00;00;02;20 - 00;00;23;17
Brenton
This is further a weekly show for the people of Harmony Bible Church, where we seek to revisit and expand on Sunday sermons with the goal of growing deeper in biblical truth that transforms our lives. Welcome back to Further and Brenton Grimm. Here we have Chris Corrigan has going today.

00;00;23;20 - 00;00;26;28
Chris
Pretty good. Interesting. We're here on a Friday. Yeah.

00;00;26;28 - 00;00;55;11
Brenton
So a gloomy Friday. It's pretty rainy out there. Yeah. So we I'm actually going to be gone this next week. And so, we're recording this one a little early. shouldn't really affect anything here. So, yeah, I appreciate you being here on Friday, so, we saw in chapter three that Hayman cast lots or, you know, rolled dice to determine the timeline of his plan.

00;00;55;14 - 00;01;01;25
Brenton
why, why was this practice so common in the Old Testament? That's that's definitely not the only place we've seen it.

00;01;01;27 - 00;01;35;28
Chris
Yeah, it's actually like they're around 70 times and there's another like six or seven times in the New Testament. But despite that, we don't actually know a whole lot about it. And it, it does seem to be a way in which people try to determine what God's will is and, and when I say God there, that the pagan nations would be their gods, just a way to determine, you know, what their gods wanted them to do and was leading them.

00;01;35;28 - 00;02;02;02
Chris
But the Bible would tell us that the God who is actually determining what the outcome is, is is our God is the God of Israel. Power of 1633. The Lord is cast in it a lot, but it's every decision is from the Lord. And then we were talking earlier, you mentioned Psalm 16, which says that, you know, you hold my lot.

00;02;02;05 - 00;02;38;29
Chris
And so yeah, it just seems to be, at least in the Old Testament, a pretty common way that people are trying to determine, you know, what God would have them to do. And God even allowed the people of Israel to to cast laws to determine his will. I think kind of an important thing for us today is we don't practice this anymore because we have the full canon, we have the full word of God, and we also have the Holy Spirit indwelling in us, which are two advantages that we have, huge advantages that we have over people in the Old Testament.

00;02;38;29 - 00;02;55;29
Chris
And so there's no need for us to get dice out and say, okay, what is God want us to do? We can first go to his word and then by through prayer and leaning on the spirit to guide us, we can determine what God's will is and where He wants us to go. Yeah.

00;02;56;01 - 00;03;20;00
Brenton
Yeah. We'll get a little more into calling and how to kind of, you know, decide or decipher God's will in our life a little later. But for now, you know, last week we spent a decent amount of time talking about lament, and we see it continue into chapter four is, you know, Israel is really in the state of confusion.

00;03;20;00 - 00;03;32;04
Brenton
And there there worried for this that's this command that's come down. And so briefly, can you can you going to give your thoughts on lament and how we should embrace it here at Harmony?

00;03;32;07 - 00;03;56;16
Chris
Yeah, we could talk about this a long time. We probably will in the days ahead. Maybe in particular, when we get to our summer series we're going to be doing here on the Psalms. But but we see a lot of little passages and in the Bible, specifically in the Old Testament, lament makes up a majority of the Psalms or the most.

00;03;56;19 - 00;04;33;03
Chris
It's them, the most often kind of type of Psalm that we find. Certainly we find it in Lamentations. This book is dedicated to that. But basically, you know, lament the word really means to complain. And so it's where we are taking our, you know, our pain or for our questions to God. And we're bringing them before we were complaining, maybe not in the way that we think about complain, but really we're just kind of taken with them saying, hey, this is this is heavy, this is hard, this is difficult to understand.

00;04;33;03 - 00;04;55;27
Chris
So often, you know, in the song, we'll see how long, Lord, you know, why are you being silent? Why are you leaving me like this way? Why is this happening to me? And I think today we are often we give into this idea that as Christians, we should never grieve. We should never have sorrow. We should always be, you know, joyful and happy.

00;04;55;27 - 00;05;17;23
Chris
And, you know, no matter what, you know, God is good and yet a passage that I go back to all the time is where Paul talks about, you know, we're sorrowful yet always rejoicing. And so the Christian life is meant to be both and not either or. And so that sorrow, we're talking about lament. So we should we should embrace it.

00;05;17;23 - 00;05;42;18
Chris
And I think this is actually something that we really need to grow in. And I think we could possibly even see this becoming more a part of what we we do corporately and then hopefully individually or in smaller groups in the days ahead. Because the reality is, is that we we do have a lot of things in the world that we live in, both personally and just in the world at large to lament.

00;05;42;18 - 00;06;07;12
Chris
And what we find is that when we do that well, it actually draws us closer to the Lord. And that's one of the things I think that God guys teaching job in the book of Job is that, you know, Joe eventually learns to cry out to God and he never actually gets his questions answered about why is this happening to me?

00;06;07;12 - 00;06;15;19
Chris
But what he does get he doesn't get the answers he's looking for, but he gets God. And we see that really at the end of the book.

00;06;15;21 - 00;06;47;24
Brenton
Yeah, I know we've kind of talked about this in the past that, you know, if we considered Jesus to be the perfect human, then we need to take into account his full range of emotions that he showed. And clearly over and over he showed. LEMON He showed sadness. And and so if we we keep a stiff upper lip through through hard things and just, you know, move on, I think we're missing a whole a whole side of who we were meant to be.

00;06;48;01 - 00;07;25;09
Chris
Yeah. And I should add here that, you know, the the lament that we see from Mordecai and really all of the Jews throughout the British Empire, and Esther gets called into that later on here in chapter four, includes a sorrow over their over their sins and a recognition that that in some ways and it's not all of the story, but in some ways they are where they are, certainly in exile because of their sin is a mean that they're you know, this genocide.

00;07;25;09 - 00;08;01;04
Chris
And what hayman's plotting, you know, is because of their sin and oftentimes the circumstances that we are in are caused, you know, by what other people are doing. Other people sin. But regardless what God often uses in these situations, circumstances is to reveal arson and our need for him. And so the limit includes certainly a component of confession and repentance and sorrow, not just over the circumstances, but sorrow over our sin that maybe has contributed to our circumstances.

00;08;01;10 - 00;08;32;29
Brenton
Yeah, good. I, I look forward to diving into that more whenever we do that. I think that'd be a a great, a great thing for the church. okay. So one thing that you'll bring up on on Sunday is Esther's isolation from her people and from God. you know, she, she kind of is in that palace and has completely assimilated to the Persian culture, and so bring that into our context.

00;08;33;05 - 00;08;47;06
Brenton
How how does that happen to us, you know, living in the secular world? And and how can we avoid getting to that point of isolating ourself from from Christianity or from fellow believers?

00;08;47;08 - 00;09;34;20
Chris
Yeah, I think that this really requires some discipline and some intentionality in making being with God's people a priority. And I think it's really easy today for us to get caught up in busyness and get caught up in the things of the world and to the point where gathering with God's people and I would include in that certainly worship on Sunday morning, but also gathering throughout the week, whether it's in a community group or a Bible study, small group, or just gathering with other believers for meals or just doing life with them is really easy.

00;09;34;22 - 00;10;00;20
Chris
And what we need to understand is that the the evil one is very intentional and has a plan, and he's being very effective at it oftentimes in just trying to pull us away and get us so caught up in whether it's busyness or just in the things of this world. And sometimes those things are maybe often these are not bad things or not wrong things.

00;10;00;23 - 00;10;33;03
Chris
They're just not the best things. And so we really, really have to fight that. And I would also say not only the things of the world, but we're getting isolated by our technology because it's you know, it's it's much easier to kind of sit online, social media, hang out on YouTube than to actually in some ways get up and to be with with people and and real face to face relationships are more complex and oftentimes difficult than online.

00;10;33;06 - 00;10;36;13
Brenton
Online or online ones can be kind of complicated, too.

00;10;36;16 - 00;10;58;01
Chris
Well, they can be complicated, yes, for sure. But there's a separate no, there's there's some type of security and safety you can choose, you know, what drama you want to be involved in and in all of those kind of things. And if you're involved in relationships, you know that face to face relationships, actual human relationships, it's it's more complicated.

00;10;58;01 - 00;11;17;06
Chris
So but it's also more rewarding or can be more rewarding. And it's it's absolutely necessary. So I just think we've got to be really intentional about it. And I, I really believe that a lot of people these days are struggling to be intentional about.

00;11;17;09 - 00;11;39;27
Brenton
Yeah, I think you're right about the intentionality like this. This happens passively, right? You're not like actively looking to disconnect from the from the church, but the less you put the effort in and actively try to stay in it, I think the more you're going to fall away. And so, yeah, I think it's it's something you need to be proactive about.

00;11;39;29 - 00;12;03;25
Brenton
So, okay, verse 14 really stuck out to me as I was reading through this chapter. Mordecai is talking to Esther and says, for if you keep silent at this time and you know, my guess for what would come next is like this threat of extinction. Like if you keep silent, we're all going to die, right? But that's not what he says.

00;12;03;25 - 00;12;28;22
Brenton
He says if you keep silent, relief and deliverance will rise from the Jews from another place. So, you know, he's confident that the fate of Israel doesn't ultimately fall on Esther's decision here. It it lies with with God. And so just thinking about how we can apply that in our lives, how can we how can we learn from this example here?

00;12;28;25 - 00;12;35;17
Brenton
And and I guess in what ways do we show our lack of faith that that God is in control?

00;12;35;20 - 00;13;05;19
Chris
Yeah, this is a really important statement and moment in this story. In some ways it might be the most important, or at least it leads to what's going to be the most important, because what comes after this is, you know, is Esther's kind of awakening, so to speak, spiritual awakening or renewal. And that's going to ultimately change the direction of of the of the story.

00;13;05;22 - 00;13;36;21
Chris
So Mordecai just here makes an really an unequivocal statement of faith. It's just showing like, okay, he's he's kind of drawing the line in this and he's going, okay, I'm I'm no longer going to just go along. I'm no longer going to be assimilated. I'm I'm going to place my faith in God's promises in the covenant that that he made with Abraham all those years before.

00;13;36;23 - 00;14;01;29
Chris
And he he really, I think, is looking back to like Genesis 12, the Genesis 15, and in numerous other passages, or at least for who have been stories and and saying, okay, God has made a promise that he is going to bless the people of Israel, our our people, the Jewish people, and he's going to provide for us and protect us.

00;14;01;29 - 00;14;22;29
Chris
And we are going to or we're going to make it through. And I'm going to put my faith and my life on the line in that. And then he says, you know, to Esther is so, you know, so whether or not you step up here or not, there's going to be God's going to deliver, I believe, and I trust in that.

00;14;23;02 - 00;14;42;19
Chris
And I think one of the things we can learn from that is like for us personally, we put ourselves in Esther. She is what we need to see is that God is going to do what God has said that He's going to do. The question is, are we are we going to play our part in that? So so he he he gives us an opportunity to do this.

00;14;42;19 - 00;15;04;23
Chris
Now, none of us are, you know, likely to be in in Esther. She's the obscure queen or king president or whatever. But we we all have a choice to make as to whether or not we are going to join God in what he is doing. So I quote this all the time. Matthew 16 says, I will build my church.

00;15;04;23 - 00;15;36;03
Chris
The gates of hell will not prevail again. So this is very similar to, I believe, to what Mordecai is saying here. Deliverance is going to come. Okay. It'll rise. If it's not you some it will come in some other form, God or use somebody else. And and so the question for us is, do we want to be that somebody do do we want to to to join the Lord and do we want to have the joy of being a part of what God is doing in this world?

00;15;36;03 - 00;15;54;01
Chris
And no, it's it's not going to be you know, you like Esther saving a whole group of people. Okay, that's highly unlikely to take place, but it can be to save some. I mean, that's really what the great commission is, is right. We're going to be the means that God uses to bring people to save faith at him.

00;15;54;01 - 00;16;17;29
Chris
So, you know, you and I agree on this. Is that God a sovereign over salvation? God chooses who who he's going to save. And he did that before the foundation of the world. That's not a question. Yeah, those guys used to say, believe me, save. The question is, is who is God going to use in order to bring people to faith in his son?

00;16;18;01 - 00;16;42;27
Chris
And we have been called as followers of Jesus to be those to be. That means those means. And so are we going to step into what God has called us to do and take that opportunity up? And, you know, Mordecai is just calling Esther here into the best kind of the most exciting, the most fruitful, the most life that matters the most.

00;16;42;27 - 00;16;48;03
Chris
You said, hey, you have this opportunity. Take take this opportunity.

00;16;48;03 - 00;17;19;27
Brenton
Yeah, Well, yeah. And I think I think it also shows us that we even when God does use us, we need to have humility through that because, you know, we're we're a means to God's ends, right? And so even like, she's she's in that situation. She's not in that situation because of anything she's really done. But on top of that, you know, we're we're reading this this story a long time later, and she's not the hero to us.

00;17;19;28 - 00;17;35;13
Brenton
Right. Right. Like she she did a great thing and that's great. And there was obedience. But but we're not praising her because of this story. Ultimately, we're praising God because of it. And so even when we're used, I think we need to have humility in that to know that it's not it's not us.

00;17;35;15 - 00;17;57;11
Chris
Yeah. So that phrase where Mordecai says or her, but who knows whether or not you have come to the kingdom for such time as this, it might be better translated. Who knows? But you have been brought to the kingdom for such time as this. In other words, I think Mordecai is trying to get to her. So it's like you're not here on your own.

00;17;57;11 - 00;18;22;08
Chris
Like God has brought you here for this time in place. And so, yeah, you're absolutely right. I can't agree with you more. Is that even, you know, if we do have the privilege of being gods means to do some amazing things. It's ultimately him working in and through us. It's not us. We're not capable of it on our own.

00;18;22;13 - 00;18;23;14
Chris


00;18;23;16 - 00;18;42;12
Brenton
Yeah. Well, I mean, this is the story of God's providence. So we read and see, like, you know, she, she comes in because Mordecai brings her, she's beautiful, so she gets treated well. The, the, you know, the former queen is gone. That was no control of hers. And so, yeah, we see over and over.

00;18;42;14 - 00;19;07;24
Chris
I mean just it's really easy for us to miss all of this because it's a fantastic story and we're most of us are really familiar with with the story goes. But she's an orphan, okay? So she just happens to have an uncle who loves her and uncle sorry, cousin who loves her and takes her in and raises her and apparently does a pretty good job.

00;19;07;24 - 00;19;54;07
Chris
They've got a great relationship. And and then she just happens to become queen, which, you know, is highly, highly and like it was very, very improbable. And then, you know, Mordecai being in a position in place where he's actually able to still influence her and and God works in his heart first and brings him in into the story in order for that, you know, to to get Mordecai his attention and and then you know this work and Mordecai and then he he you know really inspires her calls her out of it and then and not to get ahead of ourselves, but there's still a lot of other kind of coincidences, so to speak, throughout the

00;19;54;07 - 00;20;17;10
Chris
rest of this story, because we're not, you know, it's not a given that Esther is going to succeed in any stretch of the imagination, and I'm going to point that out is like the probability of Xerxes actually now show in her favor or not, you know, beheading her, whoever impaled the stake or whatever is pretty, pretty high that he's going to do that.

00;20;17;14 - 00;20;20;09
Chris
And so.

00;20;20;12 - 00;20;46;22
Brenton
All right. and on this one, you you challenge us to reject passivity and embrace God's call on our lives. I'd like to talk a little bit about calling looking at this story. Esther's calling was clear, or at least it seems like it was from our perspective of can you first kind of give us an idea of what you mean by calling?

00;20;46;24 - 00;21;21;16
Chris
Yeah, well, first of all, I would say I don't think for Esther, her calling was clear until Mordechai actually brought it out to her, pointed it out to her. Yeah. And so to get to your question though, he, he did so I think by really returning to, to scripture and by, you know, deliverance is going to come for for the Jews is like God has promised that that is going to be the case.

00;21;21;16 - 00;21;48;25
Chris
And so now look at your circumstances, Esther. And in light of what God's word has has said, what God has promised be, interpret where you are at right now and think about, okay, like you're you're one of God's people. And so he obviously has a calling on your life as to how he wants you to be a part of what he's doing in this world.

00;21;48;27 - 00;22;02;06
Chris
So when I say calling, I, I just mean like what? What is God called us to? What is his purpose for our lives?

00;22;02;08 - 00;22;11;03
Brenton
Okay, so what what if our calling, you know, take it into modern day? What if our calling doesn't seem clear to us?

00;22;11;05 - 00;22;31;00
Chris
Yeah, I think we've got to be careful, because when people use this, they think of calling and they think about, you know, who this guy want me to marry? What job does he want me to take? Where does he want me to live? You know, Does he want me to go on vacation here, there, you know, should I go to Walmart today?

00;22;31;02 - 00;23;10;03
Chris
The answer that's always no. But I. I think we need to think of it a little bit more. Big picture in in in my you know, you know, say maybe my experience, but also how how I just believe that this should work is what do we know that God's calling in our lives are. So first of all he's called this to himself and I've talks talks about in those terms we've been called to him to be his children, to be followers of Jesus.

00;23;10;05 - 00;23;30;11
Chris
And so then we can go to Scripture to know what does it mean to be a follower of Jesus. And we've got the entire Bible and specifically the New Testament that lays it out for us. So we've got to begin there. And then as we live out, what it means to be a follower of Jesus, to be to be a Christian.

00;23;30;17 - 00;23;59;16
Chris
Quite honestly, I think a lot of those other questions that we so wrap our minds around or try to rack our brains about or hearts about and we wrestle with, I think a lot of those things become become pretty clear. But I would also say is that when we are faithfully following the Lord and living out, you know, what it means to be his children, you know, like we have freedom.

00;23;59;19 - 00;24;23;23
Chris
Then in a lot of those and a lot of those other areas. And we can trust that if if we're trusting in the Lord with all our heart leaning, our understanding and we acknowledge him, he will direct our paths. And this is Proverbs three, five and six. And I think that that's a is so much is like we just talk about like find who who should I marry?

00;24;23;25 - 00;24;43;07
Chris
Well, and what I will tell people all the time is like, why don't you? And I literally was having this conversation with my son this week. He's he's only 14 and a half. Okay. But, you know, he's starting to get into aged 18 and all this kind of stuff. And I was saying, okay, well, but you know, what kind of girls and.

00;24;43;07 - 00;25;11;22
Chris
Okay, I say, well, why don't you first of all, focus on who you should be, who God's called you to be. And I think when we focus on who God's called us to be, then the those kind of other questions of like in terms of like dating or marriage, they become a lot clearer because when we are being who we want to be, then we're going to be attracted to and attract the kind of people that, you know, we shouldn't.

00;25;11;22 - 00;25;35;01
Chris
In this example, date or marriage doesn't always mean like that happens for sure. But but it it does become clear as to what decision we should make, what kind of person that we should look for. And or you think about it in like a job or something like that is like, okay, are you following the Lord? Is do you want what he wants?

00;25;35;03 - 00;25;41;20
Chris
And then those kind of things become just a lot more clear, I think.

00;25;41;22 - 00;25;44;29
Brenton
Okay, so I can't just roll dice for it. And so what you're saying.

00;25;45;01 - 00;26;08;17
Chris
Correct. Well, and you know, I think we want it. We want an easy button, right? Like we want it just the voice from heaven or we want to make it really like here, there, and God is more interested in who we are, what's going on in our hearts than he is about, like some of these decisions that we make.

00;26;08;20 - 00;26;27;16
Brenton
So when we you know, one thing that gets brought up a lot when we talk about these big life decisions is doors opening and closing. When what are your thoughts on that? I mean, is that is that real? Is God like actually putting things in the way of things he doesn't want us to do? Or how do you see that happening?

00;26;27;19 - 00;27;12;17
Chris
Sure. I mean, I think there are times where God makes it really obvious that he doesn't want something to and I think it's a little harder on the other end, too. Does he make it obvious that he does want something and maybe sometimes that that is the case, but this is where, you know, being led by the spirit and being sense of the spirit and listening to him and and, you know, regularly the Bible tells us we see this, especially in the Psalms, that we should wait for the Lord, wait for the Lord, wait for the Lord, wait for the Lord and waiting for the Lord.

00;27;12;19 - 00;27;41;02
Chris
After times they meet things means trying to be still listening prayer and and oftentimes it means that it takes longer than we want it to because we want the answer right here, right now. But, you know, I don't know if that is I mean, this is a complicated it's a complicated topic, but, you know, I, I go back to this like idea that of of marriage.

00;27;41;02 - 00;28;10;08
Chris
Like, there's this this idea that there's only one person in the world that God wants to be. There's that one person out there. I actually don't look at it that way. And I think it's problematic if you do because of that one person marries somebody else. I mean, in and that happens right all the time. But it's like God has given us some parameters about who who we should marry and we need to marry a believer.

00;28;10;10 - 00;28;32;14
Chris
So there check one and then is this person someone who is following the Lord, is walking with the Lord, expressing the fruit of the Spirit. And then you can just kind of it goes down that kind of the matrix from from there. And I think we we can we can discern God's calling on our lives. And sometimes that there's freedom in that too.

00;28;32;17 - 00;28;47;11
Brenton
Yeah, yeah, you're right. It's complicated. And I think there's, there's, it kind of needs to be approached case by case. And a lot of these big decisions and that's we're seeking out wisdom and help for these decisions is important.

00;28;47;11 - 00;29;19;13
Chris
Yeah well and let me just maybe I'll in on this. I think we really need to approach this, our decision making with the mentality and the heart that God is a God of grace, and that even if we make the wrong decision, He still is gracious and he's still always use this are bad decisions for our good.

00;29;19;16 - 00;29;20;11
Brenton
Yeah.

00;29;20;14 - 00;29;43;24
Chris
It's so sometimes we can get paralyzed by like, what if I make the wrong decision here and just we need to approach it right now. We want to make the right decision. We want to follow the Lord. We want to be careful about that. But we can also know and trust. And this has been, you know, my experience is like, you know, maybe just real briefly, we're a little bit shorter than I.

00;29;43;24 - 00;30;06;24
Chris
So just real briefly, like my my being here today can be traced back to a what? I probably was a wrong decision for me. So 25 years ago, I left my family. There was only three of us at that time to move from Florida to the Chicago area, which is just I know that just sounds like a bad decision, period.

00;30;06;26 - 00;30;33;28
Chris
Right? Who does that now nowadays? Nobody. But it it looking back, it's like that was not a that was not a good decision. But God use that to actually get me a year later in the pastoral ministry. And that is apparently where he wanted me to be. And that was not my intention ever. My intention. I said I wouldn't do that.

00;30;34;00 - 00;30;45;22
Chris
And yeah, that's, that's what he that was his calling on my life was to be a pastor. And I only discover that through a bad decision that I made. Yeah. So.

00;30;45;24 - 00;30;55;09
Brenton
Yeah, well I think we can always, all of us can kind of relate to we grow a ton through our bad decisions, right?

00;30;55;09 - 00;30;56;13
Chris
So hopefully.

00;30;56;13 - 00;31;09;15
Brenton
Well that's, that's a fair point. I can only say in my life the bad decisions, some of the bad decisions I've made, I've grown from. Yeah. And so yeah, well that's an important part of sanctification too.

00;31;09;16 - 00;31;34;05
Chris
Yeah. And, and that's a you know, I said I was going to be done, but I, you know, once again and I, you know, Yeah, but we're all going to make bad decisions. That's really not the question. The question is, is what are we going to do when we make bad decisions or are we going to learn from them and grow and trust the Lord that he's gracious and sovereign over those bad decisions?

00;31;34;06 - 00;31;59;23
Chris
Are we going to continue to compound it by making more bad decisions and then living in guilt ridden shame over those bad decisions? And God's gracious, He's forgiving. So you make a bad decision, you own it, confess it, and thank the Lord that he's good and he's going to use Providence to deliver us, even in our bad, even our worst decisions.

00;31;59;25 - 00;32;10;16
Brenton
Yeah, okay. It's a good place to wrap up. Looking forward to this weekend. Great gift that is useful to the church and we will talk to you next time.