When Life Looks Nothing Like Your Plan

No, no, no, no, no. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Hey, we have something special to celebrate today at 45 Life.Church locations. Actually, 46. Oh. We're celebrating over 1,500 people coming forward to say Jesus is Lord of my life, being baptized to every single one of you. Congratulations. A little love to just a few names I'll shout out because every single one of you matter. Wyatt and Blake, two teenage boys in West Palm Beach. Congratulations. Paris from Life.Church in McKinney, Texas. Nathaniel from Life.Church in Lenexa, Kansas. We celebrate every single one of you, the grace of Jesus in your life, buried in a watery grave, exploding out with new life in Christ. Congratulations to all of you. And then, if you heard what I was alluding to, not 45, but 46, amazing news this weekend.

Because of the faithfulness of God through you, you inviting like crazy, you giving like crazy, this weekend we are opening up the 46 location completely debt-free, the second one, in Nebraska, under the leadership of Pastor Tommy Stegmeyer and some amazing people. We are launching Life.Church in Papillion, Nebraska. We are praying for you, believing for God's work in and through you. We thank God for every single one of you that God brings to our new location. You are here not by accident, but by the divine providence of God. And we give God praise for all the lives that are gonna be changed in Jesus' name. Everybody said amen and amen. Today we're starting a brand new message series from the Old Testament book of the Bible called Esther. Get ready. 10 chapters, 167 verses, and there is one specific quality that sets this book apart from every other book of the Bible. Do you know what it is? You ready? In the book of Esther, the only book in all the Bible, God's name is never mentioned once. Mind-blowing, not one single time. And yet, even though his name is never mentioned once, our good God is the main character of the book of Esther

and we'll see his fingerprints on every single page. Why? Because sometimes the places where God seems hardest to find are the very places he's most at work. We're gonna see that all through this book. Today what we're gonna do is we're gonna lay a foundation. If you're ready for that, say, I'm ready. Are you ready? We got lots of details, lots of names. If you're not familiar with the book, I'm gonna introduce you to the starting lineup. First of all, we have introduced to us early on is King Xerxes, the most powerful man in the world. And if you don't know it, he throws the biggest parties in the world. Massive parties, we're gonna see that. Then we have the queen, his wife, Queen Vashti. Now, if you say, Craig, you said Vashti wrong, I actually looked it up in four different places and I found four different ways to pronounce it. So I'm just gonna say it like I mean it. Vashti, Vashti, Vashti, whatever, Queen Vashti. She was beautiful and she was very, very bold. She didn't like to be objectified and so she actually was bold enough to tell King Xerxes, no. Then we have Esther, the book is named after Esther. She was a Jewish orphan. Obviously she lost her parents. She was living a very ordinary life

and she was being raised by her cousin, Mordecai. Mordecai raised her, loved her as if she were his own daughter and was the biggest influence in her life. For context in this time, God's people were not home anymore. If you remember, we've talked about this in other message series. Babylon had conquered the Jewish people and so Esther and the Jewish people, her people were in exile. So if you can imagine, we've got Esther and her cousin Mordecai and all the Jewish people in this place had never actually seen Jerusalem. So if you can imagine, they're doing their best to honor God in a foreign culture under a pagan king. It's kind of like being a Christian in a way. world that doesn't represent or respect Christianity. They're trying to honor God under a pagan king. They've got no control, no influence, and sometimes they're wondering, where is God? If any of you are watching today and there's something going on in your life that you don't understand, why did God allow this? God, why am I going through this? I'm trying to serve you faithfully and I don't understand this. Many of the people, God's people at the time, were asking those same questions.

Even though God's name wasn't on the page, he was still working in the story. And I wanna speak to those of you who feel like God may be distant, God may be absent, God may not be working because you can't see him, and show you the principle today that just because God feels silent doesn't mean he's absent. Would you pray with me today? Father, we ask that by the power of the preaching of your word and the work of your Holy Spirit that you would conform us to the image of Christ, bring comfort to those that are hurting, hope and healing to those who need it. And we believe, God, that your word, your power, your presence is gonna do a work in all of us today. We ask it believing by faith. You'll speak to us in Jesus' name. And everybody said. Amen. Let's try it again. And everybody said. Amen. Very good, type it in the comment section, amen, amen. Let's get into it. The story starts with King Xerxes throwing this big party. Anybody know how long his party lasted? The answer is six months long.

He threw a six-month-long party showing off his wealth. Could you say he might be a little bit insecure? After he throws this six-month-long party, kind of for the important wealthy people, then he throws another seven-day party for everybody, and his wife looks on and says, you think you can throw a party? I'm gonna throw one too. And so Queen Vashti throws a separate banquet for all of the women around, and our text tells us this in Esther 1, verse 10 and 11. On the seventh day, when King Xerxes was in high spirits from wine. Let's pause there. In the Hebrew language, the Hebrew words translated into high spirit from wine literally mean he was wasted. That's what it means in the Hebrew language. So on the seventh day, he was wasted from drinking too much. He commanded the seven eunuchs who served him to bring before him Queen Vashti, wearing her royal crown in order to display her beauty to the people and nobles, for she was lovely to look at. So here we have the king. He's drunk, and he wants to show off his woman. So he says, bring her to me, not for conversation, not to get her advice on something, but so a room full of drunken men could gawk at her. This was not honoring. She was being displayed, and she didn't like it.

Good for her. What she did was very, very bold because she didn't tell the king, ain't happening. Verse 12, this is what the Bible says. But when the attendants delivered the king's command, Queen Vashti refused to come, refused to come. And then the Bible says, the king became furious and burned with anger. You can imagine he's pretty full of himself, the most powerful man in the world. He's trying to show off, and he gets told, no, he's rejected, boom, shot to his pride. Now, the advisors to the king were panicking because the queen just told the king, no go. And they're thinking, if this gets out, all the other women in the empire are gonna start telling their husbands no too. So we gotta shut this down. They say, king, you gotta put a stop to this. And so he agrees to banish Queen Vashti, essentially like divorce her almost even more so. He banishes her, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the queen's role is open. Are you tracking with me? We've covered a lot. So we've got one insecure king, we've got one drunken decision, and now we have an Old Testament soap opera right at our hands. So they're like, okay, we gotta fill the queen's spot.

So they go and do this kingdom-wide search to find someone to be the new queen. And at first glance, that kind of sounds like a fairy tale. It's anything but a fairy tale. Basically, this is a beauty contest to go. Oh, and assemble the most beautiful women who didn't sign up for this job. The most beautiful women are taken against their will to the palace at the pleasure of the king. Human trafficking is close, right? One of them is this Jewish orphan named Esther. And so you could just imagine, here's a young girl who already lost her parents. She's got no money, no connections, no royal background, and she's got her cousin, a father figure, Mordecai, who's the only stable thing in her life. And so she's swept up with all these other girls taken against her will into the palace. And here's what the Bible says. There's one word I want you to notice that's important. When the king's order and edict had been proclaimed, many young women were brought to the citadels of Susa and Esther was also taken to the king's palace. That word taken is very, very, very important. She did not choose this, she was taken there. So let's slow it down. She's Jewish in a Persian palace. The Persian people hated the Jews. And so she's trying to keep this a secret and Mordecai tells her,

don't tell anybody about your Jewish heritage because we wanna keep that secret for your own safety. So if you can imagine one day there's a young girl, she's doing whatever she does with her friends, living with Mordecai, and she's taken out of her ordinary life inside the most powerful palace in the world, hiding her true identity because if they know who she is, her life could be in danger. Then if you read the story, there's a lot of it, so I'm gonna skip over some and kind of give you the details. These women, they undergo 12 months of mandatory beauty treatments. Now some of you are going, okay, 12 months at the spa, okay. It sounds fun and might be until they wax your eyebrows. Just saying, you say, Craig, how do you know that? Well, one time I did go to get my hair cut and the person cutting my hair said, your eyebrows are a problem. She put this thing on my eyebrows, ripped them off. I said, from now on, I will do them myself. I did them myself. I had a little eyebrow cutter. I took the guard off because it wouldn't get them short enough. I trimmed them all the way off one time right before I preached. If you don't believe me, I had the picture to prove it.

So now someone else does my eyebrows. A year long of beauty treatments. And this sounds fun, but it's not because they're actually objectifying these precious women. A year later, they all are presented to the king. And if he likes them, if he likes Esther, he'll call her back. If not, she's just gonna be another one of the women in his harem. It's kind of like a historic version of the bachelor, king's edition, against their will. Verse 17 of chapter two says this. Now, when the king saw her, he was attracted to Esther more than any of the other women, and she won his favor and approval. So what did the king do? He set a royal crown on her head and made Esther queen instead of Vashti. Amazing, crazy story. Crazy, crazy, crazy. A Jewish orphan, probably in her late teens, has a crown on her head. A year ago, she was a nobody. And now she's the queen of an entire empire. You might think that's incredible, except she didn't choose this. She didn't ask for it. She was taken against her will, and this was not what she had planned for her life. Long setup for me to ask you the question,

is there anyone here or online where your life has not gone according to your plan? Raise your hand. You can type in the comments section, my life has not gone according to plan. It's true for all of us. And I don't know what it would be for you, but you had some kind of hope for your life. I hoped to graduate and go to this school, and you didn't get it, or get out and get this kind of job, and it didn't work out, or you had the job and you lost a job, or you were gonna marry this kind of person, you didn't get married when you thought you would, or you did get married, and the person wasn't who you thought they were, and you thought you were gonna have this many kids, and you couldn't have one, and then you had a couple, and one of them didn't go the way you wanted them to go, and you thought you'd be able to be generous, and you can barely pay your bills, and you thought you'd be healthy, and you're not healthy, and you thought you'd be with somebody, and you lost that. somebody, you wake up one day and go, God, where are you? This isn't what I had planned.

You had this whole thing the way you wanted it. You could see what your life was supposed to look like and life changed without asking your permission. And so a lot of us, if we're honest, we'd say right now, like, I am not living plan A. Some of you would say, I'm not living plan B. I'm on plan Q, part two. And I'm not sure where this is going. Esther was not living the life she planned. And she didn't know it in the same way you may not know it. But even though she didn't know it, God was positioning her for a purpose. In the same way you may not know it, you're in a place that you didn't wanna be, but God can even work in the things that you didn't choose to bring about something that he would purpose. She wasn't in the palace for her own comfort. Now I'm the queen. She was in the palace for God's purposes that she didn't even know at this point. She's living a life she didn't plan. If you are there today, maybe there's something you don't like. It's different than what you wanted. I wanna tell you this, I want you to feel it and believe it. God can use the very thing you'd never choose. That's how good he is. And it's not because every painful thing in your life was God's plan, but it's because nothing is beyond God's purpose and redemption.

He is a good God who's working in all things to bring about good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose. She wasn't in the palace for her own comfort. God positioned her there for a purpose. So you didn't want it. You didn't choose the breakup. Of course you didn't. You didn't choose to lose your job. Of course you didn't. You didn't choose the bad diagnosis. Of course you didn't. You didn't choose to be in a place that you didn't wanna be. You didn't choose to lose the person that you loved. Life changed without your permission and God might feel distant or absent. Remember, even if God feels absent, it doesn't mean he's not working. Even though his name wasn't on the page, his power was in every single moment. He's with you. He's with you. He's with you. He's with you. He's with you. He's with you. In the story, there's this little detail that's really easy to miss. I'm gonna set it up for you today

and you're gonna have to come back to see the power in it. In the same way, there are some details, perhaps in your life today, that are very easy to miss. And you may not see the purpose in that detail until you see God's provision in the future. Mordecai raised Esther and she was taken away from him. He didn't get bitter, he didn't get drunk. He actually did his job and sat outside the palace gate. He would stay at the gate as close as they would let him to her. Verse 21 of chapter two tells us this. During the time Mordecai was sitting at the king's gate, two of the king's officers conspired to assassinate King Xerxes. So he's just sitting there kind of waiting close to her and he overhears, hey, two guys, we're gonna kill the king. But Mordecai found out about the plot and told Queen Esther, who in turn reported it to the king, giving credit to Mordecai. And when the report was investigated and found to be true, uh-oh, the two officials were impaled on poles. And all this is recorded in the book of Annals. Whenever you're talking about being impaled, make sure you say Annals. Just saying, two Ns, I've practiced it. Years ago, I called it Annals. Oh, Lord, God help me. They were impaled and it's recorded in the book of Annals

in the presence of the king. So if you're tracking with me, Mordecai the cousin just so happens to be at the gate and just so happens to hear the story and just so happens to report it to Esther. who just so happens to save the king, and the king's life is saved, and Esther gives him credit, and it gets recorded in the official record book. And then nothing happens. He saves the king and there is no reward, no promotion, no recognition, no acknowledgement. Mordecai does the right thing, and the next day he's sitting at the same gate with the same ordinary life, doing the same job that wasn't that meaningful to him before. And some of you may feel that way. You're doing the right thing, and it seems like nothing is happening. He did the right thing, and no one noticed, and that detail just sits there for four chapters or so, or so it seems. And you gotta come back to find out what happens, or you can read ahead, but I hope you at least come back as well. I want you to notice this. The first two chapters of the book we've looked at today, kind of an overview, and none of it looks like God is involved anywhere.

It looks like ordinary life. Maybe like your week this week. No miracles, no burning bush, no voice from heaven that sounds like Morgan Freeman. Yeah. Just ordinary life. It's ordinary life. But what if that's exactly where God works the most? Not only in the miracles, but also in the ordinary moments. Not only in what gets noticed, but also in what seems forgotten. God's name wasn't on the page. But his presence was in every single moment, every single activity. And so let's review. We're building a foundation. We're gonna build on it week after week. The queen refuses to be paraded and objectified. Just so happens to stand up to the king and say, you can probably imagine, she probably was used over and over again. And one day she just so happens to say, that's enough. Can't do that. It just so happens, the advisors say, you gotta get rid of her. Just so happens, the king listens to their advice. It just so happens, he banishes the queen. And it just so happens, the throne opens. It just so happens, they do a kingdom-wide search.

And it just so happens, Esther, the Jewish orphan, is one of them who's selected after a year-long beauty treatment. And it just so happens, the king's heart moves toward her. It just so happens, she finds favor. And it just so happens, this ordinary Jewish girl becomes the queen. It just so happens that her cousin Mordecai overhears this plot. It just so happens, he's got access to the queen. And he tells her, and it just so happens that his one act saves the king's life. And his deed gets recorded in the Book of Annals. And it's apparently forgotten. And none of this is miraculous. And none of it is meaningless. Theologians call this providence. The definition for providence is this, it's when God uses ordinary moments to bring about his supernatural will. It's when God uses just the thing that you didn't think was a big deal. And a lot of people didn't even notice. But years later, when you look back to that moment, you say, oh, God was actually in the very thing that I didn't understand. You see, because sometimes the places where God seems the hardest to find are the places where God is actually working the most. And the reason I'm trying to build this foundation

is because I want you to see the principle. Some of you right now, you're in a place you didn't choose. That this was not your plan. And sometimes you do the very same thing I do, which I look around and going, God, I'm being faithful, and why are you allowing this? Where are you? And sometimes you start to wonder, does God even notice? If he's allowing us, does he even care? You're doing the right thing, you're trying, you're serving faithfully, you're giving when you can, you're praying, you're seeking God in his word, you're working hard, you're being faithful, and nobody notices. Faithfulness is never wasted. Faithfulness is never wasted. What may be unnoticed by people is recorded by God. I want you to feel this right now. God knows the cries of your heart. Your faithfulness isn't wasted. And God is often working the most in the things that don't make any sense to you. Random example, I've told this before, but it's so personal to me and so powerful. My dad played minor league pro baseball, almost kind of made it all the way, and so everything to him was baseball. My whole life was baseball, baseball, baseball. If I would preach a good sermon, he'd say, that's a fastball down the middle.

Or he'd say, hit that one out in the park. It was never like a good sermon. He didn't know how to say good sermon. He said, that sermon has some heat on it. So what'd he say? So I'm gonna be a pro baseball player. It's pretty good. I went to a batting cage before I was supposed to pitch in the championship game, took one inside, smashed my hand, couldn't pitch the next day. God, why would you let this happen to me? God, where are you? You've been there. This was my plan, now I couldn't do this. It's the weirdest thing. I've never been afraid. I was afraid to get back in the box. I was just afraid. I'm supposed to be, I'm not supposed to be afraid. Transferred to a new school, took up tennis in the fall, just because I like this person of the opposite sex to play tennis. And just decided to play that, and then I played baseball later. I just somehow happened to make the team, number six on the team, and I was afraid to bat, so I thought I'll take a year off of baseball. Our little team, I was number six, ended up winning the state championship.

I got a little bit better. The next year I came back in the fall, and I ended up, somehow they graduated, I ended up playing number one. If I'm afraid, I'm gonna just stay with tennis, which led me to go to a school I would never go to, where I fell deep into sin, which led me to call on the name of Jesus, which saved and changed my life, which led me to meet Amy, who was the answered prayer that I've been praying for, which led me to stay in Oklahoma City when I got a better job offer somewhere else, because I wasn't gonna leave her, which led me to the, yeah. And that wasn't even Amy, for those of you that are wondering. That's somebody else. That's Amy's friend, to be honest with you. And that led me to First United Methodist Church, where Pastor Nick became a spiritual father and helped me get into ministry, and then they hoped one day that I might take over that church, but I actually got rejected for ordination. True story. Where are you, God? Which redirected my step-sum, so I ended up starting Life.Church through some things that didn't go as planned. And so here I am today,

preaching about a book of the Bible where God's name doesn't appear, but His presence and power is everywhere. And I can tell you firsthand, if life had gone according to my plan, I would not be living God's plan for my life today. Whoo! And so I hope you sense that God's working in your life too. Think about Esther. She lost her parents, she lost her home, she lost her freedom. The whole time, she thought life is falling apart. Where is God? But God was quietly putting all the pieces together. And He wasn't just preparing a queen. He was preparing her to save His people. I just gave a little bit away. You don't even have to read ahead, but I'm just kind of giving it away. So if you're in a chapter of your life right now that feels confusing or maybe a little bit out of control and you can't see what God is doing and you don't feel His presence, you don't hear His voice, just because He's silent doesn't mean He's absent. Sometimes He's working where you just can't see Him yet. I want you to hear me. It's the same God who put that orphan on the throne. It's the same God who is with you right where you are.

are, and you may not see Him yet, and you may not feel Him, but keep trusting Him, keep being faithful, keep crying out to Him, keep reading His Word, keep living His Word, because faithfulness is not wasted. And one day you'll discover that God, you thought was absent, He was working all along. That is our good God. And that's part one of Vester, and it even gets better. Father, we pray in the name of Jesus that the power of your Holy Spirit would do a healing work in the lives of those who need it today. Church, as you're praying, and those of you, even around the world online, if your life hasn't gone as planned, and you're in one of those spots right now where you really need the power and the presence of God, would you just lift up your hand right now, lift them up, lift them up. Let's do this, I'm gonna change my pace right here. Stop, open your eyes. Open your eyes, open your eyes. What I wanna do is, if you're okay, would you just do that again? If you need prayer today, would you just lift up your hands publicly? Beautiful, lift them up. What I want you to do is, if you're around somebody right now with their hand lifted up, just put your, and I'm gonna tell you why I'm doing this, is because we are not a big church,

we're a small church that cares for the people sitting next to us, okay? We're not gonna just come in and go out, we're gonna be loving on each other. So let's try it one more time. You need prayer, lift your hand high. If there's a hand lifted up near you, just reach out near them, just kind of appropriately. Not weird, no weird, no weird, just appropriately. Just touch them right now. If you're with someone you know and trust, you can put your arm around them and pray for them, pray with me. Pray for me too, because I got my hand up. Just pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that your presence would reveal yourself to those who need you now. God, to those who need comfort, be their comforter. God, to those who need peace, be their peace. God, to those with anxiety, we cast our anxiety on you because you care for us. God, for those that need physical healing, we speak the name of the great physician, Jesus, our healer, and believe that by the stripes of Jesus, we are healed. God, for those who need provision, you're our Jehovah-Jireh. God, you are our provider, meet their needs. God, for those who are alone, I pray that a hand on their shoulder right now would communicate your love and our love

and show someone they are not alone. God, by the power of your Holy Spirit, you know every need here. Would you meet those needs? God, even though we may not see you on the page, we know you're present in our story. We look to you, oh God, and believe that you hear our prayers and the cries of our hearts and you'll move in the lives of every person we pray for today, in Jesus' name. Keep praying today. You can take your hands back and put them in your lap or wherever feels natural. Nobody looking around. All right, let me talk to one more group of people. Just stay in the attitude of prayer. For some of you, God has always felt distant. And I'm gonna tell you why. It's because you don't know him yet. And I'm gonna tell you again, God is drawing you. You're not here by accident. If you feel a pull toward him, a tug toward him, that is the Holy Spirit of God drawing you to him. He's patient. He wants you to know him as he knows and loves you. Let me tell you about how good he is. Scripture tells us, for God so loved the world that he sent his one and only son, Jesus. Who is Jesus? He is the son of God who was without sin,

who died on a cross for the forgiveness of our sins. When Jesus died, his disciples looked on and said, where's God? And just because they didn't see it didn't mean God wasn't working. Jesus was doing whatever he did for those three days, kicking the devil, taking names. On the third day, God raised him from the dead so that anyone, and this includes you, who calls on his name would be saved, forgiven, and made new. In the same way in college, I knelt down in a softball field and asked for forgiveness of sins and asked for Jesus to save me. He changed me, he made me new. There are those of you here today for this purpose. If you know you're not walking with God, if you're feeling drawn to him, if you're so low that you may need to look up, you may not be there by accident, but by the providence of God who wants to reveal the goodness of his son to you today is the day of your salvation. And all of our churches, you say, yes, I need the grace of Jesus. I want him in my life. I want the forgiveness of my sins. We're stepping away from our sins. We're stepping into faith in Jesus.

And we call on his name. He will hear your prayer, forgive your sins. Today is the day of your salvation. That's you. I need grace. I need Jesus. I give my life to him. That's your prayer. Lift your hands high right now. All over the place, lift them up, lift them up, lift them up right back there. God bless you. Others today say me right here. Others say, yes, Jesus, I surrender. Be the Lord of my life. I give my life to you. That's your prayer. Just lift up your hands and say, yes, I surrender. Online, you can type praise God for you right there. Oh, yeah. Yes, yes, yes. Online, type in the comment sections, I'm surrendering my life to Christ. Just type that in there. Pray with those around you, pray. Heavenly Father, I give you my life. Jesus, save me. Forgive all of my sins. Fill me with your Spirit, so I could know you personally and serve you daily.

My life is not my own. I give it to you. Thank you for new life. You have all of mine. In Jesus' name I pray. Church, can you give God some glory today? Come on. Oh, come on. Hey, it's Pastor Craig and Amy Groeschel with Life.Church. And if you just made the decision to give your life to Christ, this is the most important and life-changing decision that you'll ever make. And all of heaven is celebrating right now because of your decision and we're celebrating with you too. That's right. And we want you to know that God sees you. He's with you and He loves you. He has a purpose for your life. And incarceration, it doesn't define you. It doesn't confine you because you are free in Christ. You are new in Him. Chains have been broken today. And so as a follower of Jesus, God wants us to be on this journey together. And I want you to know you don't have to do this alone. And that's why we, as your church family, we're here for you and we wanna help you grow in your faith and find your next steps.

So first of all, just keep joining us for church every single week and worshiping through the Pando app. We're so thankful that you're here. When we draw close to God, He draws near to us. And so I would also encourage you, read God's Word if it's available to you. And as you do, just start to pray and invite God into every single aspect of your life. And then if you feel led, you might even share your decision with somebody else. There might be a family member or a friend and they're gonna wanna hear your story and your spiritual journey. We'd love to hear it as well. And you can send us a letter if you'd like to. The address is on your screen and our team will write back to you and help you grow in your faith with Jesus. And so we'd love to mail you some content about who Jesus is and help you grow in your relationship with Him now that you've chosen to follow Jesus. That's right. And God's plan for your life, it's greater than anything that you could ever imagine. In fact, Ephesians 3.20 says, God is able to do abundantly more than we could ask or imagine. Trust Him with your whole life. You will see Him work in ways

you have never thought possible. Congratulations on this decision. We are your family and you're part of the family of God.