Relational Grace Podcast

Send us a text

In II Corinth 2:14 there is a verse that speaks directly to our Pastor’s present series of sermons. It reads as follows:

“Thanks be to God who in Christ always leads us in triumph and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere.”

These words sum up what the Christian life is all about. The apostle Paul wrote these words, after a terrible experience in which he had been abused so badly that he feared for his life. Yet, out of that, he writes that victory is the normal condition in the lives of believers.

In this series of sermons, our Pastor has attempted to show us that true Christians will experience trouble from time to time but God's will for us is this: that we walk in victory. And that is the great truth the book of Esther shares with us.

It is the marvelous story of how God delivers His people. We have seen how Haman plotted the destruction of the people of God by convincing Ahasuerus, the Emperor of Persia, to issue an edict to annihilate all Jews in the Empire. 

We have seen how Mordecai moved to prevent this by convincing Esther to inform Ahasuerus of what was happening. When this plot was exposed, the Emperor hanged Haman on the gallows he had prepared for Mordecai. 

Then, last episode we saw a new edict being issued, one that permitted the Jews to defend themselves when the enemy came against them. As our Pastor demonstrated, this provides a beautiful picture of Romans 7 in the New Testament, known as the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which sets us free from the law of sin and death.

Support the show

Send us a text

As we saw last Sunday, the cry of Esther as she appeared before the Emperor for the second time was similar to the cry of the apostle Paul in Romans 7. "Oh, wretched man that I am…” She cried, “Oh wretched woman that I am.” Then she added something like this: “Who will deliver me and my people from this law of sin and death that has been uttered in the Emperor's name and cannot be revoked?"

But the king was helpless! He could only reply to her request by saying, "I can do nothing. The matter is in your hands and Mordecai's. What has been written by the king's hand and sealed by the king's seal cannot be revoked." 

We saw something similar last week in Galatians 6:8. It reads as follows:

"He that sows to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption…"  

This is an inevitable and irrevocable law. We saw that there is no way to escape the results of decisions made under the rule of self. They bear unavoidable consequences. Paul writes this in Galatians 6:7:

"Be not deceived, God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth he shall also reap. If you sow to the flesh, you shall of the flesh reap corruption.” 

We all know the tragic harvest of it in terms of habits that cannot be broken and circumstances that cannot be avoided. So, what can be done? Our Pastor will provide the answer in today’s sermon. It requires a new law one that supersedes the old law.

Support the show

Send us a text

We have traced the events which have led up to a climactic point for Emperor Ahasuerus, Queen Esther, Mordecai, and Haman to the point where the Emperor's eyes had at last been opened. He could now clearly see the true nature of Haman, and the deception which he sought to perpetrate. The king knew that his enemy was the person he once thought to be his closest friend. 

Of course, Ahasuerus struggled mightily with what he should do, but he eventually decided to treat Haman exactly as he deserved to be treated. He decided to hang Haman upon the very stake that Haman had erected for Mordecai earlier.

Recognizing the true nature of Haman was the first step of the Emperor in freeing his Empire from the very thing that threatened its ultimate destruction. As Pastor will point out this morning, this has always been the first step in achieving victory our Haman; our fleshly natures. It begins at the moment we stop justifying and excusing our faults and failures; the moment we stop shutting my eyes to these faults and failures; the moment we stop passing our faults and failures off as being something else, and resolve to hang them on the tree where God put all of our sins, past, present, and future when Jesus Christ died. 

That is the beginning of living in victory in all our lives. This will be our Pastor’s theme for today. We will examine Esther 8, where we will trace the steps that follow any decision we make to crucify our flesh. The sermon will open by reviewing the transfer of power when Haman was crucified, and the new authority structure that would be put in place.

Support the show

Send us a text

We humans frequently manifest a strange urge for timelessness; we possess an instinctive need to be remembered after we are gone. The idea that we will be forgotten is a pain we can hardly sustain. 

Yet, in all of human history there has been only one truly timeless, eternal event; it was the cross of Jesus Christ. The cross of Jesus Christ marks the hinge moment in human history and it passes judgment on every human life.

This event not only occurred in time and space some nineteen hundred years ago, but it is something which also takes place every day in each and every Christian's life. In fact, it must take place on a daily basis in every Christian's life, perhaps many times a day. 

This timeless event becomes part of our experience when we reenact it in our own lives. This is why the cross of Jesus Christ, with all its possibilities of salvation and deliverance, can be an utterly useless thing if it finds no translation into our own personal experiences. When we believe and act (that is what belief is, acting on the principles set forth in that cross), then it comes to be true in our life experiences. 

This is what we have in Esther 7. This material provides a picture of the only way Christians can find real victory over the subtle, crafty, self-loving, self-pleasing, self-pitying, self-defending, self-asserting urges that arise within us.

This daily manifestation is what is portrayed for us in this seventh chapter of Esther, as our Pastor continues his present series. The sermon is entitled Haman’s Last Supper.

Support the show

Send us a text

The book of Esther is known as one of two books in the Bible that does not contain the name of God. It seems strange that a biblical book should never mention God; so what is the book about? Well as we have seen, it is really a story of palace intrigue in the ancient empire of Persia, an historical incident taken out of the very distant past.  But we should not look for direct teaching from this book, but indirect teaching. 

The fact is this: the material in this book is true, yet allegorical in nature. God is everywhere in this book, but not directly. In other words, the book is parabolic, an allegory about your life and mine. In each of our lives the story of Esther is being acted out. This is what makes it so fascinating, so interesting.

As our Pastor has attempted to demonstrate, this story is the revelation of the terrible possibility of our being Christians and yet wasting our lives. It is the story of an empire which was almost wrecked by pride without realizing the true cause. It is the story of the danger implicit in intending to do right, and of desiring to do right, and of believing we are doing right, but ending up realizing that we have been terribly and tragically wrong. As Pastor continues this series of sermons, he will help us recognize the various characters depicted in Esther in our own lives.

Support the show

Send us a text

The story of Esther is a story of the Emperor of ancient Persia, who married a beautiful Jewish girl named Esther who had been raised by her cousin, Mordecai. The latter two persons were captives, taken from the city of Jerusalem and brought over into the kingdom of Persia.

In the court of this Emperor was a very slimy character named Haman who became the Prime Minister of the kingdom. As time passed, antagonism had developed between Haman and Mordecai. Haman, wanting to rid the empire of Mordecai, created a fiendish plan to destroy all the Jews in the kingdom. What he did not know was this: Esther, the queen, was a Jewess. 

Mordecai became aware of the plot and prevailed upon Queen Esther to brave the disfavor of the king by going to him without invitation, to plead the cause of her people.

The whole story becomes of fascinating interest and meaning to us when we discover that this is not merely a story of the ancient past, but is also a divinely inspired, magnificently accurate portrayal of what is going on in each of our lives at this very moment. 

Each of us is a king over a kingdom; the kingdom is each of our lives. The spirit persons of each of us who have been born again have been made alive in Jesus Christ. This is the queen that has come into your life. 

Mordecai, in this story, is a figure of the Holy Spirit moving to preserve the fruit of the Spirit in our kingdom. And slyly at work in us is Haman -- that which the Bible calls the flesh, the SARX, tricking us into believing that the only way we will ever get what we want is by choosing our own way and ignoring the life of Jesus Christ within us. This will be our Pastor’s sermon for today.

Support the show

Send us a text

At his current place in the=is series of sermons from the story of Esther, our pastor has now introduced to us an Emperor called Ahasuerus. He was the grandfather of Cyrus the Great. This Emperor had married a young Jewish girl named Esther, a captive taken from the city of Jerusalem, years earlier. Her cousin Mordechai later became a judge in the city of Susa the capital city of the Persian Empire.

In the court of the king was an oily character whose name was Haman who managed to pull the wool over the King’s eyes and deceived him into signing a decree to destroy all the Jews in his kingdom. The Jewish people are called “the people of Mordechai.”

We should be aware that the book of Esther is true history. It can be confirmed by the Jewish celebration called “the Feast of Purim, named for the casting of the PUR, which our Pastor described last week. It was cast before Haman to fix the day upon which the Jews would be exterminated. This feast is still celebrated today some twenty-five hundred years after these events.

However, the startling thing we learn is this: the events in Esther also a glimpse into our own hearts. Each of us has a king dwelling in the capital city, the capital city being our bodies, and reigning over an Empire which touches everyone we know. If we are a believing Christians, at the moment we were born again we gained a queen---a spirit made alive in Jesus Christ to serve as a place of communion between the Holy Spirit who dwells in your hearts, and ourselves.

As pastor will demonstrate this morning, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is symbolized in the story in the person of Mordechai.

Support the show

Send us a text

In this series of sermons, our Pastor has introduced us to four characters that play a role in the book of Esther. The first was Emperor Ahasuerus of Persia. He was a young man of about eighteen years of age when the events recorded in the book of Esther begin.

The second was the Queen of Persia, a woman named Vashti. The Emperor deposed her and for the next three years he lived without a queen. But, when the Emperor was twenty-one, he married our third character, a young Jewess by the name of Esther. The fourth character, the one we introduce today, her cousin, Mordecai, was a judge in the city of Susa, the capital of Persia. 

In the course of his duties, Mordecai uncovered a plot against the king's life. The culprit is the fifth character in our drama, a villain named Haman. He represents our spiritual enemy Satan, as we shall see. 

This is more than a story from the long forgotten past! It is the story of each of our lives. The Emperor represents each one of us. Like him, each of us have great influence in the empires we rule, our lives. We are the emperors of our kingdoms, which means we, too, have found a new queen. This happened when our spirit person was made alive in Jesus Christ.

We now have the influence of the Holy Spirit, the heavenly Mordecai, working in us. But today, Pastor will point to the fact that like Haman, our spiritual enemy, Satan, has launched a plot against each of our lives. You will see today how the story of Esther retraces our spiritual journeys.

Support the show

Send us a text

Last week, our Pastor began a new series of sermons taken from the book of Esther. In his introductory sermon, he introduced us to three persons, the first being the emperor of Persia, AHASUERUS. Our Pastor suggested that this man represents each one of us. He also introduced two women, a pair of queens, named VASHTI and Esther. Pastor suggested that VASHTI represents our spirit person when it is dormant; dead in trespass and in sin. AHASUERUS and VASHTI had no relationship; they were dead to one another.

This lack of relationship left the Emperor empty and alone. But the day would come when he would meet a Jewish girl named Esther. Last week, Pastor also suggested that Esther represented our regenerated spirit persons. The meaning of this will be seen in the sermon for this morning as he introduces us to this young Jewish girl.

Pastor will also introduce us to a fourth person. He, too, will have a crucial role to play. His name is Mordechai and he is the cousin of Esther. He is described as being the son of Jair, of the Hebrew tribe of Benjamin. Finis Dake, in his famous Dake’s Study Bible, interprets Esther 2:5–6 as follows:

"Mordecai son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, who had been carried into exile from Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, among those taken captive with Jeconiah king of Judah.” 

This means that Mordecai himself was exiled by Nebuchadnezzar meaning that he was quite aged. We do know this; according to Esther 2:7, he adopted the young girl Esther when she was orphaned at a young age, and brought up as if she were his own daughter. It is on this young girl, Esther, and this elderly man, Mordechai, that Pastor will focus on in this message.

Support the show

Send us a text

We are beginning the book of Esther, which may be the most neglected book in the entire Bible. You see, very few people have ever attempted a sermon series on it or even a few single sermons from this book because the truth is very few people even read this book as  devotional material.

Perhaps this is because this book is different than anything found in the New Testament. In fact, it’s much different from what is found in the remainder of the Old Testament. That’s why people tend to be a bit mystified by it. Then there’s the fact that it’s about a woman, which is very rare in biblical record. The truth is that there are only three books in the entire Bible about women and all of them are similar to Esther. The other two books are of course Ruth and the Song of Solomon. All three books are indeed delightful, but each of them are a little difficult to understand, which is why our pastor will delve beneath the surface of Esther and discover what is hidden there for us. In the way of introduction this much can be said for the book of Esther. It is a story of two angles: one of human love and the other of palace intrigue. As this series begins our pastor hopes we will all be fascinated until we finally arrive at the conclusion of this awesome story, but nevertheless, in the end, we will probably wonder why this book is even included in the Bible.

It does not mention the name of God, not once. There is no reference to worship or faith. There is no prophecy concerning Christ. There is no mention of heaven or hell. But, beneath the surface is in fact, some life changing input. And yet, it is an amazing revelation of how God works through natural means to achieve his purposes. Our pastor will begin this new series with a rather secular title.

Support the show