it's freedom for some, but it's not freedom for everyone. It's not freedom for the queen in this moment.

You can hear the fear of even the men in his circle in that moment, right? Like, King, if we don't handle this the right way, stuff's gonna get out of hand. He says, if our wives hear the queen did to you, they're gonna do the same to us. They're like, King, as ever, you don't understand. Like, you're about to set off 127 provinces of, like, it's gonna get bad. Like, you thought the Me Too movement was big. This is gonna be Me Too on a global scale, right? That's what they're saying in fear to, in fact, It's gonna get out of control if you don't do something about this. So we see promises freedom, but it's an unequal freedom, isn't it? It's a pleasure, but it's a fragile pleasure. The world we live in, if we're being honest, can be the same way sometimes, can it? We live in a nation that's one of the major superpowers in the world right now. Our economy continues to grow and increase in wealth, even in the face of all kinds of setbacks that should slow it down. We have democracy, we have freedom, we have opportunity, we have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And yet apart from trusting in the sovereign hand of a loving God, it feels fragile, doesn't it? We feel how fragile it is. The market could take off any day or it could crash and wipe out everything. The wars we're waging could end up bringing new stability

to parts of the world that have never known before or it could descend into complete chaos. We live in a country that promises equality and opportunity for all and yet in certain pockets and certain places of it can be supported and driven by certain kinds of oppression and inequality and fear. Now the gaps between the haves and the haves not keeps growing and accelerating and things feel uncertain. Anxiety is in an all time high, even though prosperity is also at an all time high. So many of us live lives like what we see here in the Book of Esther that have a certain look on the outside, look great on the outside, but are undergirded with this sense of fear, this underbelly of anxiety and insecurity. Fear that our boss could bless our lives or ruin our lives tomorrow. Fear that the people who have power over us could change their minds on a whim like the king here in the Book of Esther and throw our lives into complete turmoil. No, we live in a country and in a world that has wealth and pleasure and freedom and yet also can be riddled with the same kind of inequality and oppression and fear. And you will love about our God and the scriptures as you read them as he promises a better kingdom, doesn't he? No matter what country we live in, he promises a kingdom that has all the upside of the kingdom of this world that we just talked about

and yet none of the downside. The kingdom of God also promises a kingdom of wealth and a pleasure and a freedom. But here's the beauty of God's kingdom. God's kingdom comes with and through a kingdom of equality, not inequality, salvation, not oppression and the kind of unconditional love that actually casts out all of our fears. What do I mean by that? Well, what I mean is that God also promises us riches in his kingdom, but there are riches that are far more valuable than gold and silver. Look at Ephesians 1-7 with me. It says in him, meaning Christ, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace. Think about it, we're promised riches by our king as well, but not the kind of wealth that comes and goes, not a kind of wealth that doesn't truly satisfy. We're given the riches of his unlimited grace, of the king of the universe as much as you want. We're given unlimited forgiveness by the king of the universe and limited redemption. We're given by him for free the kinds of things that the wealthiest people in the world would trade billions of dollars to have in the relationships with the people they care about. Forgiveness, connection, communion, redemption. There's so many people who would trade everything they own

to have that in the meaningful relationship. We have it in the most meaningful relationship that exists in the universe, the only relationship that will last for all of eternity. No, we're promised pleasure in this kingdom of God, but not a pleasure that comes and goes, not a pleasure that's temporary or can disappear because it depends somehow on the fleeting reality of earthly wealth. No, look at Psalm 1611, he says, you make known to me the path of life. In your presence, there's fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forever more. God promises the pleasure that comes from being in the presence of an eternal perfect being who loves us. And what's amazing about that is it's absolutely free to everyone and free to anyone who just wants to take the time to spend time in it. And it does never fade, it's eternal, it never goes away. Not only that, but God says it's also a kingdom of freedom. Look at Galatians 513, it says, for you were called to freedom, brothers, only don't use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. God says, I've given you all the freedom that you want in my kingdom as well, only whereas king has zerus commands this subject to drink with no compulsion, to use it as an opportunity for the flesh, to do whatever you want in your flesh,

to try and satisfy your flesh. it's actually the love of Christ that compels us. That's our compulsion and the freedom that we have in Him to love as much as we want. The poor sells out as much as we want. Which instead of doing something like drinking with no compulsion that ruins our lives and allows those around us, actually we'll bless us and bless those around us as we're free to love them 'cause we're gonna have to be afraid of what loving them means for us. God promises us, I'll take care of you. I'll provide for you. I love you, I'm gonna be there for you. You can love people extravagantly and sacrificially as much as you want and I will keep filling up what you need to keep doing that. You can love with no compulsion, it's complete freedom in the things that are actually a blessing in our lives. And here's the beauty of God's kingdom fellowship. It promises a better wealth and a better pleasure and a better freedom in the world without all the underlying problems. Without all the inequality and oppression and fear. No, instead of inequality, God's kingdom he says is built on complete equality, Galatians 3.28. It says in my kingdom, there's neither Jew nor Greek, whether you're one of my original people

that's a descent of Abraham or not, you're equal in the kingdom of God. There's either slave nor freedom. No matter what the earth tells you your position is here compared to other people, whether you're a servant of theirs or not, you're completely equal in my eyes in the kingdom of God. There's no male or female, no matter how patriarchal the society you live in is, or how famous the society you live in is. No matter what that means in my kingdom, you are equally valuable, you are equal to me. I can use you for my purposes in equal and meaningful ways. In God's kingdom, we don't have to position ourselves above others to get the riches of his grace. So the world tells us, you gotta find a way to position yourself above other people to get the riches of this world, to have more riches than they do to be able to enjoy it. And yet God says you don't have to do that in my kingdom. Instead of a kingdom built on oppressing others, God's kingdom is a kingdom built on saving others, rescuing others, blessing others. Look at John 3, 16 and 17. Jesus says for God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever should believe in him should not perish, but have eternal life. And then he goes on in verse 17 to say, for God did not send his son into the world

to condemn the world, but an order that the world might be saved through him, he said, I come to oppress you. I came to rescue you, I didn't come to hold you down. I came to exalt you and to make you a fellow heir to the kingdom of heaven, a fellow brother and sister in Christ to buy kingdom that I'm going to bring. God didn't come from heaven to earth to exalt himself through oppressing us. He came in the person of Jesus Christ to exalt himself by saving us, saving us from our sins, saving us from ourselves. And finally, where the kingdom of this world uses fear to control people under its rule, 1 John 4 tells us that God's kingdom is a kingdom of unconditional love. And he goes on to say in 1 John 4, 18, exactly how those two work together. He says, my overwhelming unconditional love for you is what actually casts out all the fear you have in your heart. He says, there's no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. He says, the more you understand how much I love you, the less you'll be afraid of the things you're scared of. The more you dwell on and wrestle with and believe that everything that I'm asking you to walk through is my perfect love for you. I see you, I know you, I love you, I'm loving on you.

You don't have to be afraid. You're not coming home to be with me until I'm ready for you to come home. Don't worry. And guess what, when it's time to come home, there's nothing you can do to stop us, don't worry. And all the things that happen in between, I'm loving you in those things, so don't worry. Perfect love casts out fear. When we really believe it's him loving us, we don't have to be afraid. This kingdom of Persia that ruled the world some 2,500 years ago promised wealth and pleasure and freedom. But it came at the cost of inequality and oppression and fear, God's kingdom. There's been available to the world since creation. Way further back than the kingdom of Persia promises better riches, a better pleasure and a more fulfilling freedom. Yet because the cost of God's kingdom is the blood of Jesus Christ, that's what he paid for it with on the cross. Instead of the majority of us having to pay for the blessings of the few like the kingdom of the world, Jesus' sacrifice also blesses us with true equality, overwhelming salvation and the freedom from fear. And the amazing thing about what God did to Esther and Mordecai in the kingdom of Persia some 2,500 years ago that we're gonna see as we walked through this story from history

is that not only is our God able to create this incredible other worldly kingdom that gives us better blessings than the world without any of the downside, rescue people from one kingdom into the other, to move people from the kingdom of fear and oppression and equality into his kingdom of equality and salvation and love. He can use you right where he has you, right where he's positioned you by his sovereign hand to help people move from one to the other to show them the beauty of his kingdom, to bring it to the forefront and the world in real and meaningful ways just like we did this last weekend. Listen, what we did this last weekend, showing up and telling these foster children, these families, and these DCF workers, these biological families, God sees you, God loves you. Here's a little token of something just to say he sees you and he loves you. You're not alone. You're not unworthy. You're not abandoned. That is us bringing this kingdom into the world around us. That is us showing the world around us, the difference between the two and he can use you to do that right where you are. We're calling this series for such a time as this. Not only because that's what Mordecai is going to say to Esther to try to motivate her to use the position God's put her in to save her people, even at great risk to her own life later in this book, but we're calling it for such a time as this because God's put all of us in the jobs we're in, all of us in the neighborhoods we're in, all of us in the schools we're in, all of us in the social circles that we're in for such a time as this. Queen Vashti would not have done what Esther's going to do to rescue God's people for all the ways that the king is wrong and that we don't know if Vashti was wrong or if she was right for not coming or all those kind of things. God kind of leaves that stuff up for us to talk about wonder about, you know, whatever it is, the reality is God used that moment to move her out of that place because Queen Vashti was not going to rescue God's people the way we're going to see Esther and Mordecai rescue God's people. His sovereign hand had to move her out to make room in space for the king to fall in love with Esther and move her in. In the same way fellowship, it's no mistake how God orchestrates the events of your life and puts you in the place that you're in no matter how big, no matter how small, no matter how significant it feels, no matter how insignificant it feels to help the people around you experience the blessings of his kingdom. For such a time as this in 2026 in Central Arkansas right now to help the people around you experience the riches

of his glorious grace. This surpasses all the fleeting joy of gold and silver to help the people around you experience eternal pleasure of spending time in the presence of God in the here and now they don't have to wait until they're actually in this presence. They can begin to experience the joy of it now. You can show them the joy of the freedom that you have in Christ to love others around you even at great expense to yourself because you believe he loves you and will take care of you and you can show them the joy of that, the joy that giving is better than receiving and they can experience it for themselves and taste of the Lord and see that he is good. God has you right where he has you for such a time as this to treat the people around you with equality even though the world would love to treat you with any quality. To rescue them where you can share with them the joy of salvation of God in Christ and to continue to tell them and show them how much God loves them and to keep telling it to them keep telling them about his love for them until they begin to believe it and they begin to see for what it is and it begins to eradicate the fear they live with in their hearts. He can use you to do that in people's lives for such a time as this. I hope if we walk through this book you don't just think of it as something really cool God did 2,500 years ago. I hope you see this something that he still does each and every day and he's doing around you each and every day and he wants to use you for as well. Would you pray with me? Have you finally come before you? We thank you so much for your words to us. God we thank you and praise you that not only have you done these things throughout history and you and your wisdom and providence have written them down for us to read and to see and to reflect on but God that you're still doing these things. That you wrote down what you did through Esther and Mordecai, do Haman, do King Lazarus, do all of it Lord so that we can understand that you're still doing that today. You're doing that in and through us. You're doing that all around us and you can use us. You're able to use us. No matter how unworthy we feel you're able to use us. No matter how unworthy we feel you're able to use us. No matter what mistakes we've made in our lives that have put us where we are. That's also you putting us where we are for your purposes for such a time as this and you can use us. God I beg you we would be a church that so believes that you're able to do that we would walk out with. Lord in a way that begins to show the world the beauty of your kingdom. A kingdom that's coming one day when you return,

but a kingdom that they can experience in the here and now. And these little embassies that we set up in our presence as ambassadors of yours on the earth. Lord, I beg you, you would use this in that way, in your name and Amen. - Thanks again for listening to the Word of God. We are blessed to reach you throughout the week through whatever platform you're listening on. If you're needing prayer or you want to talk to someone about your walk with Jesus, reach out to us at fellowshipar.com/contact. Have a great week. (upbeat music)