Active Faith: Mordecai

1:00Even in America, where Christian faith has been so commonplace in our country for many years, that has Judeo-Christian values and roots, we believers are a shrinking minority. Tolerance decreases and persecution increases every single day. And so the question that we modern American believers, or at least those of us who are living in America, must ask today is. This. How do we live out our faith in a society which no longer shares our beliefs, our values, our desires?

1:48How do we live out faith in a society that is becoming more and more opposed to what we believe? Well, friends, thankfully, we don't have to answer that question on our own. The scripture actually gives us great guidance in that very thing, particularly in places like the book of Esther, which we began this morning. The year is 483 BC, which puts the events of Esther right in the middle of the book of Ezra, which we studied last fall. It is occurring decades after the first wave of exiles returned with Zerubbabel to go back and rebuild the temple. And it is occurring decades before the second wave of exiles would come back with Ezra in 458 BC.

2:36And so that's where we find ourselves. Now, remember, leading up to the exile, God's people had become increasingly disobedient to him and his word. They were rebellious against his commands. Idolatry was increasing everywhere in the land. And so God said, if you continue to disregard me, if you continue to worship other gods beside me, if you continue to rebel against my words, Word, then I am going to discipline you. I'm going to exile you. And sure enough, that's what he did. In 586 BC, Babylon came. They conquered Jerusalem and exiled all of the people. But as Isaiah the prophet promised, hundreds of years before that, Cyrus the Great, the Persian king, conquered Babylon in 539 BC.

3:22And in 538 BC, he told the Jews that they could begin returning home to rebuild the temple and to re-establish their lives in Jerusalem. Well, Cyrus the Great was succeeded by Cambyses, who then conquered Egypt, and then Darius I succeeded him, who conquered all of northwest India, and then also organized the kingdom. And so when King Xerxes came into power in 485 BC, King Xerxes, also known as King Ahasuerus, inherited a vast, powerful empire. Esther opens with the king giving this enormous feast for all of his officials and servants.

4:08It lasted 180 days, which is a really long party. I don't care how great the party is. Nobody wants to do that for six months. But that's what they were doing. This party, though, wasn't just a party. It was preparation. You see, what the king was doing is he was planning to invade the Greek. Mainland. So, if you've ever seen the movie 300, and I'm sorry if you have, that is what this is about. During this three-year period of 483 to 480 BC, they are getting ready to invade the Greek mainland to try to take over that last remaining bastion in the ancient Near East so that the Persian Empire can be ruling over all of those things. And so, what this celebration is, is actually a cover-up for the Persian king Ahasuerus and his generals to plan this invasion. And it's also a demonstration to all of the Persian people that King Ahasuerus has the resources, the money, the funds to be able to pull off this kind of a military campaign.

5:12Well, as you see from the text, one day this king seemingly has too much to drink in chapter one, and he tells his servants to bring in Queen Vashti so that he and his friends can gawk at her beauty. And like any self-respecting woman, she's like, Absolutely not. I'm not going to parade myself in front of you and your friends. Well, this puts King Ahasuerus in a very difficult position because he is an ancient Near Eastern despotic ruler. And you can't have your wife disobeying your commands if you are an ancient Near Eastern despotic ruler. So he has to decide what he's going to do. So, in his anger and his embarrassment, he gets his counselors together and they decide. That they are going to forbid her from ever entering his presence again, functionally divorcing her. Well, the king sobers up at the beginning of chapter two.

6:10He clearly begins to regret his decision, but according to Persian law, anything that the king says stands forever, it can't be repealed. Maybe that's a bad law. So he and his counselors decide to set up a beauty pageant to find a new queen to replace Queen Vashti, and that is how we are introduced to Mordecai. Mordecai is Esther's older cousin. Her dad is Esther's, or Mordecai's rather, uncle. Her dad is Mordecai's uncle, and so both of Esther's parents have died, leaving her very exposed and vulnerable. She's not just an orphan, she's a beautiful orphan.

6:51And so, who knows what would have happened to her if Mordecai had not intervened? But he does intervene, he demonstrates great love and compassion for her, he brings her into his home, he adopts her as his own daughter. And in God's providence, Esther is selected as one of the potential replacements for Queen Vashti. And then eventually, she is chosen as the one who will replace the queen in her place. And so, Esther is relocated to the king's palace, where she is now going to be uniquely positioned to be used by God later in the story.

7:26Every day, out of love and concern for her, Mordecai goes to. The king's gate, he sits down and he inquires about Queen Esther, which providentially puts him in just the right position to act on his faith. So, as we heard in chapter two, Mordecai is one day sitting out at the king's gate, probably waiting to check on Esther that day, and he just so happens to hear two of the king's servants plotting to assassinate him. Well, Mordecai immediately goes and tells Queen Esther, who tells the king in the name of Mordecai. They investigate the matter, they find it to be true, and they hang these two men, these two conspirators.

8:07Now, what you have to remember is that the Persian king does not share Mordecai's faith. The Persian king does not share his values, his beliefs, anything like that. And while the Persian government has been very generous toward the Jewish people, don't forget these are the people who let them return home to rebuild the temple, they are still ruling over the Jews. And I think if we were in Mordecai's position, a lot of us would have been tempted to think, you know, maybe I'll just let this ride. Maybe if these two guys kill the king, then we will have total and complete freedom from foreign rule. Maybe this will throw the kingdom into a kind of anarchy and we'll all be able to go home. We'll be able to rule ourselves again. Maybe I should just let this thing play out.

8:55But Mordecai does not do that. He doesn't make that decision. And that's Probably because he was aware of the prophet Jeremiah's words that he spoke to the people before the exile. Look on the screen at Jeremiah 29. Only part of this passage usually appears on coffee mugs. I want you to see the whole thing. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf. For in its welfare, you will find your welfare.

9:31In other words, the exiled Jews were not supposed to be working against the foreign government, either actively or passively, by doing nothing. Instead, they were commanded by God through the prophet Jeremiah to actually seek the welfare of the city. The Babylonians' welfare and then the Persians' welfare, even though neither one of these people groups shared their worldview, their values, or their faith. They needed to live out their faith under foreign rule to believe that God was in charge of everything that was happening and that they could trust in him no matter what.

10:07And so, friends, that highlights the first characteristic of what we'll call active faith. Active faith is a blessing. Active faith is a blessing. You see, from scripture, right from the very beginning, when God chooses Abraham and promises that he's going to make a nation out of him, the focus is never on Abraham. Abraham and Abraham's descendants alone. The focus is rather that through Abraham and through Abraham's family, all of the nations on the earth would be blessed. The focus is on blessing this man and his descendants, and of course his spiritual descendants, us today. The focus is on blessing them so that they would be a blessing to others. That's what we see all through the scripture. And friends, as believers, that's the mentality that we're supposed to have. We are supposed to be a blessing to our neighbors, to our community, to our company, to our classmates. We're not supposed to be a burden, but a blessing. Christians should be great neighbors, great community members, great employees, great citizens. It should be the case that every employer should be saying, man, I just wish I could hire more Christians. They are such faithful, loyal, hard-working people. That's the testimony that we should have. But that's often not the case, is it? Instead of being a blessing to the people around us, we're often a burden.

11:47Even though they don't share our worldview or our values, we are called to be a blessing to them, not make demands of them as though the world needed to cater to us and to what we believe and to our values and beliefs. We're called to be a blessing. Blessing to them. You see, active faith may not be recognized, it may not even be appreciated by those around us, but its effects should be noticed and appreciated by everyone in our lives.

12:15And so, friends, this morning we should ask ourselves the question: Is my faith a blessing to those around me, especially to those who don't share it? Is my faith a blessing to those around me? Because active faith is supposed to be a blessing. So, let's pick up now in chapter 3, verse 1. Join me there in the text. Chapter 3, verse 1 says, After these things, King Ahasuerus promoted Haman, the Agagite, the son of Hamadatha, and advanced him and set his throne above all the officials who were with him. And all the king's servants who were at the king's 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 king's servants, who were at the king's gate, said to Mordecai, Why do you transgress the king's command? And when they spoke to him day after day, he would not listen to them. They told Haman in order to see whether Mordecai's words would stand, for he had told them that he was a Jew. And when Haman saw that Mordecai Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage to him, Haman was filled with fury, but he disdained to lay hands on Mordecai alone. So as they had made known to him the people of Mordecai, Haman sought to destroy all the Jews, the people of Mordecai, throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus.

13:53So the king promotes this guy, Haman, the Agagite, the son of Hamadatha, and makes him second in command to the king himself. That means that all of the officials in the royal courts and everyone else in the country is now subject to Haman. This is very similar to the situation that Joseph found himself in when he was in Egypt. He was made second in command to Pharaoh. Well, in two more weeks, we'll talk more about Haman and who he is, but for now, suffice it to say that he is an enemy of God's people. In fact, his people, the Amalekites, through whom he descended, were ancient enemies of the people of Israel. When they left Egypt during the Exodus, the Amalekites opposed them, and King Agag, one of Haman's descendants, led an attack against the people of Israel. Far from blessing them, they assaulted them. And if you remember years ago when we preached through 1 Samuel, King Saul was instructed, along with the people, to destroy all of them, but he didn't. He disobeyed God's command. Which had short-term consequences, and centuries later, long-term consequences as well. See, our sin never only has either short-term or long-term consequences. Sometimes we make decisions and we think, well, even if it catches up with me, it'll be much later in life. No big deal. It will be a big deal. We sometimes think to ourselves, well, I may have consequences from my sin, but I'll just have to deal with those for a minute and then it'll be over. Sin always has short-term and long-term consequences. And you see that illustrated powerfully right here.

15:38So after promoting Haman, the king commands everybody to bow down and pay homage to him whenever they see him. And everyone does this because the king commanded it. Everyone, that is, except for Mordecai. He refuses to bow down or pay homage. Now, the text does not say why, but perhaps it's because, as a Jew, he was simply opposed to bowing down to anyone, especially to an ancient enemy of God's people. But also, as commentator Mervyn Brennan notes, the Persians, when they saw someone bowing down, that act was more than just an act of honor and showing deference. They actually considered it to be a form of worship. And so if that were the case, Mordecai had to be opposed to that practice on theological grounds. He would not give his worship. To anyone or anything other than God.

16:33But whatever the reason is, Mordecai refuses to bow down, which befuddles the king's servants. They can't believe this. They come up to him and they say, Why do you transgress the king's command? Now, that's a scary thing to be asked. Why do you transgress the king's command? They're insinuating that he is being openly rebellious. And what happens in a kingdom when you are openly rebellious? You've committed treason. You'll be put to death. And so they ask him this question: why do you transgress the king's commands? But notice, Mordecai is not intimidated. He doesn't change his mind or his behavior. He doesn't listen to the implications of these servants. Instead, he remains steadfast in his conviction that he wasn't going to bow down to Haman no matter what the cost. And the cost may be high.

17:27And that highlights the second characteristic of active faith. Active faith is resolute. Active faith is resolute. In a society where most people don't share your worldview or your values or your faith, that is challenging. Because what it means is we are going to constantly be running up against people who are making decisions and putting pressure on us to conform to those. Decisions that are either openly sinful or that would call us to violate our consciences as Christians. That's the reality. The pressure to conform can seem nearly impossible to bear. When I became a Christian in college, I was already a part of a fraternity that idolized and encouraged and celebrated things like drunkenness and fornication. And so, after I came to faith in Christ, I was asked a lot of times, why won't you participate in these things? I would get made fun of, I would get ostracized. There was tremendous pressure. And so, remaining resolute, remaining firm in my convictions was very challenging. And I know that many of you in the room have faced the same challenges or similar challenges throughout your life.

18:54It may be pressure to gossip or to go party with colleagues or classmates. It may be pressure to lie or to misrepresent information either in the classroom or at your job to make yourself look better, to make your team's performance look better so that your superiors or so that the shareholders of the company are more satisfied. It may be pressure to view images or videos at work or at school that don't honor God. And a lot of times, Is it just maybe pressure to adopt the world's definition of success? To get sucked into materialism, idolizing money and things that other co-workers, other classmates, other families have.

19:45And so, friends, in the face of all of those pressures to conform and to do the same things that the world is doing, to bow down to those things, we as believers are called to be resolute. Look at what Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. Paul commands us to be steadfast, to be immovable, to be resolute, to develop strong convictions about what honors God and what does not honor God. Strong convictions about what's right and what's wrong.

20:40Friends, we weren't born yesterday. Hallie was born almost yesterday. But no one else was born yesterday. We know the pressures that we are going to face. We know the pressures we're going to face in the classroom and in the workplace, in our neighborhoods. So, friends, when those pressures start to push on us, it is too late in that moment to try to figure out what we believe and how we're going to respond under those pressures. We have to resolve ahead of time. This is what I believe. This is how I'm going to respond in the face of those pressures. So, we're not making those decisions in the moment. That is almost a guaranteed recipe for failure. We have to be resolute, steadfast, immovable.

21:42Active faith means that we're resolute in the face of pressure to bow down to the culture and how it wants to conform us to its image. That brings us to chapter four, which isn't quite the climax of the book, but it probably is the climax for Mordecai and for his role in the book. Now, don't get me wrong, he's still very much a part of the story after this. He's in almost every chapter after this, he's honored greatly after this, but this is where he makes his biggest impact in the story. It is the climax for Mordecai, and that's why I want to focus on this chapter. Now, right before this, in chapter three, as you saw, Haman decides to exact revenge on. Mordecai for his refusal to bow down. And he decides that he's not just going to exact revenge on Mordecai, but on all Jews everywhere in the empire. He comes up with this plan to annihilate all of the Jews in a single day.

22:48And foolish king Ahasuerus, who makes exactly one decision on his own in the entire book, and it's not this one, ironically, it's to put Haman to death. He goes ahead and authorizes Haman's plan to carry out genocide against the Jews without even bothering to inquire who it's going to affect. People, for example, like his wife Esther, doesn't even bother to look into that. So Mordecai puts on sackcloth and ashes and he goes and sits at the king's gate, as was his custom. He is fasting and weeping along with the rest of the Jewish people who learn of this. And so Esther hears that Mordecai is out there. So she sends her servants out there and asks them, hey, what's wrong? Why are you dressed like this? And Mordecai responds and tells her everything. He gives her a copy of the king's edict. And he says, Esther, you've got to do something. You're the queen. Go to your husband. Ask him to revoke this edict.

23:57Now, as we learn, Esther hasn't been. Called to go into the king these past 30 days. No doubt a very fulfilling marriage. She has not forgotten that the entire reason that she is the queen is because the last queen didn't do what the king commanded. That's the entire reason that she's the queen. The king's command is: do not come to me unless I call you. And so Esther responds to Mordecai, and she essentially says, That's a terrible situation, but what can I do? The king hasn't called me, and I cannot go to him. I'm not allowed to go into him unless I'm called.

24:46So I want you to look at chapter 4, verse 13, and look at Mordecai's response. Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, Do not think to yourself that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place. But you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this.

25:27Now that is tough love. Mordecai won't listen to any excuses. He will not let his adopted daughter believe that people are big and God is small. Instead, he reminds Esther that God is big and that people are small and that God has promised never to leave, never to forsake his people. So he says, Esther, you have two options. You can go to the king yourself and you can be used by him. But if you don't, God will deliver his people through some other means because he has promised to do that and he has always kept his promises. But if you don't go, you will be disciplined for your disobedience, for fearing man more than you fear God.

26:20You see, when Mordecai asks Esther to go to the king and make this request, he knows that it may very well cost her her life. Remember, this is his cousin, his adopted daughter, the young girl that he took into his home and raised, and yet he does not hesitate to ask her to risk her life. And so, friends, that brings us to the third and final characteristic of active faith this morning. Active faith is challenging. Active faith is challenging.

27:00We live in a very strange time, as you know. A time where it's considered taboo to discuss the most important things in life, things like religion and politics, many other subjects. But it's not considered weird at all to bear the most intimate details of your life on social media for everyone to see and read about. We live in a very strange time. Faith is considered a deeply personal matter. And so, according to our society today, your obedience to God or your disobedience to God as a professing Christian is none of my business. And my obedience to God or disobedience to God as a professing Christian is none of your business.

27:55And yet, when we read the scripture, we get a completely different picture, don't we? We are commanded to exhort one another daily so that we're not hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. We're commanded to stir one another up to love and good deeds. We're commanded to remind one another of the truth so we don't stray from it. We are commanded to call one another to faith and repentance on a daily and weekly basis. And friends, that includes chapters. Challenging one another to fear God more than we fear man, to obey Him when it may cost us something, including even our very lives.

28:44Look on the screen at James chapter 1. Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial. For when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. You see, Mordecai was willing to challenge his daughter, to risk everything, because he genuinely believed that God is worth it, that he is worth any and every sacrifice that we could make. And friends, in the same way, we are to call one another to sacrifice for God because God is worthy of sacrifice and because he has sacrificed so greatly for us.

29:36God is our creator and sustainer. He is the reason that we have life and breath and everything that we have in the first place. But as many of us know, we rebelled against him. We broke his commandments. We worshipped ourselves and other created things rather than him. And because of that, we all deserve death. We all deserve eternal punishment. But God, in his great mercy and grace, sent his only begotten son to obey where you and I disobeyed, to submit where we rebelled, and to die where we should have died.

30:14Jesus rose from the grave on the third day, victorious over sin and death. He took our place, bore our sin, and rose for our justification, so that through faith in him we would be counted righteous just as Jesus is righteous. His sacrifice purchased everything for us. Look at Hebrews 10. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, sorry, we'll put this on the screen for you. He sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering, he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

31:10Friends, we already owed God everything. What could we give him to repay him for our life, for our existence? And yet this God sacrificed everything for us. He sent his only begotten Son to bear our sin in our place. He gave up everything for us so that we could be reconciled through faith in him. See, Mordecai had a living and an active faith, and that faith led him to challenge Esther to exercise faith when it may cost her everything, when it may even cost her life.

31:55And I want to say to you today that if our faith is active, if it is alive, it is going to challenge people around us. It is going to challenge them to worship God more faithfully. It is going to challenge them to forsake sin more fully. It is going to challenge them to offer every part of their life, even those parts of life that we hold back because we want to hang on to them. Active, living faith does that. It challenges everybody around us. And that's what Mordecai's faith did for Esther. It challenged her to obey. And as we'll see next week, she does obey.

32:36Active faith is challenging. Church, we live in a society that increasingly does not share our worldview, our faith, or our values. And living in that kind of society, living by faith in that kind of society, anyway. Is very difficult. But one advantage of living in that kind of society is that when we live lives of active faith, our profession of faith is repeatedly tested. It is tested every single day in the workplace, in the classroom, in our neighborhoods. And we have opportunities again and again to see, first, whether we have genuine faith, and then secondly, if we do have genuine faith, how mature is that faith?

33:36And I think this morning, for many people in the room today, this particular text gives us the opportunity to examine our faith. That's what we're told to do in 2 Corinthians 13. Test yourselves, examine yourselves, see if you really are in the faith. And perhaps today, as you examine your faith, you'll see that maybe your faith hasn't been resolute. Maybe your profession of faith, every time it's challenged, it falters. Maybe your profession of faith has not blessed other people around you. Maybe it hasn't challenged other professing believers.

34:16And if that's the case, it may be that although you've professed faith for some length of time, you don't have true faith in Jesus Christ. And if that's where you find yourself today, I invite you to repent, to turn away from your sin, and to put your faith once and for all in Jesus Christ. Not in yourself, not in your power to change, not in your power to be a good religious person, but in Jesus Christ, the one who loved you and gave himself for you, so that you could be set free to honor and obey God with your life.

34:56And for those of us who already have new life through faith in Christ, Mordecai's life should provoke us to consider how we are living in the world today. It is so easy for believers to get discouraged when society doesn't share our worldview, our faith, and our values. But let me remind you, as Scripture points out often, the light shines brightest in the dark. We have a great opportunity to be modern Mordecai's, men and women whose resolute faith blesses the non-Christians in our lives and whose faith challenges the other believers who are in our lives.

35:43And so by God's grace, let's strive for that kind of active faith. Let's pray. Father God, what an opportunity we have. Through the book of Esther and the character of Mordecai, to examine our own faith or our profession of faith. God, every one of us knows how hard it is to live out a Christian worldview, Christian values, Christian belief in our society, but that's nothing new. And sometimes I think we think that it's harder than it's ever been to live out Christian faith, and we forget what our brothers and sisters are suffering in most of the world today for their profession of faith. What our brothers and sisters have suffered throughout history for their profession of faith. And so, God, remind us.

36:46Remind us that Mordecai and Esther and people like them took a stand when it really was going to cost them something. I pray that you would give us faith like that. Faith that is resolute and a blessing and a challenge. But, God, we know that has to be a gift from you. There's no way for us to conjure up that kind of faith through positive thinking or any other means. We need you, your grace, the power of your Holy Spirit.

37:27And so we ask for those things. So, that our faith will be active and so it will be the blessing that it was intended to be, both to non-believers and to our brothers and sisters in Christ. In Jesus' name, we pray all these things. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.