Will You Be Found at the King’s Gate? | Marcus Mecum | 7 Hills Church

Turn with me to Esther chapter 5, verse 9. Let's read it together. Haman went out that day in happy and high spirits. Sounds like he was drinking. But when he saw Mordecai at the king's gate and observed that neither he rose nor did he show fear in his presence, he was filled with rage against Mordecai. Nevertheless, Haman restrained himself and went home. He called his friends together, his wife, and he began to boast to them about how vast his wealth was, his sons, and all the ways the king had honored him and elevated him above all the other nobles and officials. And then he added, I'm the only person that Queen Esther has invited to accompany the king at the banquet that she gave, and she invited me, me, along with the king tomorrow. But all of this gives me no satisfaction as long as I see that old Jew Mordecai sitting at the king's gate. I want to talk to you about can you be found at the king's gate. Ten times in the book of Esther, it gives us that phrase, the king's gate. Over and over, you read that phrase. And so imagine with me for just a moment, an ancient city gate, massive, imposing. And now imagine with me as far as the eye can see, people are bowing. People are bowing everywhere. Bowing everywhere. And then there's one lone figure in the midst of all those people bowing that refuses to bow. I want you to get that image in your mind because that image is what the story of Esther hinges on. More importantly, it's what your story and it's what your life hinges on. And there is a great secret that we can find surrounding this image through the next few moments that we have together. The first thing that we see here in this story is that there was an adversary. I want to be clear that Satan is not a boogeyman. Satan is not folklore. He's not a monster under the bed. Satan is very real and he is very powerful. You can look around our world and all of its evils and you can see his handiwork. Every abused child, every battered wife, every broken home, every broken heart, the violence of our world, the murders on and on. We could list the human misery that is in our world. It's all a testimony that you have an adversary. This adversary that we have goes by many names, Lucifer, Satan, the devil, the accuser of the brethren, the father of lies, the deceiver, the destroyer, the god of this world, the prince and the power of the air. But none of them describe him more graphically or accurately than the apostle Simon Peter when he says, be alert, be vigilant for your adversary. The devil prowls about roams about like a roaring lion. And he's seeking someone he's looking for someone that he can devour. So he's not just in general, an adversary. He is a personal adversary. He is a personal devil. He knows our weaknesses.

He knows our proclivities. And he is after every single one of us. He is like a roaring lion. The lion is nature's most vicious killing machine, the king of all the beast. The lion fears no other creature. It walks through the jungles and it doesn't roar because it has nothing else better to do. It roars because of its supreme dominance in the wilderness and in the jungles of our world. It does not hesitate to let its presence be known. The lion in nature is between 350 and 500 pounds. It stands three and a half feet tall and is nine feet long. It can see in the pitch black dark, run 35 miles an hour. It can run down a 600 pound zebra, jump on it, snap its spine and drag it away with hardly any effort. It would take six grown man to drag that same zebra away. And he is watching with yellowed eyes. He's seeking, he's not. seeking someone to cuddle with. He's not seeking someone to saliva all over or gum to death. He is seeking someone that he may devour. We're not dealing with a dead lion. He is alive, and he is well. The great picture of this cold beast is found in Esther, specifically through the character that we read about Haman, who is the deputy to the king. This is an arrogant man. This is a ruthless man. This is a man that is vicious against any of his enemies. This is a man that gloats over their failures. This is a man who takes delight in this destruction of helpless victims, and you never see at any point him showing any mercy. And it's important that we know that this adversary that we have shows no mercy. He doesn't care if you're a weak little lamb, or you're a defenseless old ram. He shows no mercy. When you're exhausted, when you're tired, when you're under pressure, when you when you feel like you can't go on, and you're at a breaking point, and you're thinking, man, I'm gonna crack in this area of my life. He's there, and he shows absolutely no mercy. When you mumble words in the middle of the night, that you would never mention to another human being, you would never want another human being to know that you feel or you think that way, and where you're at in depth, he

is there right there. And he shows no mercy. The opposite is true. He's boasting in every way about what's happening in his world. Haman gathers all of his friends and he boasts to them about the vastness of his riches. He brags to them about all the things that he accomplished. He begins to boast about how they sing his praises from one end of the kingdom to another end of the kingdom. Over and over he's beginning to gloat and brag and boast about who he is and and what he what kind of influence he has in life in the same way the devil enjoys the scenery of our world as he looks out and he sees the violence, the confusion, the hate, the destroyed lives, the broken dreams and all the shattered hearts that are out there. It's important that we know he's not just showing no mercy, but he takes great joy in your destruction. Haman says, look at the glory of my riches. He would ride into town. He says every day, his royal entourage is there behind him. And as he would ride down the streets, they would bow. Every single person would bow. Eventually he would come to the king's gate on his way into the palace and everyone is bowing. They're not bowing because they respect him. They're bowing because of the tyranny of that system made people believe they did not have a choice. There was no option. And so in fear, they bowed to Haman and Haman begins to talk to his family and his friends boasting about all of these things about how everyone is bowing. And he says, but there's one thing that bothers me when I look at all the accomplishments, how the king has honored me. When I look at how all above all the other officials and nobles of the land, the king has lifted me. When I look at all, there's one thing that bothers me. There's one thing I can't get over. There's one thing that just gets underneath my skin. I

imagine his wife and his friends said, Haman, what could possibly bother a man like you? I mean, what could possibly stand in your way? Your power is so absolute. Your reach is so great. What could possibly bother someone like you? And Haman says, every day I'm out and people are bowing and I come to the king's gate. This doesn't happen every now and then this doesn't happen, happen one day. And then a few days goes by. And then another day, every day I go and I'm riding by that king's gate and everyone's singing my praises and everyone is bowing down to me. There's one man, this old Jew named Mordecai, and he refuses to bow. Everyone else will bow, but this man refuses to bow. And I can't take my eyes off of him. It gets underneath my skin. I can't think about anything else. When I'm going to bed at night, he's on my mind. When I wake up, he's on my mind because he stares back at me as if to send a message to me that I'm never going to bow to you. You see Hayman's nightmare was one man who wouldn't bow. I say this because the enemy convinces us in so many ways that we're not important, that we don't matter, that we're not significant or that we can't make a difference. But I want you to know this one thing bothers the devil more than anything else. That when you go to the King's gate, hell loses sleep. That every day you go to the King's gate, every day you go to the King's gate in prayer and faith and you call on the name of the Lord and you lift up the name of Jesus and you acknowledge I have needs. You acknowledge I have areas of my life. I need divine protection, areas of my life. I need to draw the bloodline and say the devil can't touch my family and he can't touch our church and he can't touch my children or my grand and I pray and I met the King every day I go to the King's gate in worship and I adore God and I lift him up and I acknowledge you're on the throne. I'm not, you're in control. I'm not. And I worship him in spirit and I worship him in truth and I give him his worth ship. In other words, he's worthy of it. He's worthy of me showing up at the gate. When I open up my Bible every day, I go to the King's gate and I open up this word and I say, God, show me the wondrous things in your word. I know that this work,

this book, your, your words are spirit and they are life. Speak to me. Holy spirit speak to me. I I'm asking that you revive me according to your word. There's none like it. Give it to me. If you missed last week, you should go listen to it. But every day I go to the King's gate every day, I'm unbowed at that gate. It terrifies the enemy. It bothers him. You're an irritation in his mind. You're that eyelash that he can't get out of his eye. You're that ache in his tooth, that thorn in his side. I'm talking to you about the importance of, can you be found at the King's gate? I don't care what happens or doesn't happen outside of the gate. Every day you make the decision. I'm going to be found at the King's gate. It doesn't matter how you feel or do not feel what you want or do not want. Because some days it's easy to get to the gate. Some days you jump out of bed and you can't wait to get there. Other days you feel like you have to fight and crawl every inch to get to the gate. Some days you feel like you're so exhausted and in your mind, you're like, what is the point? I won't be able to focus on it anyway. I'm so tired and got so many things coming at me. But what the devil fears more than anything is men and women who will be found at the King's gate. Oh yeah. He fears it. He fears it. Hell trembles. Hell loses sleep. When you can be found at the King's gate. Hell does not fear your success. Hell does not fear your accomplishments. Hell does not fear your intellect or your education. Hell does not fear how fat your bank account is. Be careful to not judge your life by the outward signs of success. The one thing that hell fears. This is the secret that we opened up with. This is how you win or it's how you lose. Can you be found every day at the King's gate? You see, Daniel, the Bible says showed up at the King's gate and he's praying. Day one, nothing happened. Day five, still nothing is happening. Day 10, nothing. Day 15, nothing. But he shows up every day, week after week after week. And finally on that 21st day, the angel comes back to Daniel and says, listen, you didn't know this, but the devil was taking note. And every day you showed up, it started to turn the battle in your favor. Every single day you showed up when the devil realized that you were not going to stop showing up, that you weren't going to back down. Finally, he gave in and he gave up. Daniel knew no matter the cost, my life depends on this. Someone else's life. on this. And it's important that you remember the secret is to be found at the gate. Paul said, I'm set for the defense of the gospel. I'm set. That means his feet were planted. His mind was made up and he was determined. You have to make up your mind, plant your

feet and say, I'm determined to be at the King's gate every day. Say every day. One more time. Say every day, talking about the power of 24 hours, the importance of every day, the importance of daily personal devotion. It's the secret to how you win or lose that not one day you're found in some way, bowing to this old flesh, bowing to the pressures, but that you say, I'm going to get to that gate. I know my future depends on me getting to that gate every day. 46.9% of the time, according to psychologists, your mind is on something besides today. That means you're half present half the time. So you're half alive. The most famous prayer in all of the world, the Lord's prayer helps us focus on today. Give me this day, my daily bread, not give me this week, my daily bread, not give me this year, my bread, but give me this day. There's a part of the Lord's prayer where you go and you bury dead yesterdays. There's a part that you go and you say, forgive me my trespasses. As I forgive those who trespass against, against me. And I go and I stand at the grave side of my dead. Yesterday's is they go into the ground. There's another part of the Lord's prayer where I release and let go of my tomorrows. I let go of my fears of failure, my worries of the unknown. And I say, lead me not into temptation, but the focus of the Lord's prayer is give us this day. Every day. What's the expiration date on manna in the Bible every day? What's the deadline on your anger sundown every day. How often are his mercies made new every morning, every day, you take up your cross and you bear it. How often daily every day today is the day I will rejoice and be glad in it. How often do I rejoice? How often do I say I'm going to be good? Do I, do I rejoice in tomorrow? Do I rejoice in yesterday? No today, every day I rejoice and I am to be glad in it. It's the secret. Every 24 hours, you have the ability to unleash unusual strength and power into your personal life, into your mind, into your relationships, but you gotta be found at the gate every day. Rocky Marciano in the 1950s was the heavyweight champion of the world and he had never been beaten. And as great of a fighter as he was, he was up against what many would believe would be his toughest opponent in a man by the name of Ezra Charles. And Ezra was bigger than Marciano was. He had a longer reach. He was a more skilled boxer in a pure boxing way than Marciano was. He was superior in his defense, superior in his combinations, craftier in his boxing strategies, quicker in every way. And on the day of the fight, all of that proved to be true. Halfway through the

fight, Marciano had such a severe cut over his eye that after the fight he had to get stitches. bleeding everywhere, his face swollen and battered, could barely see out of his eyes. They said that his face looked like a meat cleaver and all the announcers at the halfway point in the fight said, Marciano's done. Marciano's finished. There's no hope for Marciano, but round eight came and the champ started to press a little bit more and they started to notice that the opponent Ezra Charles begin to wear down a little bit. And then round nine, he presses a little bit more and Ezra starts to drop his guard a little bit. And Marciano begins to see openings. And as the fight went on more and more, it turned to the favor of the champ. And by the end of round 15, when the judge's decision came in, they would raise Marciano's hand and say, still the heavyweight champion of the world, Rocky Marciano. And they came to Rocky at the end of the fight and the interviewers asked him, did you know that Ezra Charles was bigger than you are? He said, yeah, I knew. Did you know that he's faster? Yeah. Did you know that he had a lot longer reach? Yeah, I knew. Did you know he was considered a more skilled boxer, superior in his defense and combinations? He says, yeah, I knew all of those things. They said, did you know he would get the advantage that he did? Did you know that you would be losing that many rounds? He said, yeah, I knew I would lose many rounds. Well, at any point, did you ever think that you would lose the fight? And Marciano said, no, I knew I would never lose the fight. And they said, how did you know? He said, because I understood no matter whether I had won or lost the last round, if I would just keep getting up, no matter what I look like, no matter what I felt like the key was every round. If I just kept getting back up, eventually I would wear down my opponent. Eventually I would get my shots. Eventually I would start getting my punches in and that's the King's gate attitude. It's the attitude of, I know hell will not win. How? Because I can be found at the King's gate. At some point you've got to settle that. I mean, when you look at Mordecai, he looked just like Rocky Marciano beaten and bloody and bruised. And the announcer said, would say it's over for Mordecai. There's no hope. Heyman had built the gallows. In other words, it's over. The referee was on the nine count. Mordecai is done. He's finished. It's the end for him. But that night, the King couldn't sleep and the King was, was struggling to, to go to bed. And so he called in the scribes to read through the King's chronicles. And they came in and they started reading through different events and they read an event about a time that two of the King's advisors were planning

an assassination attempt. And that there was a man who remained at the gate that had overheard their plot. And that man was faithful enough to the King. He came and he revealed what their plan was. And the King leaps to his feet. And he said, what have we done for such a man? And they said, you've done nothing for him. And the King says, well, who is it that stands in the King's court? And they said, Heyman stands there. Not only does Heyman is he there, but he's here with permission to kill Mordecai. He's built the gallows for him. And Mordecai is the man that remained at the gate and was faithful to the King in light of any risk to himself was faithful. And that's why you're here today. And the King calls Heyman in and says, Heyman, you're a wise man. You're a powerful man. I've honored you in many ways. What would you do for a man who showed up and remained at the King's gate? And Heyman thought he was talking about him. So Heyman just throws everything at it. Oh, I would give him the King's Royal horse. And I would give him the Royal crown and I would give him the King's garments and I would give him every privilege that would come along with that. And then he said, King, what I would do is I would stand him up in front of the whole nation and announce this is a man in whom the King delights. And the King says, that's a great. I want you to go down to the gate and I want you to get Mordecai. And I want you to bring him into the palace. And I want you to give him that Royal horse and that Royal crown. And I want you to give him the King's garments and I want you to announce all the privileges that come along with it are his. And then I want you, the King didn't say I would do it. The King didn't say one of his advisors or officials would do it. He said, I want you, Haman, do you get the picture? Do you understand? The principle in the kingdom is that when the Bible says, when the strong man enters the house, he's there to rob and to destroy. But if the strong man be found is what it says, that the devil has to give back. Not God's going to give you back seven times because the devil attacked your life. But the Bible says the devil has to give back seven times. And so there Haman is, and he has to stand Mordecai up this man that wouldn't bow.

This man that was unbowed at the gate, bothering him, irritating him, being that thorn in his side. And Haman has to stand him up and say, this is the man in whom the King delights. I don't know if you get it, but every day, every day I go to the King's gate. Every day I come boldly to his throne of grace. That's the gate. In my time of need, do I have needs? Yes. Do I have fears without question? Do I have weaknesses? Obviously. Do I have areas of my life that I'm cut and bloody? Do I have regrets? Of course I do. But I have a gate. And every day is a new round. And the secret is, can I be found at the King's gate? Every day. You see, I have a king that made sure I have this gate. He was bleeding from his back and his brow, from his hands and his feet. They laid him in a hopeless tomb. And while he was bleeding, he was building with great intentionality. He was thinking about me and you and our need for the gate. That that's how the gates of hell will not prevail against us is he had to build this gate for us. It's a narrow gate. The Bible says few find it. But if you'll find it, if you'll be of the few that are found at the King's gate. The Bible says it leads to life. It leads to victory.

It leads to overcoming. It leads to you being in the winner's circle. But you got to make the decision every day. I'm going to be at the King's gate. Because we know he didn't stay on that cross and he didn't stay in that tomb. But in spite of all of those things, he got up. And every day, no matter what life looks like. That same spirit lives in you and you're to get up and get to the King's gate every day. You've got seven days left of this fast. Seven days. I don't care what the last 14 have looked like. You've got seven in front of you. Seven days. Every day. Let's make the decision. I'm going to go to the King's gate. Every day. I'm going to show up. Put your hand on your heart. Say, Jesus, thank you for building the gate. I'm going to show up on Monday, on Tuesday. I probably won't feel like it, but I'm going to show up on Wednesday, on Thursday. I'm going to be there Saturday too, because I know the power of 24 hours every day showing up at the gate. God help us this week to show up in Jesus name. Let me pray for you, father. I thank you that this week as we pray over the areas every day, the miracles, we're focusing on areas that we want to see a miracle. We want to see you do what only you can do. And I see in many people's lives, the enemy as ruthless as he has been as vicious as he has been. I see the enemy that, that has had the advantage up until this point. But father, I also see that enemy right now, beginning to lose sleep because your people are waking up to the power, the secret power of daily devotion, showing up at the gate, getting

in your presence, getting filled with your word and filled with your spirit, that we might go into the world and be more than conquerors through Christ Jesus. Praise the name of Jesus. Praise the name of Jesus. God, we give you this week. All of us, we commit at every location to finish this week strong in Jesus mighty name. We all said a big amen. Can we stand up to our feet and can we give the Lord a good hand clap? Praise the name of Jesus.