A big welcome to you and hello to our Hemel and Hatfield site
as well. I'm Tarin and I'm one of the
pastors here. Happy Mother's Day and today as
you can see, we are celebrating all women in this church.
For you have been placed for such a time as this.
And to celebrate today, what we are doing is we are pausing our
impact series just for one Sunday.
And what we're going to do is dive into the book of Esther.
And it's a story of a woman who didn't think she had what it
took, but she found herself standing between a nation and
its destruction. And it's the story of how one
persons obedience can change the course of history.
And it's got more drama in it than a Netflix series, I think.
There's tears, there's sorrow, there's great joy and
celebration, there's feasting, there's fasting, and there's an
awful lot of gore as well. And it's a story really of a
rags to riches, of an orphan girl from a ethnic minority
becomes one of the most powerful and wealthiest women in the
whole of the land. She is the star of the show and
her name literally means *. So before we open the Bible
today, let me paint a picture of where we are and what is
happening up until this point. So there is a king, King Xerxes,
and he is holding a huge elaborate banquet for his
Princess, his nobles, all his officials.
And this banquet, it lasts for an crazy number of days, 180
days. I mean, imagine the waistline,
you know, he is showing off his power, his wealth, his splendor
because Persia was a world power and the king was one of the
wealthiest in the entire world. And at the same time, his queen,
Queen Vashti, she is also holding a banquet in the royal
palace. And it's all going really well
until one day the king, he gets very drunk and he decides to
summon his wife, Queen Vashti, to come.
And she's a very beautiful woman and he wants basically to parade
her in front of all the men so the men can look at her and Ogle
her. And she does what any self
respecting woman would do and refuses to go.
And this, of course, then angers the king, and he's so
embarrassed by this that he banishes Vashti forever from the
Kingdom. And so then he goes about
appointing a new queen, and he's brings in all these beautiful
virgin women from across the empire into his harem.
And from all of them, he would choose just one to become queen.
And out of his entire harem, King Xerxes, he chooses Esther.
And she was a Jewish orphan. She was adopted by her uncle
Mordecai. And the king loved Esther more
than any other woman, and he crowned her queen.
And Esther, she hid her Jewish identity from the king.
Now, in the meantime, the king, he promotes this guy called
Haman, and he promotes him to become Prime Minister.
And one of the very first things that he does is he issues a
decree that whenever he walks by, he expects everyone to bow
down wherever he is. And Mordecai, Esther's uncle,
refuses to do this, which infuriates Haman to the point
where he goes to the king with 10,000 large sacks of silver and
he asks for permission to destroy the Jews.
The king agrees and issues an edict that goes out across all
127 provinces, saying that on the 7th of March next year, in
one single day, every Jewish man, woman and child must be
killed, slaughtered and annihilated.
Now, upon hearing this most horrifying edict, Mordecai, he
goes into mourning. He's wearing sackcloth and
ashes. And he quickly sends word to
Esther that she must go to the king to stop this terrible
decree. But Esther's afraid.
She's afraid to approach the king without being summoned.
And she knows that if she goes to the king without being
summoned, she is likely to face instant death.
But Mordecai can see the bigger picture.
And he sends back this answer to her.
And so if you have your Bibles, we're in the book of Esther, and
we're going to start in Esther chapter 4.
But we are moving all around this book today.
So we're chapter 4, verse 13. This is what Mordecai says.
Do you not think that because you are in the King's house, you
alone of all the Jews will escape?
For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for
the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's
family will perish. And who knows but that you have
been, that you have come to your raw position for such a time as
this. And so today, what we're going
to look at is what does it mean for us to stand in the gap, to
stand in the space between heaven and earth for those who
desperately need it? Now, when I read the Bible and I
read books of the Bible, you know, there are like you, I'm
sure there are some parts that I wish I could have been there
for. I wish I could have witnessed.
You know, I would have loved to been there seeing Moses parting
the sea, you know, or Pentecost, The disciples in the upper room,
you know, violent wing, tons of fire.
They're suddenly the Holy Spirit is upon them.
There is an account in the book of Acts I would love to have
witnessed where the Apostle Paul, he is there and he is
talking, talking, talking. He's talking for a very, very
long time. And there is a young man there
that falls asleep as the Apostle Paul keeps talking and talking
and he is about 3 stories up and he's by a window.
He falls asleep. He falls out of the window to
his death. Can you imagine Paul then
suddenly jumping up and he runs down the flights of stairs and
he throws himself over this young man and he comes back to
life again. I mean, it really takes the
phrase boring someone to death to a whole nother level, doesn't
it? And I personally feel quite
comforted that the apostle Paul did that.
It makes me feel a bit better. So many parts of the Bible I
longed to have been part of. But the book of Esther is not
that. You see, the world that Esther
lived in was horrifying. It was the time where leaders
were selfish, immoral and corrupt.
Where human life was seen as cheap and worthless, where
people live for themselves, where they were lovers of
pleasure rather than lovers of God.
It was a time of worldly pomp and show.
It's all about flashing the cash and image and beauty and sex and
power and debauchery of every kind.
I could go on and on. Does any of this sound familiar?
Ester's world and our world aren't as far removed as we may
think. In fact, our worlds are pretty
similar. Just like God called and placed
Esther into a specific time, into a specific place, God has
called and he has placed us at a specific time, into a specific
place for such a time as this. At such a time where men and
women and children are held against their will and they are
forced to become slaves, domestic slaves, sex slaves,
forced to commit crimes, forced into manual labour, where
suicide is prevalent. At a time where thousands and
thousands of the most vulnerable children are living in our care
systems. At a time where millions of
individuals and families are facing poverty.
At a time where homelessness is rising all the time.
At a time where children as young as nine are seeing porn
and they're seeing it as a normal part of everyday life.
At a time where drug and alcohol addiction are wrecking lives and
wrecking families. At a time where millions of
people are experiencing significant isolation and
loneliness, you see, it's clear through the story of Esther that
God's hand and his favour was on her.
Any of those beautiful women in the King's ha room could have
been queen, but God allowed it to be Esther.
And Esther enjoyed all the the favour of the Lord by being
queen. You know, she had freedom, she
had authority, she had agency, she had power, she had
splendour, she had wealth. And we see the favour of God
over Esther's life in Esther chapter 2 verse 15.
And it says when the turn came for Esther, the young woman
Mordecai had adopted to go to the king, she asked for nothing
other than what Hagai, the King's eunuch who was in charge
of the harim suggested. And Esther won the favour of
everyone she saw. But we favour comes the weight
of responsibility and stewarding that well.
And we see the responsibility that Esther she needs to carry
because of God's favour that is on her.
And in chapter 4 verse 14, Mordecai says, For if you remain
silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will
arise from another place, but you and your father's family
will perish. And who knows, but you have come
to your royal position for such a time as this.
The responsibility and the weight of Esther's task is
suddenly is huge. Suddenly it's immense.
It's so daunting for her. And Mordecai is urging her.
You cannot stay silent. You cannot not do nothing.
He's reminding her that God has put her in this position.
You see, with favour comes the responsibility to steward that
into action. And we see Esther's actions in
verse 15. Esther sends this reply to
Mordecai. She says to him, go gather
together all the Jews who are in Sousa and fast for me.
Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day.
I and my attendants will fast as you do.
When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is
against the law, and if I perish, I perish.
So Mordecai went away, and he carried out all Esther's
instructions. So Esther, she recognised the
favour of the Lord on her, she understood the responsibility of
what that brings, and then she actioned that, risking
everything. And as Christians we have all
received and we all carry the Lord's favour.
I love what it says. In Ephesians chapter 1, Paul
explains what this looks like. He tells us that we are blessed
in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in
Christ. He tells us that we're chosen in
Him before the creation of the world, to be holy and blameless
in His sight. He tells us that in love we're
predestined for adoption, adoption to sonship through
Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will.
He tells us that we've been lavished with His glorious grace
which He has freely given us in the One He loves.
He tells us that in Him we're redeemed through His blood and
the forgiveness of sins. In Him we're also chosen and
predestined and included and sealed with the Holy Spirit.
Do you see? Do you see what incredible,
unmerited, undeserved, unlimited favour we've we carry, we have
received through Jesus? And because of that, just like
with ESTA, we have this incredible opportunity to make a
difference, whether it's in our homes, our schools, our
families, the universities we go to, our workplaces or in our
communities. Friends, we aren't just there by
accident. We are there to steward that
interaction like never before. God has called every single one
of us in this room and in the rooms of Hemel and Hatfield for
such a time as this to stand in the gap.
And so we see Esther. We see her stand up.
We see her rise up with courage, with faith, with prayer and
fasting. She stood in the gap for the
Jewish nation, her people, God's people.
She stood in the gap for her friends and her family.
She stood in the gap for the people who she knew and the
people that she will never meet. She petitioned the king on their
behalf. She interceded on their behalf.
She was the go between. Esther was willing to stand in
the gap for those who can stand for themselves, for those known
to her and those that she'll never meet friends.
Accepting the call to stand in the gap is one of the most
important things I think we can do as Christians.
You see, things happen when we stand in the gap.
Chains break, light breaks, light shines Into Darkness.
Freedom comes, faith rises up, Peace invades.
Hope beckons. Healing takes root.
Impossible things become possible.
We are not here just to live our lives.
We are here to challenge, to change, to influence our
families, our friends, our community, this city, this
region, this nation, and the whole world for Jesus.
God put his hope in Esther to save the Jewish nation, and He
puts his hope in the church and His church.
It's us. We are the light for the world
in the darkest corners of the world.
We are hope carriers for the hopeless.
We are called to stand in the gap for the abandoned, the
orphans, the hopeless, the abuse, the lonely, the outcast,
the voiceless and say enough on our watch in 2026, this is not
OK. He's calling us not to remain
silent, not to sit back and think, well, this doesn't
directly affect me so I can forget about it.
You see, with favour comes responsibility, and with that
responsibility comes action. To stand in the gap is action to
use our voices. Action to pray and fast and
intercede is action for those close to us and for those we
will never meet. To stand in the gap takes
obedience. And at first, Esther, she wasn't
obedient. She wasn't obedient to what
Mordecai was asking of her to do to go to the king.
In fact, it was the complete opposite of that.
And we see that in chapter 4, verse 10.
Then she instructed him to say to Mordecai all the King's
officials and the people of the royal provinces know that for
any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court
without being summoned, the king has but one law that they be put
to death unless the king extends the gold sector to them and
spares their lives. But 30 days have passed since I
was called to go to the king. You see, she was more concerned
about her own life than she was for the Jewish nation.
She discounted herself because the road that she was being
asked to walk down would cost her something.
It was not a straightforward Rd. you know.
It was not easy. In fact it felt an impossible
task. And yet just 5 verses later she
says this to Mordecai in verse 16.
I will go to the king even though it is against the law.
And if I perish, I perish. How did Esther go from no to If
I perish, I perish one word, obedience.
You see, her feet went before her heart.
God is looking for those who are willing to stand in the gap in
obedience to Him. Edmund Burke says this All that
is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
Esther was willing to lay down her life in order to stand in
the gap for her people. When I was 15, my mum became
incredibly unwell and she went from being this person that was
absolutely full of life and full of energy, running around 100
miles an hour, to just being able to lie in her bed all day
long and do nothing. And she kept going back and
forth to the doctors and they kept saying it's a virus, it's a
virus. And eventually they diagnosed
her with ME and my mum could do nothing.
She could hardly speak, she could hardly eat, she couldn't
lift her head from the pillow. On a very, very good day, she
would sit in the armchair in front of the fire for a few
minutes and that would be her on a very good, good day.
And me and my brother and my family, we experienced the
effects of people standing in the gap for us.
Those who faithfully prayed for my mum's healing, they prayed
that she would get better. They prayed, they fasted, they
interceded on our behalf. They also helped us practically.
They stood in the gap practically for us and over time
my mum did start to get a little bit better.
She could do things but she needed a wheelchair when she
went out, she would need sleeps in the car if she was out and
she would need at least two or three sleeps in the day every
day and our whole body would just be in pain all the time. 10
years later, my mum is not recovered.
She's in the position I've just told you, and we've just had our
first. Their first grandchild and she's
giving thanks for Kaya's life. He's about one at the time, and
she's thanking God for him. Because when I was young, I was
significantly unwell as well. And because of the medication I
was on, I was told I may not be able to have children.
And so she was thanking God for his life.
And then as she was thanking God, God spoke to her and he
said to her, don't you think I can do the same for you?
I'm going to heal you. And so my mum came away from
that moment believing and holding on to what the Lord has
said and she kind of tucked it away within her.
And as time went on, nothing happens.
She kept hold of that word. And those people who were
faithfully praying and fasting and interceding for my mum, they
too kept hold of that word. That word, these faithful
people, they stood in the gap for my mum for years and years
and years. They interceded on her behalf,
sometimes on their knees, sometimes with Thanksgiving,
sometimes with heavy hearts, sometimes with lots of faith,
and sometimes with the tiniest bit of faith.
These dear people committed to bridging the gap between heaven
and earth for me and my family, and particularly my mum.
Let's pick up the story in Esther chapter 5.
On the third day, Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the
inner court of the palace in front of the King's hall.
The king was sitting on his royal throne in the hall facing
the entrance. When he saw Queen Esther
standing in the court, he was pleased with her and held out to
her the gold sceptre that was in his hand.
So Esther approached and touched the tip of the sceptre.
Then the king asked. I bet she's thinking at that
point. Phew, it's not going to kill me.
What is it, Queen Esther? What is your request?
Even up to half the Kingdom, it will be given to you.
So we see here Esther, she goes to the king, Her life is spared,
and the King's pleased with her. And so he says, tell me what
your request is. And so Esther invites the king
and Hayman to a banquet that day.
And as the king is enjoying himself so much at the banquet,
he asks Esther a second time. And he says, like, what do you
want? What's your request?
And Esther says again to the king, I would like to invite you
and Haman to another banquet the following day, where the king
asks Esther again, what is your request?
And she replied in Chapter 7, verse 3, if I have found favour
with you, your Majesty, and if it pleases you, grant me my
life. This is my petition and spare my
people. This is my request.
For I and my people have been sold to be destroyed, killed and
annihilated. So Esther, she finally makes her
plea to the king. Can you imagine the tension in
the room at that moment as they're eating their banquet
together, you know, And she suddenly reveals the plot of
what is happening. And the king, he's outraged, and
he demands, what man would dare do such a thing?
Where is he? I mean, he's totally forgotten
that he accepted all that silver.
Esther points her finger and says, an adversary, an enemy,
the vile Haman. And at that moment, I like to
think of Haman. He's just taken a big chunk of
meat and he's chewing and he's stuck here and he's gulping,
gulping, gulping because he knows he's a goner as the king
orders that Haman be impaled on the very pole that he built for
Mordecai. I told you it was gory.
So, so far, Esther has had to go to the king three times.
God's favour is still on her life, her life has been spared,
and Haman is dead. But God's people are still
living under a death sentence. And so again Esther goes to the
king. Chapter 8, verse 2.
Esther again pleaded with the king, falling at his feet and
weeping. She begged him to put an end to
the evil plan of Haman which he had devised against the Jews.
Then the king extended the gold sector to Esther, and she arose
and stood before him. The king took off his signet
ring, which he had reclaimed from Haman, and he presented it
to Mordecai, and Esther appointed him over at Hayman's
estate. Notice here again Esther pleaded
with the king. She fell at his feet, and she
started weeping. You see going again.
It cost Esther something. It cost her her dignity.
It cost her her heart. She forgets about herself,
respect, and she becomes wretched before the king because
her heart was broken for her people.
Not only did she go again through obedience and
perseverance, but she also went again in the breaking of her
heart for her people. And I believe this is a
different side to Esther that we see now.
You see, her heart has caught up with her feet.
God has broken her heart for the Jewish nation.
Now they're not only her people, but she calls them my family.
And we see that in verse 5. If it pleases the king, she
said, And if he regards me with favour and think of 6, it's the
right thing to do. And if he is pleased with me,
let an order be written over ruling the dispatches that Haman
devised and wrote to destroy the Jews in all the King's
provinces. So how can I bear to see
disaster fall on my people? How can I bear to see the
destruction of my family? And then the king tells Esther
and Mordecai to write another decree in the King's name to all
the Jews as the first edict. It can't be revoked because it's
been sealed with the King's ring.
And so Mordecai and Esther, they grant the Jews permission to
defend themselves against those who try to harm them, which they
successfully do. The tables are turned, the
Jewish people have the upper hand, and no one could stand
against them. And all their enemies were
struck down. In Esther's obedience and in her
perseverance to do what God had called her to do over these last
three days, she eventually she sees breakthrough.
Even though she was on her own, God was with her every day for
those three days. Esther chose to go again, go
again, go again. God called her, awakened her,
changed her selfish attitude, broke her heart for her people,
her family, to enable her to go again even when the odds were
stacked against her friends. God is the God of again.
He is the initiator. He who bought it will bring it
back. He who did it will do it again
so that we can be people who go again.
People who rise to the Lord's call again and again and again.
People who go again after knock backs.
People who go again after disappointment of not seeing
anything happen, not seeing breakthrough.
People who go again in the face of sickness, in the face of
eating disorders, in the face of addiction.
People who go again when it feels so often like it's one
step forward and two steps back. People who dare to pray and to
expect God to come and minister and bring healing.
When we've seen others die, or we've seen others fall away or
others give in to temptation, we have to go again.
Go again for the people, for the nation who don't know Jesus
right now. For our friends, our families,
our communities. Go again back to the foot of the
cross. Go again back to the threshing
floor of tears. Go again back to His Word.
Go again back to the temple of His praise and His sanctuary of
worship. To finish the story about my
mum, 10 years after my mum heard God say that He would heal her.
They were at a little Christian retreat centre and one morning
my mum went into the Chapel. There was no one there.
Bible was just open. It was open on Isaiah.
And so my mum just looked at the Bible and one sentence jumped
out and it's Isaiah 38 verse 9. And it said this a writing of
Hezekiah, king of Judah after his illness and recovery.
And she said to the Lord, could that be for me?
I am ill, am I about to recover? The next day my mum had the most
strange and strongest urge to climb a mountain.
Now they were at the foot of a mountain, this little retreat
centre, and my dad thought she was crazy because she couldn't
even walk to the end of the pathway before the mountain even
began. She tried the day before, she
couldn't do it. But being there, faithful and
kind guy that he is, he said, all right, we'll give it a go.
And so my mum started to climb this mountain that the day
before would have been impossible.
And my dad said, I started to panic halfway up when I realised
that there was no mobile phone signal and there was no way I'll
be able to carry her down the mountain if she collapsed.
But my mum walked all the way up the mountain and she walked all
the way down the mountain. She did not need it is amazing.
She didn't need any asleep. She her body wasn't aching.
She woke up the next morning and again, she was full of energy
and she said to my dad, I want to walk into the village and the
village was 2 1/2 miles away. And he's like, oh, no, I think
we need to pace it. You know, there's there's no
way. My mum is pretty stubborn.
She's like, no, I want to walk into the village.
So the condition was they'd walk in, but they would get the bus
back. But my mum walked into the
village, she felt so good. She didn't get the bus back.
She walked back 5 miles, she walked that day and and she did
not pay for it after. And every day she just kept
living a normal life, doing the things that she always wanted to
do day after day after day. And I remember shortly after
that they came to Scotland and we'd gone for a beach walk and
there was some really sheer stairs and it was like on top of
a mound, sorry, a really big hill.
And so my mum is the first up the stairs and then she runs to
the top of the hill and we're all still huffing and puffing,
you know, trying to get up. And she stands there going, God
has healed me, God has healed me.
Thank you, Jesus. It was amazing.
The Lord completely transformed my mum's life.
She's got more energy now than my dad.
Friends. The point is, my mum and dad and
all those supported them, praying in faith for my mum's
healing. They could have given up 10
years before when it looked like God had forgotten to follow
through on what he said He was going to do, but instead they
chose to go again. Go again with faith to believe
what the Lord had spoken would come to past.
Go again, believing that He can make the impossible possible.
To go again, to pray and fast and intercede.
To go again, to trust that God is in control.
To go again. To believe that she had not been
forgotten, that the Lord sees her and knows her and knows
every part of her life. Friends, my mum's healing came
in a tiny Chapel in the middle of nowhere, with no one else
around. Reading one sentence from the
book of Isaiah. 20 years after she got ill, God said go again
Esther. God says go again versa Vineyard
go again, go again. Esther didn't waste the favor of
God, the cool of God, nor the opportunity God gave her to play
her part. He is a God of again, so that we
can be people who go again and again and again.
For how much time is this? Amen.
Wonderful.