What Was I Made For.

To share some resources we have for you. As often as we can, we like to have things printed out, though we ran out today, but if you scan this QR code, because we love QR codes, we'll have available the book of Esther, as well as some different practices to process along the way. We have links there to the Bible Project, which can give you an overview of the book. I should have also included the link to VeggieTales.

If anyone else has seen the Esther VeggieTales, that might be where most of us got our theology around the story of Esther, which I'm just saying, as we read through Esther, we will see there's nothing PG or G about the book of Esther whatsoever. As I read through it, I keep thinking, man, VeggieTales skipped a lot of parts of this story. I understand why. I see we have some little ears in the back, so we'll cover them when we get to the scandalous parts, but hopefully it leads us to Jesus.

All scripture is leading us closer to Jesus, even the parts we need to make sense of. That's why I encourage you to read along with us as we go through this, because there's a lot to dive into over these next few weeks. We're going to start with chapter one.

The king's banquet, and Vashti's refusal

This is what happened during the time of Xerxes. He ruled over 127 provinces, stretching from India to Kush. At the time, the king reigned from his royal throne in the city of Susa. In the third year of his reign, he gave a banquet for all his nobles and officials. The military leaders of Persia and Media, and the princes and nobles of the provinces, were there. For a full 180 days he displayed the vast wealth of the kingdom, and the splendor and glory of his majesty. When these days were over, the king gave a banquet lasting seven days, for the least to the greatest, who were in the city of Susa. The garden had hangings of white and blue linen, fastened with cords of white linen and purple material to silver rings on marble pillars. There were couches of gold and silver, a mosaic pavement, and all of these beautiful things. Queen Vashti also gave a banquet for the women in the royal palace.

Esther 1:1-9

So a quick historical note, and we'll get into more, but typically what would happen is the king would invite people to a banquet, and it was typically the men who would come, and the women would have a separate banquet, because there were things happening at these banquets the men wouldn't want their wives to be a part of.

The queen would not want to be a part of it. So we're already stepping into a somewhat scandalous story here. On the seventh day, the king sent word for Queen Vashti to be brought before him, wearing her royal crown, to display her beauty to the people, because she was lovely to look at. But she refused to come to the banquet. He wanted her to come, and she refused. So now he's saying she has not obeyed the command of the king, and it was customary for the king to consult experts in matters of law and justice, so he spoke with the wise men who understood the times, the seven nobles of Persia and Media who had special access to him and were highest in the kingdom. According to the law, what must be done to Queen Vashti, since she has not obeyed?

He replied in the presence of the king and the nobles, Queen Vashti has done wrong, not only against the king but also against all the nobles and the peoples of the provinces of the king. For the queen's conduct will become known to all the women, so that they will despise their husbands and say, King Xerxes commanded Queen Vashti to be brought before him, but she would not come. This very day, the Persian and Median women of nobility who have heard about the queen's conduct will respond to all the king's nobles in the same way. There will be no end of disrespect and discord.

Esther 1:16-18

So he's making it clear, he's going to make a spectacle of this woman, and make sure that from this point on, these women are going to submit to what the king says, what the nobles say, what their husbands say, that they're going to respect their husbands.

The king and his nobles were pleased with this advice, so the king did as they had proposed. He sent dispatches to all parts of the kingdom, to each province in its own script, and to each people in their own language, proclaiming that every man should be ruler over his own household, using his native tongue.

Esther 1:21-22

We're going to pause there today. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you for scripture that continues to point us closer to you, Jesus. God, I pray that as we read this story today, we would see you, that we would sense your presence, and that we would grow in noticing your Spirit and your presence in our everyday moments. We love you, Lord. Would you speak to us, Holy Spirit? In your name we pray, amen.

What was I made for

So if you've read Esther, you know some larger moments are coming, moments people look back on and say, these were the moments she was made for. It's hard to see what's happening, because she's about to enter the scene into a very scandalous situation, something confusing, something she probably didn't want to be a part of. But if we're honest, I think one of the questions most of us have asked is, what was I made for? Some of you are hearing Billie Eilish in your head as I say that. That song became one of the most popular songs in the past couple of years, not just because it was a good song, but because it was something people related to. I was thinking about some of these lyrics: I don't know how to feel, I want to try, I don't know how to feel, but someday I might, someday I might. You have a celebrity who, to many of us, would seem like she's peaked, she's arrived, her moment has happened, she's successful.

She has money. She has all these things. Yet she's writing from this place of, what am I made for, is this it, was this the moment, did I arrive? These are the questions we're asking. What were we made for? Another song that came to mind as I was thinking about Esther was A Moment Like This, by Kelly Clarkson. But when I said that to a few of you earlier, nobody knew what I was talking about.

But she's writing about this, saying, is this it, it's almost the feeling we've never met before, so tell me, you don't think I'm crazy when I tell you love has come here and now, a moment like this, people wait a lifetime for a moment like this, for this one special kiss. She's talking about these dramatic moments, like the moment of arrival coming down to a kiss. This is what people are writing about. This is what people are seeking and longing for.

When is that moment going to happen? What was I made for? Does my life matter? Am I living for what I was made for? Even if we didn't write songs about it ourselves, with our own spin on it, I'm sure you've asked that question.

Is this the career I was made for, the marriage I was made for? Is this the stage of parenting these kids that I was made for, this opportunity, this calling? Or is there one day I'm finally going to arrive at the place I was made for? This is what I want to talk about today. Because when we look at the life of Jesus, which we're going to see all throughout Esther pointing to, he didn't say, come and follow this purpose. He didn't say, come to this specific place. He said, come and follow me. Come and follow me. Our purpose is so much less about a moment, a destination, a place, but about a person, and that person is Jesus.

Formed for a relationship, not a moment

It's about learning to notice his presence in every single moment, and how that is forming us into people who dwell with Jesus forever. I want us to notice today, we're going to focus on this theme of how God is preparing Esther, but he's preparing a person for a relationship with Jesus, not preparing someone for a perfect moment when they're going to arrive. When we look back, we can see the threads of Jesus in the story. We can notice how God was forming Esther all along, into these moments that are part of this greater story.

But we see that by looking back, and we often don't see it in the moment. I've been doing a lot of reflection lately on my own formation journey, and some of it comes from the fact that August, I think the 20th, I'll have to check my Facebook memories, marks when I moved here to Madison. I've been thinking so much about how, even in that move, I thought maybe I'd be here a year, I didn't really know, but all of these little moments led to moments where I've had, where I feel like I'm living like I was supposed to live, like there's something about these moments. I called my mom recently, because I realized there's something I've noticed in my life that's been so formational to my journey that I didn't notice then. That was growing up as a homeschooler.

This is where some people look at me and say, you were homeschooled. Yes, we're human too, we exist, we're out there. I was homeschooled my whole life. Lately I've been reflecting on how growing up homeschooled prepared me to be a pastor.

That's something not many people would say out loud. But I think about even the way we run our church, things like having a lot of meals together. I learned how to cook growing up. We had all three meals every single day. I used to complain, because my mom made us whole grain pancakes that she milled the flour for herself, so healthy and nutritious.

I just wanted a Pop-Tart. Now I think, how spoiled was that, that my mom was milling flour and making these healthy, nutritious pancakes, with homemade maple syrup. I thought, gross, give me the cheap stuff. But I see all of that detail and care now.

We had so many meals together, learning how to cook, so that now, when it's Sunday at the Table, and we need pork for fifty people, done, got it, not even stressed, I know how to do this. Not because we had fifty people in our family, but because we grew up around other families, doing things together. I think about how, when I was homeschooled, my mom was a teacher, and there were times where it was, all right, you've got to go help your brother learn how to read.

I see, in those moments now, I really learned patience, and how I walk with people and pastor and disciple and teach in different ways. I think about how we grew up in a family culture that was all hands on deck, always supporting each other in everything. Even when one of my brothers decided to play baseball, even though he clearly wasn't an athlete, and we just watched him sit in the dugout game after game.

But we showed up for each other. I think of the ways I now get to witness and help cultivate a church culture where we support each other, even in moments where it's maybe you shouldn't be doing that, but it's okay, we're going to show up anyway. I've been thinking about these moments, not because they led me to a point of arrival, but because I noticed the presence of Jesus was shaping and forming me into a person of love, a person of sacrifice, a person of patience, and all of these character things that came from it.

I want to say this, because I think a lot of times we think there's a moment we're going to arrive at, some sort of call, some sort of purpose, and we have made it. I'm always careful to say, I don't think my call in life and my purpose is to be a pastor. It's to be with Jesus. It's to be about his purpose, which is more people coming to know Jesus. Right now, the way I'm fulfilling my purpose of being with Jesus is through pastoring.

But there's not this arrival, but seeing God in every little thing. So I want us to look again at Esther, and give a little overview, because there are a lot of things in this book that cause controversy. Some people say it shouldn't even be in the Bible, because one of the unique things about Esther is that it never mentions the name of God, never mentions the name of Jesus. But there are some very significant things here that point us to see God in every single detail. I think it causes us to ask some bigger questions in our lives, about whether we can recognize God in the way he is preparing us, forming us, in seemingly unnoticeable things. Some quick background: this is taking place around 483 to 473 BC.

The Jewish people in exile

This was during the reign of King Xerxes we just talked about. The Jewish people are living in exile, which means they've been taken from their home into this place they're living. Jerusalem, at this point, has been destroyed. There is no temple for them to go and worship. They were scattered across the Persian empire.

This empire is no small thing. It stretches from India all the way to Ethiopia. This was not just a small piece of land, they were scattered among all of it. Today this would cover Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Egypt, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and parts of North Africa. This is where the people had been scattered.

What I love about this story is that we start to see this thread of Jesus, that when Jesus comes he says, I am the temple, and your bodies are a temple. We see this movement starting already, where up to this point, in order to worship God, you go to Jerusalem, to the temple. You go to a specific place to experience the presence of God. But the people are scattered, which means they're not going to a specific place for the presence of God, they're having to worship God wherever they are. Jesus starts to live that out when he says, actually, the presence of God is within you.

It's not about a specific place, but the person of the Spirit within you. We start to see those threads coming up. But again, we notice this now, looking back at the whole story. Did the people notice it then, what was leading to Jesus? God's name is never mentioned.

There are no miracles in this story. No prophets, no visions, no thus says the Lord. Nothing about that. I think it's so intentional, that the author isn't trying to diminish God, but is trying to direct us to look toward God in every single moment.

Esther enters the palace

As we continue reading the text, we move to chapter two. This is after we've just read that Esther is not yet coming into the picture, but the queen has been taken out, and all the people are excited because she's been made a spectacle. I'm going to read the first couple of verses of chapter two.

Later, when the anger of King Xerxes had subsided, he remembered Vashti and what she had done and what he had decreed about her. Then the king's personal attendants proposed, let a search be made for beautiful young virgins to come to the king. Let the king appoint commissioners in every province of his realm to bring all these beautiful young women into the harem in the city of Susa. Let them be placed under the care of Hegai, the king's eunuch who is in charge of the women, and let beauty treatments be given to them. Then let the girl who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti. This advice appealed to the king, and he followed it.

Esther 2:1-4

We're going to jump down a few verses.

When the king's order and edict had been proclaimed, many girls were brought to the city of Susa and put under the care of Hegai. Esther also was taken to the king's palace and entrusted to Hegai. The girl pleased him and won his favor immediately. He provided her with her beauty treatments and special food. He assigned her seven maids, selected from the king's palace, and moved her and her maids into the best place in the harem. Esther had not revealed her nationality and family background, because Mordecai had forbidden her to do so. Every day he walked back and forth near the courtyard of the harem, to find out how Esther was and what was happening to her. Before a girl's turn came to go in to King Xerxes, she had to complete twelve months of beauty treatments prescribed for the women, six months with oil of myrrh and six with perfumes and cosmetics.

Esther 2:8-13

And this is how she would go to the king; anything she wanted was given to her.

When the turn came for Esther, she was Mordecai's cousin, whom he had adopted as his own daughter, and it was her time to go to the king. She asked for nothing other than what the king's eunuch in charge of her suggested. She was in the tenth month, the month of Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign. Now the king was attracted to Esther more than to any of the other women, and she won his favor and approval more than any of the other virgins. So he set a royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. And the king gave a great banquet, Esther's banquet, for all his nobles and officials. He proclaimed a holiday throughout the provinces, and distributed gifts with royal liberty.

Esther 2:15-18

So a lot is happening in this passage. Essentially, what we just read is that Esther competed in a beauty competition that included all sorts of preparation, and she won. The king said, I'm so attracted to her, she's going to be the new queen. So a couple of things I want us to know here.

Not prescriptive, but redeemed

First, twelve months preparing, twelve months of preparation for this, and at this time she has no idea what's going to come out of it. This is something I want us to keep remembering and going back to in the story of Esther: she had to be placed in a situation that was not ideal, and she endured so much, for twelve months, and even more as the story goes on.

I want to mention this, because when we think about this story and the harm Esther had to endure, it's important for us to name it. It's important to name that there are so many things we're going to go through in life that are not ordained by God, but that God is going to redeem and use for his glory, and that's what we're witnessing here. This is not prescriptive, it's a historical book describing a story, and it's going to point to God's redemption, how he used these cruel things happening to these women at this time. This is not prescriptive of how we should still treat women, of how we should still go about things. I say that because I recognize we probably all have stories of things we question, saying, God, what was this, why did this happen? And sometimes, when we see that God used it, it can be even more confusing, because it's like, well, God, did you want this to happen?

Was this something I needed to go through? No. There are some things we intentionally walk through, that God says, you need these moments to form you. And then there's a whole lot of other things that happen because of the results of sin and evil and pride and greed in this world, as we see the king demonstrating here, that God does not want you to go through, but he's going to redeem it, and use those painful moments for his glory, despite the evil that was intended. So Esther, there are these questions she leads us to think about: in those moments, I imagine it was, is this what I'm made for?

Is this it? Is this all I'm ever going to be, the one who won because the king is attracted to me? Now, in some ways, from the outside looking in, you might think she got to ask for whatever she wanted, and she had all of these things. But I keep thinking back to some of those lyrics I quoted earlier, where sometimes we see celebrities talk like this, where from the outside they have everything.

Yet there can still be these questions: is this it? Is this the moment I was made for? God, is there more than this? I want to talk about this, because before this preparation took place, that we read about in scripture, I believe God was preparing Esther, and God was preparing Mordecai. It says he was in a place where he was walking back and forth, back and forth, able to check in on her.

He was able to support her through these things. There was all this preparation in the details. Esther's job, that God used, was not a job any of us would want to have. Yet, as the story unfolds, we see that God uses her to deliver his people. But what's interesting here, again, is that when the deliverance takes place, this time for the Jewish people in exile, it's not delivering them back to a place.

We see that God is slowly delivering them to a person, and that is Jesus. When I think about how we start to see this in our own stories, in these moments, I think a huge part is going back and reflecting, saying, how has God been preparing me all along? How has he been preparing me all along for this? When it talks about all the things she went through, I think, as we read Esther, there are some more famous passages we tend to quote, the ones we look to as the big moments, the things.

Jesus's hidden years

But there were all these hidden things that happened too. This is where I think about Jesus and all of his hidden years. For thirty years, Jesus was preparing for these three years of ministry. From the time he was twelve, there's kind of a stop where we don't really know what happened to him. It's pretty well documented and assumed, because of the cultural moment Jesus was living in, that twelve was the time you went to school to be a rabbi.

So Jesus was studying. He was doing things behind the scenes to prepare for the moment we look at as the miracles, the ministry, and ultimately his death on the cross, a powerful moment. But all of these moments were a part of that story, and all the moments of our lives are a continuation of his saying, the purpose is my presence, that gets to dwell among you for all eternity, and so when you are here and you have my presence, you get to join me in this mission of helping other people find that too. So I think the question sometimes needs to move from, what is the moment, or the call, or the place God is preparing me for, and move more into, God, how can I be fully present with you?

Because you are the one I was prepared for, that I was created for. As I mentioned, Esther does not mention God's name, but she leads us to look for God in everything. She's starting to show us what it looks like to worship wherever we're at. That preparation starts with the person we're becoming. And how can we see Jesus in that?

A practice of noticing

I'm going to invite Princess to come as we get ready to close today. As I mentioned, I keep coming back, as I'm reading through Esther, to some of these moments that I feel have prepared me for other moments, all this continuation of the specific ways I feel God has invited me to partner with him. In the same way, every single one of us has those stories of things where it's like, how did I end up in this job, in this field, in this relationship with these kids, how did this happen? And realizing God has been intentional to be a part of all of that story.

I think about how, before I had a love for scripture, my mom paid me a hundred dollars to read the Bible in a year. Apparently bribing works, because then I fell in love with scripture. Now I love to teach it. Those small moments, I look back and think, that was so formational in preparing me to pastor. She's probably thinking, yeah, I don't know, someone said online to do it, so we tried it.

That's a lot of parenting: we tried it, I hope it worked, we'll see in twenty years when they're adults. But I keep coming back to those small moments, because in the moment we don't always recognize the presence of God, how he's preparing us, and we don't always acknowledge that we have what we're longing for in Jesus. Esther could not see the whole story. She didn't see Bethlehem coming. She didn't see the cross, she didn't see the resurrection, but she simply trusted God with the next step, and to be present, and to be faithful and obedient, and to endure really hard, painful situations in the midst of it. For many of us, we're going to look back at some point in our lives and say, okay, I see how God was working in all of these small moments, and how he was preparing me to be like him, to bear his witness, and grow deeper in his presence.

How do we grow in the discipline of seeing that in the here and now? Our so-what today is, Jesus is present with us in the preparation, because he's the person we are preparing for. He's the person we're preparing for. So many of us in the church can be tempted to live in a way that says, okay, God, I surrender my life to you, I confess my sins, I believe in my heart, Jesus, that you are Lord. And then we move to this place of, okay, that's it, so someday I can get to heaven. But what I want to challenge us to keep living into is believing that when the presence of Jesus dwells among us, that is the reward, and it starts now. We don't have to wait until eternity to grow in our deep relationship with Jesus.

We can grow every day, saying, how do I see you in the places you have me? How do I not live in a way that feels like someday I'm going to arrive? Because on this side of eternity, we're not. We will see Jesus face to face, and that will be the moment of entering into eternity. But on this side of eternity, we're not going to have some moment where this was the specific thing I was made for.

We were made for Jesus, and we have access to him here and now, and he has mission and purpose where you're at. Sometimes it takes us growing in how we see that. So our now-what, our practice this week, is how do we look for Jesus in every moment? How do we practice his presence? One of the practices we have here as a church is practicing the examen, and noticing Jesus in seemingly small moments, because it's those moments we were made for.

Every moment of our life is a moment we were made for. It's not just the ones we're going to look back on and write chapters about. So how do we see him in that? So today, to end, we're going to just practice a prayer of examen together, a practice of reflection and noticing God. This is a contemplative form of prayer, a way for us to grow in that discipline. As a church, we have this rule of life, a set of shared practices we focus on, and it's not to become more religious, or to have actual rules, but for us to say, how are we intentional in preparing to be more like Jesus, in preparing for our relationship with him, for our workplace, for all of that in between?

Because in these seasons of faithfulness, God was preparing Esther. In the season of Mordecai just continuing to show up every single day, he was preparing for what we're going to read next, the moments that led to deliverance, that led to breakthrough, and ultimately, Jesus is born through this line, and this is a piece of that story. It starts with just growing in our discipline of slowing down long enough to notice, Jesus, where were you in this? Where are you now in my story? So I'm going to invite us to stand and practice this together.

Practicing the examen

Amen. When we practice the examen, we walk through four basic steps, replaying. I'm going to ask us to almost replay our week. A lot of times this is what our practice will say to do at the end of the day. But I want you to think about your week as we go through this, to replay your week.

Because I know for many of us, you might be in a season where it's like, God, I don't know about this job, this place, this apartment, this relationship, I don't know about these things this season. I want us to grow in seeing, God, what might you be doing right here and now, in this moment in my life? Where are you?

So we're going to replay. Think about what happened throughout our week, and then we're going to take time to reflect, and just say, God, would you show me where you were? Would you show me your presence in those little moments? And then a moment of repentance, which is so crucial for us, to continue to come back to the cross and say, God, would you forgive me for the ways I have not been honoring and living for you? And ending in a time of rejoicing and thanksgiving, thanking the Lord for his presence.

So I'm going to invite you to close your eyes, if you're comfortable, and take a few deep breaths, to settle yourself into this, and in your own way, tell the Holy Spirit you're open, invite the Spirit to speak to you. I want to invite you to take a moment to replay, to think about your week, maybe your office, or a classroom, or your home, your kitchen. Next I want to invite you to reflect, to notice, what are some of the feelings that came up this week, maybe tensions you felt, and as you do that, ask the Spirit to show you, where were you in those moments? God, how might you have been there? And next, take a moment of repentance, ask the Spirit to show you and convict you and challenge you about any ways we're not honoring you, anything that might have moved us farther from God rather than closer to him.

As you do that, choose to turn your face to him again, and walk in repentance, and say, Lord, forgive me. I surrender. I receive your grace. I receive your forgiveness. And where you would begin to express gratitude and thanksgiving to Jesus, for where you have seen him, where you've experienced him.

Thank him for the cross. Thank him for the veil that was torn, so that we can encounter his presence for all of eternity. Jesus, we thank you today. We praise you today.