Battle of the
Sexes! Wow, what a title!? I feel like I’m already in trouble and I
haven’t even said anything. Half of you
are looking at me from one side, half from the other. May God definitely give us His Word for us
from today’s message.
As you see, today’s
passage is the first chapter of the book of Esther.
Last week, Carl gave
us an introduction to the people and events leading up to the time of
Esther. The events of the book are
happening around 480 BC. The earliest
date for the book’s writing would be several years after this time, because the
annual celebration of Purim appears to have happened more than once at the time
chapter 10 was written.
The central purpose of
the book was to communicate the great deliverance of the Jewish people during
the reign of Xerxes. It also records the
institution of the annual festival of Purim which is a recurring celebration of
God’s deliverance of the Jewish people at that time. The book of Esther delves into and settles
the long standing conflict between Israel and the Amalekites. However, today’s passage deals with a
separate event which serves to set the stage for that showdown.
Before we continue,
let’s take a moment and pray and seriously ask God to speak to us through His
Word.
God, I pray that You
would be the messenger to each person here today. Teach us, encourage us, guide us, we
pray. Give us wisdom and insight to see
the things which You have for us. Expand
our understanding of You and Your plans for each of us, we pray in Jesus’
Name. Amen.
Back during the
summer, Carl taught a series on shame and honor. He explained that socially there are three
primary cultural types. These cultural
perspectives tend to be held generally by all people in a particular people
group. I have to say that there is a lot
of overlap between these ways of thinking.
Some of you sitting here come out of a much more honor-shame culture
than a guilt-innocence culture. I don’t
think you can say that a nation or even a person is one or the other.
It is generally true
that we in the western countries tend more to observe society from a
guilt-innocence perspective rather than a shame-honor perspective. At the same time, the Jewish and Middle
Eastern cultures of the Bible tend to observe society from a shame-honor
perspective. As a result, we face the
situation that “Scripture was originally written in and for a culture different
from our own culture.” This can make the
Bible challenging to understand. Why
does a certain person respond strongly in certain circumstances which seem like
no big deal to us? Culture can be a
significant contributor.
Jayson Georges is an
author who has written considerably about the honor-shame culture and
particularly communicating these cultural ideas to other cultures. He gives this example to consider how
cultural meanings for the same action can be different.
“Consider the meaning
of these words: He whistled at her, and
she winked back.”
What do you think is
happening in this situation? It appears
that the man and woman are flirting with one another, right? In Asian cultures, such whistling would be
offensive, even insulting. On the other
hand, in West Africa, parents wink at their children as a signal for them to
leave the room. Mrs. Bennett from Pride and Prejudice may have been more
culturally aware than we realized. “Pray
why would I wink at you my child …”
The underlying idea is
that there is implicit meaning in communication. We understand that there is such a thing as non-verbal
communication. Body position, tone, and
facial expression all give added meaning to the words that come out of our mouths. We also have all experienced the reality of
something being lost in translation. “Lost
in translation” has become a sort of general expression meaning that what we
say does not reach the other person.
Idioms are often used as examples of things which need further
explanation cross culturally. If an
American wants to say something will never happen, they might choose the idiom
“when pigs fly.” In Russian, the idiom
with similar meaning is “when a lobster whistles on top of a mountain.”
Some of the key cultural
dynamics of honor-shame cultures are:
patronage, hospitality, purity, ethnicity, family, reciprocity,
hierarchy. In guilt-innocence cultures,
the key focus tends to be on dynamics including: legality, individualism, egalitarianism,
rationalism. These concepts simply were
not prominent in Biblical cultures.
These differences can
cause us to emphasize certain concepts more and pass over other concepts. The word faith in the Bible is a good
example. In the New Testament, the Greek
word pistis is most often translated
as faith. There is no question that the
word faith incorporates the concept of belief or trust. However, that word also suggests loyalty and
fidelity to a relationship. So, biblical
faith is not just belief about God but allegiance to God. However, Western culture tends to place the
emphasis on belief and de-emphasizes the relational connotations.
But we see both sides
of the meaning in Scripture. Jesus said
many times, “Your faith has made you well.”
In addition, faith is often contrasted with doubt. It’s not that we have misunderstood what faith
is our entire lives. It’s just that
there are aspects of faith which perhaps did not always get the emphasis.
Here are a few examples
of the relational side of faith from the New Testament.
In Luke 22:32, Jesus
tells Peter, “… but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and
you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” Like previously mentioned, faith in this case
appears to be not only belief in God but allegiance to God. In Acts 6:7, it says, “The word of God kept
on spreading; and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in
Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith.” Then, in Acts 14:22, it says Paul and
Barnabas returned through cities in Asia Minor where they had preached the
gospel “strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue
in the faith, and saying, ‘Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom
of God.’ ” Both of these examples from Acts give faith an aspect of
relationship with God and obedience to Him.
One last example, Paul also wrote in Romans 1:12 that he longed to visit
the Roman church so “that I may be encouraged together with you while among
you, each of us by the other’s faith, both yours and mine.” You can’t really encourage one another with
belief alone. But you can encourage one
another with relationships that you share.
As we all know, there
are certain cases where the Bible can be challenging or even difficult. But thanks be to God that it is certainly not
impossible by His Spirit and by the faithful labor and study of men and women
who love God and are known by Him. The
Bible itself talks about the need to have others communicate Scriptural ideas
to us.
Nehemiah 8:7-8 explains
that 13 different Levites instructed the people in the Law while the people
were at an outdoor assembly after Ezra had read the Scriptures for about six
hours, from daybreak till noon. (And you thought my messages were long.) Verse 8 says these Levites “read from the
Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the
people understood what was being read.”
We are doing the same
sort of thing in our current 9:45 series that seeks to give the historical
context to the Bible. Ray Vander Laan who
leads this video series explains that looking for these cultural and historical
distinctives takes a little extra effort, but “the end result will be well
worth the effort. As we discover again that God’s Word, God’s message, is as
relevant for us as it was for them.” The
goal isn’t to go back and understand a culture that doesn’t apply to us. The goal is to understand more fully how God
relates to us and how we can relate better with Him and how we can relate and
can communicate better with one another.
When we see events and interactions in the context where it was given, the
Bible comes more alive to us and can impact us in new ways, ways which apply to
us in the current day.
We are going to
introduce a new resource for this series.
I mentioned Jayson Georges earlier as an author writing about
honor-shame perspectives in the Bible.
Additionally, he has taken several books of the Bible and written an
Honor Shame Paraphrase. He has compiled
a paraphrase for the book of Esther, so we are going to use this side-by-side
with the NIV. One of quotes printed in
recommendation of the book explains, “[it] serves nicely as a middle ground
between a commentary and a translation.
Accordingly, they aptly highlight diverse and subtle ways that honor and
shame influence the biblical writers.” (Dr. Jackson Wu, professor to Chinese
pastors)
One last thought
before we begin reading in Esther, I was really intrigued by the similarity of
what was presented in the opening video for the 9:45 time we started today and
the book of Esther. Speaking of
geography in the ancient world, Ray Vander Laan explained, “God put the
children of Israel on the crossroads of the world.” Not a quiet rural place where they were out
of the way of the rest of the world. God
put them in the exact opposite kind of place.
God said, “I want to affect my world.
I want to create morality. I want
to create justice. I want to create
salvation. I want to create my system of
living. So, I’m going to put my people
where everyone is going to know about it.”
As a result, whoever lived at that crossroads exerted a major control on
the world.
Today we will see the
beginning of events which will bring Esther to the “crossroads of the
world.” It is up to her to make
decisions which exert the control which God desired and planned for her to have
at “such a time as this.” Let’s go on to
Esther chapter 1, verse 1:
This is what happened during the time of Xerxes, the
Xerxes who ruled over 127 provinces stretching from India to Cush: At that
time King Xerxes reigned from his royal throne in the citadel of Susa… –Esther
1:1-2 NIV
A long time ago, the king of Persia was a man named Ahasuerus.
His glorious kingdom included 127 provinces from India to Ethiopia. –Esther 1:1-2 HSP
The name Ahasuerus was
the Hebrew name for Xerxes. As you can
see in the map, the Persian Empire was immense.
It was the largest up to that time in the history of the world. Both Daniel and Nehemiah served kings in Susa. The citadel of Susa was the fortified
acropolis and palace complex for the empire.
Historians wrote and archaeologists have found that Xerxes made
extensive renovations to the palace structures.
Xerxes had inherited
this vast empire from his father Darius I.
At the very start of his reign, he put down revolts in both Babylon and
Egypt. Xerxes’ ascension to the throne
was never questioned or challenged …
and in the third year of his reign he gave a banquet for all
his nobles and officials. The military leaders of Persia and Media, the
princes, and the nobles of the provinces were present. For a full 180 days he
displayed the vast wealth of his kingdom and the splendor and glory of his
majesty. –Esther 1:3-4 NIV
In the third year of his reign the king hosted a royal banquet
for all his officials - the governors, ministers, and generals. The celebration
was epic. For 180 days King Ahasuerus paraded his magnificence before everyone.
His glory and honor were on full display. Everyone awed at the king's splendor
and majesty. –Esther 1:3-4 HSP
Multiple sources
surmise that this six month period was not only a time of partying but also a
time of planning against the only enemy which bordered the Persian Empire:
Greece. There was a tiny area of Greece which was not controlled by the
Persians. The latter part of Xerxes’
reign after the events of the book of Esther was the time of the disastrous
campaigns against Greece, particularly the failures at Thermopylae and
Salamis. The battle at Thermopylae has
been retold countless times and is remembered as the place where 300 Spartans
held off an army of one million or more.
Scholars now believe, it was more like 1000 versus 100-150,000 which is
still unbelievable odds. Pride goes
before a fall. (Proverbs 16:18)
Xerxes has impressed
all his leaders that he is the greatest so much so that they are awed by it.
When these days were over, the king gave a banquet, lasting
seven days, in the enclosed garden of the king’s palace, for all the
people from the least to the greatest who were in the citadel of Susa. The
garden had hangings of white and blue linen, fastened with cords of white linen
and purple material to silver rings on marble pillars. There were
couches of gold and silver on a mosaic pavement of porphyry, marble,
mother-of-pearl and other costly stones. Wine was served in goblets of gold,
each one different from the other, and the royal wine was abundant, in keeping with
the king’s liberality. By the king’s command each guest was allowed to drink
with no restrictions, for the king instructed all the wine stewards to serve
each man what he wished. Queen Vashti also gave a banquet for the women in the
royal palace of King Xerxes. –Esther 1:5-9 NIV
After the six-month celebration for his officials, King
Ahasuerus hosted another grand banquet for all the people in the capital of
Susa. Everyone, from government officials to rural peasants, feasted in the
king's palace for seven full days. The spectacular event displayed all the
king's splendor: white curtains, blue wall hangings, purple linens, silver
rings, marble pillars, and more. The people sat on gold couches, danced on
pearl mosaics, and drank from golden goblets. At the king's order people ate
mounds of fancy food and drank barrels of exotic wine. The opulence reflected
the king's glory. He generously treated everyone like royalty, and they praised
his benevolence. At the same time, Queen Vashti hosted another royal banquet
for all the women of Susa. There was no end to the king's extravagant
generosity towards all his subjects. He sat proudly atop the hierarchy of
honor. –Esther 1:5-9 HSP
There had been 180
days of feasting for the officials. This
was followed by a banquet for all the people of the capital. It was another opportunity for Xerxes to show
and increase his honor. At the same time,
the cost of this lavish expense would have most likely been paid out of the
public treasury. (By the way, there is a
second way to interpret the thought about drinking beyond the obvious
implication of over-consumption. In
antiquity, as well as in some contexts today, drinking was compulsory. You had to drink with each round or you would
be kicked out. The expression of being “allowed
to drink with no restriction” leaves room for people to decide whether or not
to drink and how much. I’m not saying
that there weren’t plenty of people who had too much; I’m just saying that the
party was given in a way that all attendees could enjoy it.) Everyone honored Xerxes.
There are three rounds
of feasts in the book of Esther. Here in
chapter 1, then in the middle (chapters 5-6), and at the end (chapters
8-9). Feasts, or food and merriment, increase
honor. Think of the wedding at Cana in
Galilee when Jesus performed his first miracle by turning water into wine. This was a moment of honor which was at risk
to be turned to a moment of great shame.
But, Jesus “saved the day.”
Feasting continues to
be a significant part of our modern celebratory culture. When there is a success, it is often
celebrated by a special meal. If we want
to honor someone, we take them to dinner.
We prepare a family member’s favorite food on their birthday. It is not uncommon for weddings to include
meals, sometimes both the night before at a rehearsal dinner and after the
wedding.
Some “few” years ago, Melissa
and I were married in her family’s church in north Georgia. My parents live in eastern North Carolina
still to this day. As a result, there
were friends of my parents who were not able to make the 9+ hour trip. So, my parents hosted a meal at their
house. They rented a huge tent for the
yard and tables and chairs as well. The
event was catered by a local barbeque restaurant. My parents wanted to honor Melissa and me, but
they also wanted to honor their friends by including them in their
celebration. This is not an unusual
thing for my parents. They have a party
for their friends just about every year.
It’s not quite on the same scale as when we got married. It was such an interesting time. I remember everyone just relaxed and enjoying
themselves. I’ve told you all before
about my parents throwing their own 50th wedding anniversary party
in December 2017. They invited friends
and family from all directions. My
parents just have an innate spirit of hospitality and patronage.
On the seventh day, when King Xerxes was in high spirits from
wine, he commanded the seven eunuchs who served him—Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona,
Bigtha, Abagtha, Zethar and Karkas— to bring before him Queen Vashti, wearing
her royal crown, in order to display her beauty to the people and nobles, for
she was lovely to look at. But when the attendants delivered the king’s
command, Queen Vashti refused to come. Then the king became furious and burned
with anger. –Esther 1:10-12 NIV
By the seventh day of feasting, the king was reveling in his
glory. So he summoned Queen Vashti into his presence to display her royal
beauty for all the people to admire. This made Queen Vashti feel degraded like
a concubine, so she disobeyed the king and refused to come. Her public defiance
insulted and infuriated the king. He completely lost face before all of his
guests. –Esther 1:10-12 HSP
“According to Jewish
tradition, the request that Queen Vashti appear came from an argument among the
men at the feast as to which country had the most beautiful women. Xerxes
decided to settle the issue by putting his wife the queen on public display”
(enduringword.com).
The phrase “to display
her beauty to the people” seems to have the potential for a negative
connotation. It is not specifically
said, but the implication is that Vashti was expected to display herself in an
immodest way. The queen had enough
wisdom and modesty to know that this was something she should not do.
There is so much more
that we wish had been included in the details of what went on. It is near certain that the men’s party was a
drunken revelry. At the same time, we
don’t know what Vashti’s refusal looked like.
Did she have a submissive and respectful attitude? Would it have even mattered if she did? We just don’t know.
We can say that the
Bible says that wives have a special responsibility to submit to their husbands. Ephesians 5:22 says, “Wives, submit to your
own husbands, as to the Lord.” However,
this does not mean that a wife must obey her husband if he commands her to sin.
“Every command to submit on a human level is conditioned by the higher obligation
to obey God before man” (enduringword.com).
Likewise, we should not forget the preceding verse in Ephesians 5. Verse 21 says, “Submit to one another out of
reverence for Christ.” We are all to
submit to one another.
As we see from the
king’s reaction, Queen Vashti was in a very dangerous situation. It does not
seem that she put herself in this situation, because she was not even at the
men’s banquet. Sadly, both men and women put themselves in dangerous places
today, especially where alcohol and other substance abuse is involved, revealing
a severe lack of wisdom. At the same time, such unwise behavior does not justify
one person sinning against another.
The 18th
century British theologian Adam Clarke wrote, “What woman, possessing even a
common share of prudence and modesty, could consent to expose herself to the
view of such a group of drunken Bacchanalians? Her courage was equal to her
modesty: she would resist the royal mandate, rather than violate the rules of
chaste decorum.... Hail, noble woman! Be
thou a pattern to all thy sex on every similar occasion!” (Bacchus was the Roman god of wine,
fertility, and other things including ritual madness.)
But, social hierarchy
is a big deal in an honor-shame culture.
People are expected to “know their place.” When someone does not treat another person
according to their position or when a person does not respond appropriately to
a request of a person of a higher status, this is a big insult and reflects a
“hit” on a person’s honor status.
In an honor-shame
culture, a big part of ethics is the maintaining of the proper social
order. In the west, we don’t think in
those terms. For example, we don’t think
of rudeness as being unethical. In the
honor-shame culture, an honorable person plays a proper social role as a moral
obligation. People of a higher status (usually
the wealthy and powerful) must assume responsibility for their followers or dependents
by providing food, security, jobs, and other benefits. At the same time, people of lower status
honor their superiors with obedience, deference, and loyalty.
Here we see a critical
violation of social roles. Queen Vashti
defies the king’s command to appear before Him.
The six months of feasting and celebrations were an undeniable claim to
the highest social honor. However, the
queen has refused to acknowledge that honor.
Since it was customary for the king to consult experts in
matters of law and justice, he spoke with the wise men who understood the times
and were closest to the king—Karshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres,
Marsena and Memukan, the seven nobles of Persia and Media who had special
access to the king and were highest in the kingdom. “According to law, what
must be done to Queen Vashti?” he asked. “She has not obeyed the command of
King Xerxes that the eunuchs have taken to her.” –Esther 1:13-15 NIV
The king gathered seven loyal advisers from his inner council,
asking, “The queen has publicly defied my order. According to the laws of
Persia, what is the consequence of not honoring the king?” –Esther 1:13-15 HSP
Ezra 7:14, as well as
the Greek historian Herodotus, make mention of the seven advisors to the
Persian emperor. This appears to be a
standing group of advisors to the king.
They would be the ones to know the laws.
Then Memukan replied in the presence of the king and the
nobles, “Queen Vashti has done wrong, not only against the king but also
against all the nobles and the peoples of all the provinces of King Xerxes. For
the queen’s conduct will become known to all the women, and so they will
despise their husbands and say, ‘King Xerxes commanded Queen Vashti to be
brought before him, but she would not come.’ This very day the Persian and
Median women of the nobility who have heard about the queen’s conduct will
respond to all the king’s nobles in the same way. There will be no end of
disrespect and discord. –Esther 1:16-18 NIV
One adviser said to the king, “The queen's blatant disrespect
not only wronged you, the king, but it wronged all Persian leaders. All the
women will hear about Vashti's refusal to honor you and so likewise dishonor
their own husbands. Her contempt threatens the entire social order of Persia. All
the wives will despise their husbands, who are your officials. There will be no
end to the disrespect and chaos in your kingdom. This will diminish your royal
authority and undermine the social order. –Esther 1:16-18 HSP
This reaction may seem
to be extreme, but the precedent here was significant. This is a point which is very easy to dismiss
in our culture. What’s the big
deal? In fact, it was a big deal. The risk of upsetting the social order did
exist. It wasn’t guaranteed that this
would be the outcome of Queen Vashti’s refusal, but it could be.
“Therefore, if it pleases the king, let him issue a royal
decree and let it be written in the laws of Persia and Media, which cannot be
repealed, that Vashti is never again to enter the presence of King Xerxes. Also
let the king give her royal position to someone else who is better than she.
Then when the king’s edict is proclaimed throughout all his vast realm, all the
women will respect their husbands, from the least to the greatest.” –Esther
1:19-20 NIV
“As the king wishes, you may issue a decree to expel Vashti
forever from your presence. Then you can give her royal position to a virtuous
woman who will respect you. When such a decree is announced throughout your
kingdom, all the women will know their place and honor their husbands.” –Esther
1:19-20 HSP
This irrevocable state
of Persian laws is mentioned later in Esther and also in Daniel when the
advisors to the emperor trick Darius into making a decree which ultimately sends
Daniel to the lion’s den.
This decree is an
extension of the “crime” which Vashti commits.
She refuses to appear before the king.
The punishment then is to never appear before him again. In fact, the book of Esther no longer refers
to Vashti as queen from this point.
We’ve already touched
on the dangers of substance abuse. We
usually think about Proverbs 31 as being the chapter about the wife of noble
character. However, the chapter begins
with proverbs from a woman of noble character, the mother of the king, most
likely the mother of King Solomon. “It
is not for kings to drink wine, not for rulers to crave beer, lest they drink
and forget what has been decreed, and deprive all the oppressed of their
rights.” (Proverbs 31:4-5) Judgment and justice are both eroded under the
influence of drugs and alcohol.
This is not the only
time where Xerxes showed himself to be unreasonable and wrong. He could have
honored the dignity of his Queen in this situation. Unfortunately, Xerxes was
known to act like a despot and to behave irrationally. The Greek historian Herodotus recorded that
when an ocean storm destroyed a bridge being built for the invasion of Greece,
Xerxes had the builders executed. Then,
he commanded that the water and waves be whipped and chained to punish the sea
for wronging its “master when he did no wrong to you.”
The king and his nobles were pleased with this advice, so the
king did as Memukan proposed. He sent dispatches to all parts of the kingdom,
to each province in its own script and to each people in their own language,
proclaiming that every man should be ruler over his own household, using his
native tongue. –Esther 1:21-22 NIV
The king liked this proposal to reassert his authority and
preserve the honor of his officials. He issued royal letters to all the
provinces declaring that every man be honored as the head of the household.
This would ensure the stature of King Xerxes and his administration. –Esther
1:21-22 HSP
The meaning of the
last phrase can be understood as every man should be the ruler over his own
household and that the husband’s native language should be used in the
home. In this way, the use of the
husband’s language in an ethnically mixed home would become a sign of his rule
in the home. We see this kind of
situation develop in Nehemiah 13:23-24 where Nehemiah wrote, “Moreover, in
those days I saw men of Judah who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon and
Moab. Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod or the language of
one of the other peoples, and did not know how to speak the language of Judah.” This situation in Nehemiah happens during the
reign of Artaxerxes the son of Xerxes at least 50 years after the decree in
this passage. So, the laws of the
Persians may have always been irrevocable, but they weren’t always enforceable.
The decree is Xerxes’
revenge for the disrespect of Queen Vashti.
He demotes her from being queen.
He commands all women to honor their husbands as the head of their
households. The king’s action here seeks
to preserve and even codify the social hierarchy.
The goal of preserving
respect and honor for husbands from their wives is not a bad thing. Paul's instruction to wives from Ephesians 5:33
says, “let the wife see that she respects her husband.” In fact, a wife's respect is really the most
precious gift she can give her husband. The husband’s responsibility is given in
Ephesians 5:25 to “love [their] wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave
Himself up for her.”
And yet, you can’t
gain and preserve respect using fear.
The end result of demanding and coercing respect is to drive resentment
rather than honor. True respect can only
be freely given.
Today’s passage shows
us a couple of the dangers of the honor-shame culture run amok. I’ve been puzzling a bit what do you do to
address the brokenness that stems from an honor-shame culture. I feel like guilt-innocence is almost easy in
comparison. You fix guilt by providing a
sacrifice. It’s transactional. You address faulty innocence by confronting
it with truth. We’ve often seen what
fame or false honor does to celebrities, and it’s not good. Likewise, the shadow of disgrace or shame is
not easily removed. In the end, the
healing for honor-shame brokenness has a lot to do with identity. Not who are you, but whose are you?
You know, there was
something in the news about Clemson winning a national championship or
something. I think it was in
football. You may have heard that the
MVP of the national championship game was a true freshman quarterback, Trevor
Lawrence. He’s the talk of the internet.
I did see one story
though which really got to the heart of the matter. The title of the piece was, “The
Secret Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence Knows (and That Should Be Shared with You,
Too).” In it, the author
Jeannie Cunnion points out that there is an escalating anxiety epidemic among
young people. One statistic she cited
was 62% of college students in 2016 felt “overwhelming anxiety” in the past
year. In 2011, it was 50%. “There is a desperate need to help people
find a firm foundation on which to build their self-worth and identity.”
The article makes
mention of this video of Trevor from the middle of September. His remarks actually stem from a conversation
about him not being a starter and whether or not he would get more
playing time. It’s hard to imagine such
a conversation happening in the same season that he led the team to a national
championship.
The article concludes
with these thoughts, “The secret Trevor Lawrence knows, and the one we all need
to share … is this: When [we] fail and when [we] succeed, when [we] do lovable
things and when [we] do unlovable things, when [we] make team captain or don’t
make the team at all, when [we] get into the college of [our] dreams or [we]
barely graduate, [our] inherent worth is unwavering. [We] have a God who calls [us]
by name. He knows every hair on [our] head and every dream in [our] heart, and
He has a plan for [our lives]. A good plan. A plan that will unfold in God’s
perfect timing. A plan created by a God who can do far more than we could ever
imagine when our lives are surrendered to Him.
… an identity firmly anchored in Christ is the greatest gift of all. “I
am who God says I am.” That is the identity that will withstand every success
or failure [we] will walk through. It
will keep [us] humble in success and confident in strife.”
I want to close with a
few verses from Galatians 4 and an observation.
Galatians 4:3-7 tells us …
When we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental
spiritual forces of the world. But when
the set time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the
law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because
you are His sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who
calls out, "Abba, Father." So you are no longer a slave, but God's
child; and since you are His child, God has made you also an heir.—Galatians
4:3-7
The observation is
this: there’s a lot of feasting that happened in today’s passage. But, it does come to an end. It made me think of a different meal. The Last Supper. The Bible says “whenever you eat this bread
and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.” (I
Corinthians 11:26) and that we are buried with Christ “through baptism into
death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory
of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Romans 6:4) There is continued celebration now and
forever. This is the victory which can
never be taken away. I encourage you to
spontaneously break bread with one another.
Don’t ever forget that
the set time has come. God has sent His
Son Jesus to redeem us that we can be His children. You have the highest status in the
universe. You don’t need more
“likes.” You are loved. The work of your redemption and mine is
finished.
Let’s pray.
Lord Jesus, You are
awesome! I pray that You would keep us
on track. Give us confidence in our
identity in You. Help us to walk in the
light. Help us to submit to one another. Help us to honor one another. Glorify Your Name, we pray. Amen.
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