Esther: An Evil Plan (Episode 3)

hi I'm Aaron Davis and this is my friend Betsy Gomez and we hope you've been following along with us on the women of the Bible podcast this is season 2 Esther we've been walking through the study Esther trusting God's plan and we've been in the revive our hearts living room but this week we're not now this week we are in the Reviver heart science lab because we have a hypothesis that's a very question of your gear this is our special lab coats and our official goggles because we have a hypothesis that this candy and this soda can teach all of us something about our hearts as we've been reading through the story of Esther we've met the man Peyman and Haman has an explosive temper he faces circumstances he can't control and instead of responding by trusting God's plan like we're learning to do he responds by exploding we all face circumstances we can't control but we don't have to explode so ready yeah goggles on I can't believe it goggles on lab coats ready Glenn's off okay here goes three two one Oh intend that was and that is exactly what we don't want our hearts to do when we face difficult circumstances so let's leave the science lab head into the studio join some friends and talk about how we can trust God's plan let's go joined by some of my favorite friends and we have a lot in common but one of the things we have in common is that we all work for revive our hearts so could you introduce yourselves to those listening and tell them how you are connected to revive our hearts well my name is Betsy Gomez and I work for the Hispanic or Spanish outreach of revive our hearts that is called Aviva nuestros corazones can you help me say it I've tried so okay Aviva Aviva I can do that no estrus nuestras perfect really perfect chorus honest horris honest I did it I am bilingual it's easy so you what do you do with Angie well so I am basically a cheerleader there but I manage the media team so like all the creativity and I manage the content for the blog so it's a pretty interesting work because instead of giving giving give him I think I'm always like taking and drinking from the well I think the Lord knew that I needed to be exposed to his word and he allowed me to do that so have that and joined by another friend he'll am your name and what you do for revive our hearts yes and I'm Kerry gall and I work as the liaison for international outreach and staff care which I like to say is the best job in the world I get to connect with leaders across the world and encourage them be a cheerleader to them help them get back to the Word of God in the places in their own lives where they might be struggling and then I get to come alongside of our staff here in Michigan at the home base and just encourage and and walk alongside them as well you are both in the right jobs for you because Betsy you have been such a strong cheerleader for me and Carrie you have pointed me to the Word of God for many many years so I'm grateful that the Lord has put you in the positions he's put you in I'm Aaron Davis and I'm the content manager for revive our hearts that means I get to do great things like help writers produce Bible studies and run our blogs and I love that I get to do that but for today I'm wearing my podcaster hat that's something that we do here hats we do we wear a lot of hats and we have been walking through the Bible study Esther trusting God's plan and we've just been walking through it like friends which we are would walk through a Bible study I hope every woman listening is involved in a Bible study with other women I don't know about you but it is just so impacted the trajectory of my life to open God's Word with other women and so that's what we're doing here we really are friends we really are walking through the book of Esther together so you might hear us talking over it to each other a little bit or laughing just like we would be doing if we were in my living room and we've made it all the way to Esther chapter 3 we read Esther chapter three together and here we meet the villain of the story the human villain of the story Haman and he hatches this plot to annihilate the Jews I know that you've read Esther before but as you were reading it again anything jump out at you about Haman or about this moment in the story when he decides that he is going to annihilate the Jews I think I see in him like it's that word even like hvordan nglish unquenchable yes oh I think I judges it in Spanish I'm in sassy alley okay okay so it's like an unquenchable thirst for like power and glory and that leads him to all this you know crazy things like being so violent and wanting to shed blood and you know I think yeah it's horrible yeah and as you were saying that I it's so easy to armchair quarterback and distance myself from him but I see in myself an unquenchable thirst for attention an unquenchable thirst for praise haiman is in many ways a cautionary poster child because that takes him down a path that i'm confident he didn't intend to go down as will our own sin pattern so I am Haman in some ways yes anyways anything that jumped out at you about his character or lack of character or the decisions he makes here early on yeah one of the things Aaron is just how it's never enough you know he wants he always wants a little bit more so he's in relationship with the king and the Queen but that's not enough he's really setting out to to take out the people of God and so that that selfish inner longing and desires never satisfied there's always something more that he needs in order to feel good about himself and we should pay attention to that flag when it starts to wave itself in our own lives that we can't ever have enough what ever can ever have enough money in the bank we can't ever have enough friends we can never have enough clothes in the closet we can't ever have enough likes on our social media account whenever something starts to be unquenchable what a great word think that's something for us to pay attention to and as we'll learn from his story it can take us places we didn't want to go well you can just read it here in Chapter three and not really understand where that drive comes from and Haman but I wanted us to do a little bit of digging man the Bible is a treasure trove and if you start digging in it you will find angles to these stories that you didn't know we're there and we could get a little bit of a glimpse into the heart of Haman if we go back a little further Carrie can you take us to Exodus 1716 hmm and he said the Lord has sworn the Lord will have war against a Malik from generation to generation so this is not man versus man this is not about Haman versus Mordecai this isn't just some turf war between two testosterone Laden men this is a few that has happened between the Amalekites and the people of God for generations and more than that it points to two really important threads that we see throughout all of scripture and throughout all of history one is the enemy's plan to just after and take out the people of God and the parallel plan which will win and is victorious and Esther story and our own which is God's redemptive plan and so it's it helps me understand somewhat that Haman wasn't just a man who was mad at another man that there's generations of anger and bitterness and pain and frustration tied up in this story can you think of any other generational patterns of sin that can be hard to difficult to break you know I have a dear friend who's struggling with such deep anger loves Jesus with all of her heart does not want to have the anger rising up in fact she says it comes up so often I don't even know where it's coming from and as we've started digging back into her history it goes all the way back three generations of women in her family who have struggled with anger and so she's learned it it is a normal kind of response and praise God she's breaking that generational sin and stronghold that's been just a part of her life and and learning a new way of living you know that we we can be honest with God and and tell him where we're at but we don't have to respond in that anger yeah in our our family the woman's perception of ourselves is pretty warped and there's a lot of dieting and talk of dieting a lot of the way we talk about our weight that just isn't God honoring and I learned that from itty-bitty you know my mama was always on a diet and she learned that from my grandma who was always on a diet and I have said I want to be the generation where that stops I would love to take back the ground that the enemy has stolen in our family unfortunately Haman succumbs to this generations of bitterness this generations of hatred towards the Jews and I want us to listen to Esther 3:1 through 2 and find out what's happening in the story after these things King Azeris promoted Haman the egg a guy the son of Hamad otha an advanced and set his throne above all the officials who are with him and all the king's servants were with the Kings gate bowed down and paid homage to Haman for the King had so commanded concerning him but Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage then the Kings servants who were at the Kings gate said to Mordecai why do you transgress the king's command we see in Haman and Mordecai these contrasts where we see Haman living to please man and Mordecai making choices clearly motivated out of fear of the Lord and we can look at that and we can react to it or not we might see ourselves in one of them or the other but I wonder what does it really look like what are the evidences in our own life that our motivating factor our engine is to please man I was having a conversation with a college girl who I loved the other day and we were talking about internships and you know jobs after college and what she kept saying is but what will people think or what will my parents say or what what if they don't like that and she had this total paralysis about her future because her motivating factor was pleasing the people that she loves so it's easy for me to look at her life and see it much harder to see it in my own life but that sometimes I think paralysis or procrastination can be an indicator that's what's motivating us is to please others Kari can you think of some other kind of litmus tests or indicators that what's motivating us is pleasing people yeah I think kind of dovetailing with that erin the whole idea of perfectionism of I have to get it perfect or I can't make a decision the stress of that whether it's as a young mom raising little ones how do I do this perfectly and if I'm not doing it perfectly then what do I do with all of that what if I get it wrong in mothering and so that fear of man rather than fear of God often lands us at perfectionism which just increases stress in our life yeah yeah and like in our relationships it makes us so needy because we need approval and approval and so instead of clinging to the Lord and depending on the Lord we're actually like clinging to someone and making that person like the source of our satisfaction and if she likes me he likes me I'm I'm happy but if he if she doesn't like what my decision or my conviction I am depressed so I need to change my life so I can please her and get her back so it's it's a horrible it's like a bottomless well you know with early living to please man that is absolutely a bottomless pit but if we're living to please the Lord we've he's pleased you know he adores us we're his beloved children that we don't it's not a scale that we put things on to earn more love a day on the day and take things off to get less so maybe that if there's that sense of satisfaction that might be some indicator of our heart motivation I think that haman seems a little bit far off he's a man he's in this Old Testament story and so I wonder if you have a woman in your life that that portrays the Mordecai or the Esther who is a woman in your life that you know beyond a shadow of a doubt her motivation is the fear of the Lord and what does her life look like how does it look different from the Haman's yeah I have a friend Debra is her name and her hospitality when she welcomes us into her home it's not about the food and it's not about all of the details of everything being right and perfect she welcomes you into her home and you know she's really interested in you you know immediately she's asking questions and drawing you in and welcoming and it's just such a beautiful picture to me and I think you could be hospitable to please man and it wouldn't have the same impact on the harvest yeah yeah and it's evident I guess that she's not seeking to please man because often things aren't right you know something's burning on the stove or she forgot to put the brownies in the oven but it wasn't about that to begin with it was about relationship so that's what's beauty of a woman that you think she fears the Lord yeah I think about my aunt I call her my aunt but she's my mother's friend her name is Amelia and she took us in my mom and my and me when my mom divorced and she's adopted us and she cared for us she never married she focused and caring for us throughout the years and I've seen her putting her life aside to care for us and everything she does is thinking in her like she has our good in mind all the time and she loves the Lord and everything she does is out of that love for the Lord instead of doing that to receive something from the Lord so I think when I think about some somebody like that she's the first person that comes to mind I think of our Mimi who's my husband's grandmother she's 89 years old and she lives to serve I mean she picks my little guys up from school in the afternoon she she's 89 years old she has little snacks for them in the car and if the flag is out at our gas station that means that the st. Louis Cardinals have won and you can get cheap sodas and she takes my little guys in there I don't even take my little guys in there and she's just but her motivation is to serve them to love them she serves her local church she serves her neighbor neighbors and you she's unsinkable because she's not motivated in any way she wants us to feel loved but that is not her core engine her core driving force is to please alert in to love people well and I want to be me me when I grow up and I you just can't you can't faze her and so it's that contrast again of those insatiable appetites versus an ability to just be satisfied because I live to serve the Lord let's look at Esther 3:5 and see what happens and when Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage to him Haman was filled with fury that's Haman's reaction and I think that failing to rest in the Providence of God makes us reactive people rather than responding to our circumstances we become reactive we may not respond in fury like a man did although sometimes we do maybe we respond in extreme despair that's the sin ditch that I Drive myself into personally I mean I just drive myself into discouragement every day of my life and it's ultimately a faith issue it's ultimately I don't trust that the Lord is working it to my good or it could be any number of ways but I think if we don't rest in God's providence we become reactive rather than responsive and there are some questions in this week's study that I just thought we'd chew on a little bit here as a group I'm gonna give it to us rapid-fire and I'm interested in your thoughts what people or situations am i seeking to control how am i grasping for power and when others don't do things my way do I get bent out of shape so I think it would be easy for us to read Esther story and distance ourselves from Haman and say there's no Haman and me but and we think about who we try to control where we try to get power and what bends us out of shape for me it's convicting is it convicting to you how would you respond to those questions oh-ho so convicting so convicting I had a friend just last week I was recounting to them some interaction that Dennis said and I had had and and just seeking some input and some wisdom and and this dear friend said to me Kerry like it sounds like God is really at work in both of your lives in your life and in Dennis's life and is it okay with you if if God's at work in Dennis's life and you don't really have to understand that or necessarily get a response from him which is I'm highly relational and Dennis's my engineer logical husband that I love dearly but we're like black black and white different you know and so I'm always going after him to pull him into conversation and relationship with him and in this case like God was doing some incredible things but when I tried to draw it out he wasn't ready to come out so I just went harder after him to try to get to him you know because that's what you do right in the burbs yes beating the pair and so I my friend said so can you just be okay with that and and let it go and say oh like let me know if you need anything all as well and you know my first response was well of course I can do that and then I'm thinking no actually I don't why not there's that that drive to I don't know Aaron to be in control I guess to be you know in the nature in the know that's it and kind of know where the puzzle pieces are gonna fall so we've had great conversation about that and are on a journey of learning that it's okay Kari it's okay to just be okay it's hard in marriage I think it's hard with our kids I think it's hard with our friends where we know God's at work because we trust him but we don't we aren't privy to what he's doing and it is very tempting I'm glad I'm not the only one to at least partner with the Lord and try to manipulate or accelerate the process and I think the Lord is can use that to expose pockets where we are trying to have control can you think of any examples in your own life where you think oh there's a little bit of Haman in there totally um I remember when my when our boys were little we were really struggling financially and I really want to control that even though that I knew because I knew that the the Lord was at work in us and using that situation to reveal things in our character to reveal things from his character but I remember one morning tell him voices I need to buy this it was a very important things for the voice and Moises is like I have I can't do anything let's pray I was so mad I was so mad I was like who wants to pray right now like those are things that you you don't like to admit but in the situation like when you're in the midst of like wanting to get control it's crazy because it's like I'm bipolar I know that God is in control but at the same time because I didn't understand some of some of the things that he's doing I'm frustrated and I'm mad so it's incredible how God that same day I remember that Moises smiled we prayed I didn't tell him that I was so mad nobody knew well maybe and I remember the first thing I did when he left is I opened the Reviver hearts podcast in the end Nancy said that day if you haven't read your Bible go read your Bible because you need your Bible more than you need this part cuz I'm like okay and the verse I had to read that day was romance I don't remember I sing so the the verse that I had to read that day was that verse it says that if he if he gave us Christ he will give us everything we need some like Lord oh you're gonna to deliver us from this situation or you got to pray or you're going to provide I'm gonna trust the Lord can you believe that same moment somebody knocked the door and said oh I was walking and I I felt like I had I have to give this it was the exact revision and it was just like a reminder Europe you're fool I'm God my hand is all upon your situation even though you don't see it you just need to surrender that control because I am God and you're not so there's so many love oh yeah there's no one like our God I know that you both are like me we have a lot of coffee-shop conversations with women and whether it's you know a child that's not walking with the Lord or a financial situation or a relational stress often I'll listen to that woman she'll pour it all out and then I'll look her in the eye with all the love in the world and I'll say six months ago if someone had said do you trust the Lord with whatever this is you would have said yes and now here we are and the Lord has used this to reveal that no you do not there is pockets of unbelief in your life related to this circumstance and you're trying to fix you're trying to manipulate it and you're trying to control it but ultimately this is a mercy that the Lord is revealing wait a minute there's a pocket there that you don't trust me with that and I think we can all we all have those pockets and it's good when the Lord reveals them we don't want to respond with like Haman in a fury or trying to manipulate or trying to control and so ultimately he gains power he is infuriated he has this generational legacy of bitterness towards the people of God and he uses it he issues this edict that the Jews are to be annihilated and it seems so final it seems so terrible so dark it's so dark in fact the edict says that every man woman and child are to be executed on the same day I mean it is devastating and yet the invisible hand of God is at work to bring Redemption and as I was reading this chapter of Esther you know I know that the whole Bible is about the gospel I know that Old Testament New Testament doesn't matter the Old Testament points forward to Jesus the New Testament points backwards to Jesus that it's all about Jesus but I feel like I got new goggles for that as I was reading this again and Haman was a real man he really lived he's not just an allegory or a picture of something else but he does represent a bigger enemy yeah and that is the enemy of our souls the enemy that has hated the people of God for generations like Haman has and I wonder how do you see the gospel in this story how do you see even at this moment where the edict is that the people of God are to be annihilated what are the gospel threads that we can pull out there well when I was reading this I was reminded that and I really like the fact that you went back so we can see why is that hatred in Haman we see that is this is not a story I am allowed to see with a microscope but I need to see it with a telescope I need to go and you know see the bigger picture so this is not a battle between Mordecai and Haman but is this is God's doing God's Redemption plan in action and the enemy trying to stop him something that came to mind is when in Van esther 3 in verse 13 says letters were sent by couriers to all king's provinces with instructions to destroy kill to any annihilate and gnarlier yes and the first thing I thought it was John 10:10 when it says describes the enemy this way the thief comes only to steal kill and destroy it was like the same words so if this is not a means to Haman's doing or like a little story of God redeeming God's people in like a little short thing no this is the the enemies doing against God's plan God's redemptive plan so I love how it sets like the plot for redemption to come for someone to intercede so it's amazing to see how this story gives us hope because even in the midst of darkness and you know desperation we see men and women that are faithful you know this remnant of people that they trust God they fear God in even in the midst of this craziness yeah and I think the microscopic you know I don't know if you all do this but not when I read scripture I tend to want to think that it's about me even though that I know it's about the Lord so there's the me application here sends me to Romans 8 what then shall we say of these things if God is for us who can be against us he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all how will he not also with him graciously give us all things that's up past as you mentioned earlier who shall bring any charge against God's elect it is God who justifies who is it to condemn Jesus Christ is the one who died more than that who was raised it goes on to say that nothing can separate us from him so you know we know what it's like to be attacked personally by the enemy and we have this hope that God is the shield and that he will spare us that he fights that battle for us but I want us to look bigger than that there's hope that yes God's providence is at work when the enemy attacks us and that's important hope but let's look bigger ultimately the fact that this edict would be reverse spoiler alert that God's people would be spared such a mercy because the Savior was going to come through this line and carries we were talking about this you took us to Genesis so would you take us back there to Genesis 12 it all reminds me Aaron of the grand narrative of Scripture you know creation fall Redemption restoration and so God has always had a plan to rescue his people and in Genesis 12 verse 2 says and I will make you Abram a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great and so you shall be a blessing I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you I will curse and in you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed so from the very beginning the Haman's life is really just a small part easy being used by the evil one in the evil ones plot to keep the Messiah from being born right to destroy the Jewish people so that Christ cannot come which we know is not going to happen because nothing holds back the hand of God but it just brings me so much hope that right there in Esther chapter three really is the gospel that Jesus came that he came for you and I and then he's coming for all of the nations for all people he desires that none would perish but all would come to repentance [Music] you 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Channel: Revive Our Hearts

Views: 4,583

Rating: 4.9069767 out of 5

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Id: ZPECSZxIJ2c

Length: 30min 43sec (1843 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 28 2019