Blending In

Well, term with me and your Bibles to the book of Esther if you are in front of you This should be a Bible in the pew and you can return there to page 489 the words are not going to be on the screen because we're looking at a lengthy section again and We want you to follow along with the Bible the book of Esther 489 and that Bible if you have your own Bible You can't remember where Esther is open it up to the middle you get the Psalm start going backwards go towards the front You'll get the Job keep going you get to Esther and we'll be turning there now this week It says in your bulletin right and I told them that I was going to be looking at Esther chapter 4 We're going to talk about the finding moments Well, I was going to do chapters 2 through 4 and I got so excited about chapter 2 I never got to chapter 4 so what you see your bulletin is a preview of next week So next week come and learn about the house and very significant moments in your life I can end up being defining moments determine who you are who you're going to be what you're going to do We all face those defining moments so next week for that well this week we're talking about blending in And how all of us long to blend in we want to fit in now There are a few people who will dress in a really flashy sort of way and try to just stand out or people who will call attention to themselves They're being loud or boy stress, but most of us want simply to blend in we dress so that we blend in we act so that we blend in You know in fact one of our greatest nightmares is not blending in what's one of your big fears about singing in church? You know you ever said okay be singing and finally you know you're into it your heart's into it and you start the next person You go huh and then nobody else is singing you ever had that happen? Oh, man I know that's why I sit up front so that you can want to be in front of me when I do that It's just it's embarrassing you cringe at that we want to blend in Well Esther is as we introduced the book last week Esther is a young girl living in the Persian Empire and she's struggling To blend in let me again set you a little bit of background. We're looking at the story of Esther Esther is a a magnificent story of how God saves his people from genocide and It's the central character is Esther, but we didn't meet her in the first episode and the first episode in Esther chapter one when you're introduced to King Xerxes Xerxes is the ruler of the Persian Empire one of the greatest empires the world has ever seen It extends from what is today Pakistan all the way down to Sudan all the way up through Turkey and Xerxes is on the throne after his father Darius and Darius wanted to punish the Greeks for helping some people rebel against him He died he wasn't able to do it so Xerxes is going to go punish the Greeks and he's having a war council in chapter one And he invites all his officials there and they party for 180 days for 180 days They eat a party they have a great time for the seven more days then he invites everybody to the party and the wine is flowing In the in accordance with the King's liberality which meant everyone got to drink as much of the King's wine as they wanted to and They're all feeling very very good and Xerxes is high in spirits and he's talking to his buddies He says hey, you ever seen my wife Basti? She's a babe You need you need to check her out. She is a knockout. I mean your wives. They're not bad But Vashdy whoa, and so he sends his units and he says hey bring Vashdy to us so we can they can see her beauty He sends his units to go get her and they go together and she says I'm not going She she shows them up right there in front of his whole empire And he's so embarrassed that he is angered that how dare she Obey the command of the king and so he asked his advisors what to do they say Depose her she's no longer queen never let her see your face again and find somebody who's really worthy And so they begin this search throughout the whole empire for somebody who's really worthy and by worthy that means knockout That's the that's the qualification has to be a knockout and so they they round up all the the beautiful young virgins within the entire Empire To come now in the empire is a Jewish man named Mordekin and he's living with him is his cousin named Esther this pick it up Esther chapter two verse seven Esther chapter two verse seven. This is God's word Mordekin had a cousin named Hadesa whom whom he had whom he had brought up because she had neither father nor mother This girl was also known as Esther was lovely and form and features and Mordekin had taken her as his own daughter when her father and mother died When the king's order and edic had been proclaimed many girls were brought to the citadel Susa and put under the care of he guy Esther also was taken to the king's palace and entrusted to he guy who was charged over the Heram the girl pleased him and won his favor Immediately he provided her with her Provided her with her beauty treatments and special foods. He assigned her her seven maids selected from the king's palace and moved her and her Mades into the best place in the heram Esther had not revealed her nationality and family background because Mordekin had forbidden her to do so Every day he walked back and forth near the courtyard of the heram to find out how Esther was and what was happening to her Before a girl's turn came to go in to King Xerxes She had to complete 12 months of beauty treatment prescribed for the women Six months with oil of mure and six with perfumes and cosmetics and this is how she would go to the king Anything she wanted was given to her to take with her from the heram to the king's palace In the evening she would go there and the morning returned to another part of the heram to the care Shagazep gaz The king's unique who was in charge of the concubines She would not return to the king unless he was pleased with her and summoned her by name When the turn came for Esther the girl Mordekin had adopted the daughter of his uncle Abahail to go to the king She asked for nothing other than what had guy the king's unique who was in charge of the heram suggested When Esther and Esther won the favor of everyone who saw her she was taken to King Xerxes in the royal residence in the tenth month The month of Teveth and the seventh year of his reign Now the king was attracted to Esther more than to any other other women as she won his favor and approval More than any of the other virgins So he set a royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti and the king gave a great banquet Esther's banquet for all his nobles and officials and he reclaimed a holiday throughout the provinces and distributed gifts with royal liberality This is God's holy and inspired word Was the first point we're going to look at is the challenge of living in two worlds the challenge of living in two worlds Now in the years between when Vashti was disposed and Esther becomes queen There's there four years and in those four years a lot has happened in search. He's empire He's gathered his army. He's gone to Greece. He mustered a magnificent army a huge navy anywhere between 800 and 1200 ships. He goes to fight the Greeks and this historic battle the Greeks only have about 300 ships and the Greeks Just beat the tar out of them. I mean they whip him. They annihilate his navy. This army is in shambles And he ends up having to come back to Persia with his tail between his legs a beaten man He's he's completely Devastated. He's humiliated Devastated and so what do you do when you're a broken man and yet you still have a lot of power Well herodidus the historian tells us that Xerxes just began to indulge himself in every sort of sensual indulgence And of course top of that list would have been women He used women for his own purposes the story of Esther is not a love story with Xerxes in the romantic lead He is not a romantic man He is a man based on power is a man based on abusing power He would take young men at his will he'd make them units and then he'd force them to serve in his palace He would have women that would become his concubines and here's what they would do They'd gather up the virgins and they would bring them to his palace a different virgin would come to his bed chamber every night They'd spend one night with the king and then after they're one night They'd go to the harem never to see the king again or anyone else really again Except for those in the harem and live a life in luxurious isolation He used them he used them then he discarded them and that was the way that that Xerxes treated people Later on Xerxes had such an appetite for women And since after his story with Esther as there did nothing to change his heart in this regard his appetite He it's appetite with women never diminished and so he went after his brother's wife He went after his brother's daughter He went after his military leaders wives and that was the last straw because once he went after their wives They killed him and so Xerxes was a man who lusted for power lusted for pleasure and it was as lusted that ended up destroying him Well, so into this story we see See Esther come in so this is not a classic love story rather It's the story of an orphan Jewish girl caught up in the power plays of an evil despot Now in the story the writer begins he tells us about Esther and he begins with this classic understatement that she is lovely and form and features We could translate that a lot of different ways We could put that in a lot of different ways, but let's just put it basically is she was a knockout She was a tin she was dropped dead gorgeous when she walked down the street everybody's heads turned Everyone wanted to see Esther because she was stunning So of course when Xerxes sends out his soldiers to gather all the beautiful virgins She is taken to be part of the harem and so here Esther is thrown into a world that is different from her own She's living in the Persian Empire, but now she's no longer is around anyone who shares her faith her Ethnicity her values anything of that sort and so as she's thrown into the situation She's trying to decide how do you live in two worlds? Interestingly the writer portrays this for us in a little clue Esther is the only person in the story who's given two names She's called Hadassah which is her Jewish name and Esther which is her her Persian name And we see a young woman who's struggling to pull these two identities together How do you live as a Jewish girl and a Persian Empire and and so it's It's quite a stretch now now particularly for a Jewish person There have been people there from every different ethnicity and different groups But for her this is a particular challenge the Jews stood out from among the other peoples of the day and the reason is is because of their faith In those days all the different ethnic groups had their own religion that their own gods They had the own way of worshiping and it was there's sort of this thing where you worship your gods We worship our gods and everyone believed that everyone other Elses gods were real. They just you had your gods. We have our gods and everyone sort of respected that The Jews were different the Jews believed that there was only one God and that all these gods of the nations were not just their gods They weren't gods at all. They're fake gods. They're idols and so the Jews did not give any credence to worship of any of the other gods And because of that they would not give any that respect they would not bow down to them They would they would not blend in at all and so that's set them apart in a very distinct way The other things that set the Jewish people apart was the Jews had a very strict code of ethics Ten commandments and particularly in the area of sexual purity and other religions They actually had prostitution as part of their worship Judaism obviously despised that sort of fornication And so they would have been distinct in that way. They also had very strict dietary laws The Jews had only certain things that would eat as the way of distinguishing that which is clean from that which is unclean Very very important in the Jewish culture was that which is clean and that which is unclean and you did not want to become Tainted by touching that which is clean and so as they're now is thrown into the situation of How am I going to live faithfully as a Jew in a situation where no one shares my values? No one shares my religion no one shares my ethnicity and so what do you do in that situation? Well here you begin to see Where ethics of story intersects with our own? I mean you see the parallels here that as Christians we are living in a world that That does not always share our values and at least not there are many people who don't share our values And as you begin to seek to live out your values or proclaim your values You say I believe that Jesus is the way to God and people say well that's fine for you and you say no You don't understand that Jesus said I'm the way the truth in the life No one comes to the father but by me and they say whoa, you know wait, you know, you're going a little far there And that's that's extreme and you begin to find that to try and live out according to your values Oftentimes does not work very well in a world that's hostile to your religion and your values And so something that that Christians and have struggled with for ages is how do we relate our faith to our culture around us? How do we live in a world that that is different from our own? How do we live between two worlds and as a citizen the kingdom of heaven and yet as a citizen of East Orlando at the same time? How do you reconcile those two things? Well here we see then the danger point to the dangers and the first danger that we have The first danger is that we want to withdraw from the world that we see Christ as being against the culture The world is evil. The world is bad. Let's retreat into our own little Christian world so that we're not stained and Tainted by the evil world out there and of course we see some extreme Movements of this throughout church history one that we're most familiar with in our own continent would be of course the Amish The Amish see that the world is bad and therefore we're going to withdraw from the world form our own community Come into as little contact with the English you know all the non-Amish people that we can so that we can maintain the purity and the holiness and the goodness of our community But they're they're less they're less Severe forms of that that we see in our own culture in a more fundamentalistic form of Christianity You'll find people saying well, you know The world is bad. Therefore. Let's let's only get together and be with Christian friends It's only you know read Christian books and watch Christian movies and see Christian TV and listen to Christian radio and and we're gonna Go to work because we have to go to work But as soon as we get back we can get so full of church activity and we're gonna be at the church every time the doors are open And we're gonna be there all the time We're gonna hang around Christian so that we are having fellowship and the fellowship with each other and it's not friendship with the world and we stay pure And there's a great temptation to do that a great temptation to do that to withdraw from the world and be in our own little Christian subculture You know many studies have shown this that most people after being a Christian for two years Two years no longer have any significant friendships with non-Christian people What are we doing? I mean it's it's very subtle We might not say we're throwing from the world, but we find ways to withdraw from the world and then of course we don't do this I don't I don't want my kid to go out there be corrupted by that big bad world Oh, no, you know to keep the world away bad bad world and and we we should try and maintain our purity in our and our Holiness because we want to control everything and and you know Talking to someone this week and they talked about in their church They had had people complaining that their churches youth group there were some actually some bad kids coming to their youth group Oh my goodness those bad kids might corrupt our little good kids and that'd be a horrible thing wouldn't it? So we want to abstain from the world with draw from the world because the world is bad What's the problem with that? Well, there are two problems other many but this is a look at you Number one number one you cannot be faithful to God and withdraw from the world you cannot do it You cannot be faithful to God and withdraw from the world in any sense Because Jesus has given us a mission For God so loved the world and so should we we should not hate the world We should love the world Jesus so loved the world that he came to die for the world and so we don't despise the world We love the world and long to redeem it if you withdraw from the world you cannot do that and and there's a sense in which The Christians as we retreat to our own little Christian enclave and have our own little Christian coffee shops and do our own little Christian things There were retreating from the world and we end up despising the world We we're not redeeming it Christ calls us to love the world Here's the image that the John gives us of what Jesus did John chapter one. What does Jesus do to save the world? Jesus doesn't stay in heaven and make road trips to earth occasionally to preach a few sermons and then go back up What does he do? He says the word became flesh and he made his dwelling among us He made his dwelling among us. What does that mean? There were literally it says he he tabernacle to mongers and the Old Testament They had a tent of God's presence the tent of meeting with the tabernacle later on was constructed and as they had this Tabernacle as the nation of Israel's camping out to the wilderness They would always pitch God's tent and then the 12 tribes would camp out around God's tent And so God's tent was always right there in the center God was camping in their midst and It's symbolic then of how God was present right in the midst So when John says Jesus tabernacle to mongers he's saying Jesus didn't just road trip here Jesus came and he lived with us He came into the world he took on our culture our language our forms to be part of us And so the mission of God Causes us to be engaged with the culture to love the world for the sake of redeeming the world Here's the funny thing People think they're going to be faithful by retreating from the world They say I'm the retreating in order to remain faithful and yet it does exactly the opposite its faithless The other problem with it was trying to retreat from the world is frankly it just doesn't work It just doesn't work You can't you can't keep evil outside the doors Again how horrified we were Of the sea what happened in the Amish community was that you know the the death that took place very violent deaths You can't keep the world out by retreating into your own community But even more than that Not recommending the movie but one that portrays us very well is the movie the village If you've seen that movie it's a group of people who end up creating their own little community far away from everyone else Because they've seen how bad and evil and dangerous the world is but they're not able to keep evil out. Why? Because they are there And we're actually wherever I go I'm taking the world with me because the world's in here You can't keep evil out because evil isn't out there as soon as I arrived someplace the world has arrived with me At least the sinfulness of the world because we have it in all of us And so it doesn't work to retreat from the world in order to stay pure So that's the danger what drawing for the world is faithless and it doesn't work Well the second danger We see it's compromise the danger of compromise and this view would be called the Christ of culture Where where we see that you become so identified with the culture around you that there's no distinction no difference between you and the world at all Now I feel for Mordecai Here's Mordecai and he's raising this girl Esther as his own daughter And he loves her and he cares for her and he wants what's best for her and she's being taken to the king's harem And so what does he say to her? He commands her says don't let anyone know who you are Don't let them know about your nationality or your identity your family. Don't tell anyone. Keep it a secret blend in Now fit in with everyone else if you if you tell him who you are if you say your nationality You're not going to fit in and and it's just not going to go well for you there and and and dear I want you to be okay You know and maybe he said something like you know God will understand No, you got you got got in your heart. You don't need him out here. You know it's your little secret You have your own little private religion, but what happens here? Well, she as she hides her true identities. She's taken to the to the harem She disregards all the commands of scripture She disregards the food laws all the things about cleanliness. She she violates all of them She eats from the king's table and she winds up in the king's bed In fact in her one night with a king Esther so skilled in the art of love that she pleases the king more than any other woman So that he doesn't even want to see you in the rest of the virgins. He made his choice And so here we find Esther She splints into her culture so fully so fully assimilated that she completely forgets the the covenant of God By the way, you know, writers for centuries have looked at this. They said how can Mordecai do this? I mean Jewish and Christian writers both have looked and said you know How could he how could he've done this? He said why didn't he do something to protect his daughter and I think it's because his parents sometimes you just You know, you're you know, you're saying well, and we just got to get along And you end up compromising and that's their ends up compromising now you may be thinking Time out white here. You're being a little hard on the girl. She's a poor orphan girl She's going against the whole Persian Empire What choice did she have but to do what the king told her? Well This contrast the story of Esther with the story of some other people that is happening Basically the same time just about a hundred years before Do you remember the the story of Daniel very similar Daniel is taken out of Jerusalem into exile into Babylon which Persian later conquered He is there and he's told he has to eat of the king's food and he says I'm not going to do it He makes a deal with the person says I only want to eat bread and water. I want to I'm going to honor the commands of God He chooses a very different path He says well, he wasn't threatened with death. Well probably but then later on he was remember what the other choice that Daniel had The king Nebuchadnezzar makes a command says no one can pray to any other God. He says and so what does Daniel do? He goes up into his house He throws open the windows towards Jerusalem. He gets down his knees and he prays They said wait a second Daniel you do that you get thrown into the lion's den. I don't care I'm going to be faithful It's more important to be faithful than it is to be alive It is more important to be faithful than it is even to live and so Daniel prays. He's thrown into the lion's den What about Shadrach Meshach and Abednego same book of Daniel remember three Hebrew children three Hebrew children They're said told you must bow down to the idol when the trumpet sounds They say we can't do that. That'd be idle words. That'd be dishonoring to God Now you can see how other people say well, you know, just bow down, but don't bow in your heart You know, just you know, you know, just God will understand But they can't do it. They can't dishonor God Nebuchadnezzar calls him before me says Don't you know who I am? I said bow. You're gonna bow. What little God do you think can save you from me? That's what he says Do you think your puny little God can save you from me? And they say king oh king You know no matter what your threats are We believe God will protect us. We believe the God will save us But if not even if he doesn't we will not bow to your idol What's he do? Throws him in the fire furnace and of course God rescues them Esther is put in the very same situation very same situation more to kind same situation chooses something very different. She eats from the king's table Wines up in the king's bed a Gentile man an unclean man And uh and certainly We see the the path of compromise where this has taken her Well as you see the tension here You know Mordecai You know Mordecai commands her to hide her identity In order to survive Don't don't tell who you are hide your identity But in hiding her identity she loses her identity She forgets who she is She's no longer a daughter of the covenant. She's no longer living like a child of God's people And so she's she's no different from the person Girls and kings irksys court and loses all connection with God and with her faith Their parents I think we can identify with Mordecai Now think about what you want for your kids Well, what do you want? What is you you want to see them grow up to do and to be and I look at my kids and I say send them off the school and I say you know I just want them to have a good day You know, I want them to get through the day and and not be made fun of and uh to do well and I want them to succeed and you know I want them to make a grades and to To go far and to not be left out because when your child comes home and they've been left out or excluded no matter what it just It just hurts and you don't want that to happen to your little girl You don't want that to happen and so so Mordecai is thinking how can I protect her and he goes oh Oh, man, if she she tells her she is she's dead. I can't live with that And so and so he sends her off and you think of how we do that with our children Now we want to spare them the pain and the ridicule. We want them to get ahead and succeed Yet in our desire to see the succeed Are we at times selling them out to the zirksies of our day? You know Just heard a speaker here a few months ago. He was speaking at another meeting in our church He says you know what we want his parents Here's what we want. I want my kid to get through high school without being on drugs without getting pregnant and able to get in college And if they do that, I'm pretty happy now if anything else happens I'm really happy but if we can just go not on drugs not pregnant and and getting into a good college And then we feel like we've done a pretty good job. I mean that's that's success in our day and age And as we look and see what is it we want for our children do you want something more do you want something more than them simply to To do well in school to get into a good college so they can get a good job So they can have a nice house so they can have a comfortable life is that the ultimate goal Now there's nothing wrong with wanting those things for your kids But you want those things more than anything else You say well, no, I want my child to have a vibrant rock with God I mean that'd be good too but then the question is well What are you doing? How are you doing that? Are you simply letting the culture define what you do with your child Are you simply letting the culture define what successful parenting looks like you know that's a good kid Or do you have a different definition altogether? Who's defining success for you in the parenting room? You know What do you want for them? How it what is it that you would weep over? One of the things you would not weep over for your children There's a little book I read an excerpt from Not too long ago called Borden of Yale. It's about William Borden He was born into the Borden dairy family and in Chicago a graduate high school in 1904 in Chicago And of course, he's a millionaire the Borden Dairy's and And so he's very wealthy was parents after graduate from high school at age 16 They send him on this trip around the world and he goes to China and Middle East and and while traveling around the world his heart is just gripped with the poverty and the darkness and the oppression that he sees And he sees these people living in all the conditions and he says I've got to do something about this and he tells his parents he wants to become a missionary His parents. I don't know if they're Christians. I'm assuming they were Probably just very good parents and they they try and talk him out of it. Imagine they said you know bill You know you can you know that's great. That is great But you know you can make a lot of money and you can support 50 missionaries on what you do I mean there are a lot of things you can do. There are a lot of people could be missionaries Only one person could be a millionaire. I mean you can you don't need to do this And they tried to talk him out of it But he was determined and so he went off at college to Yale Determined to be a missionary and he wrote in the back of his Bible two words no reserves He went through Yale while he's at Yale. He formed different missionaries societies and impacted many many of his classmates who went into The service of and many different areas And he decides to go on to seminary at Princeton Why is there a seminary? He writes down two more words no retreats No retreats not going back Headed full steam ahead. He graduates from Princeton He decides to go to China to work with the Muslims And he ends up going first in Egypt for some preparation to be trained in order to work with the Muslims And while in Egypt he he contracts cerebral meningitis and he dies never becomes a missionary What a waste I mean here's this guy if he just stayed home I mean he didn't impact anyone's life on the mission field He never got to the mission field story ends there then over gone You think what a waste and his parents were heartbroken over the sun who had thrown his life away until they found his Bible And they found in his Bible these words first no reserves No retreats and then finally no regrets No regrets Pants would you be disappointed if your child was William of Yale? Would that break your heart? I know of course it'd break your heart to have them die But to see them living with purpose I mean is your goal in life your son be a great picture or have a great purpose? Is your goal in life that they be a Awesome students and very disciplined or that they study something and live for something bigger than themselves See we have a we have a bigger purpose than than what suburbia gives us Bigger purpose. We're living for something mightier. Do you know what your purpose in life is? We're Presbyterians. Let me give you your Presbyterian purpose in life truly biblical though Now we say that the chief in demand your main purpose is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever To take the lip for the glory of God and to experience the enjoyment of God forever to glorify God and to enjoy him forever Do you have that phrase? I want you to get that the chief in demand is To glorify God and enjoy him forever one more time the chief in demand is to glorify God and enjoy him forever Is the chief purpose of your parenting to raise up children who will live to the glory of God and enjoy him forever Or is the chief purpose to have a kid who just does well Nothing wrong with doing well. I hope they do well But when push comes to shove and in everybody's life there come these moments when you have to decide Who are you who are you are you living for this world or you're living for the kingdom of God and are your children prepared to make that choice Let's back off parenting. That's way too easy for us to deal with let's talk about us Let's talk about you. Let's talk about me and let's talk about us And our ability to compromise with the world You know to get along in the world to get along in the world Sounds like it seems like you have to compromise done it I mean it seems very hard to get ahead and very hard to survive without without somehow Compromising and adopting some of the world's practices and standards that you do it And you say God will understand them under the pressure. You know, it's just the way things have to be For interesting study of that sometimes look at revelation 13 We don't have time to get to that And see how we interact with the world But I think oftentimes we have to be honest about ourselves and say you know Sometimes our life is nothing more than a compromise with the world Leslie new big and right she says if you're If you're honest you have to face the fact that your life is a pretty comfortable compromise with the world We're not very different from the average worldly man you and I we're not very heroic in our discipleship We do not look like the stuff from which martyrs are made You know We're blending in so well We're doing such a good job of not withdrawing from culture that we've just totally Accommodated and been assimilated into the culture We're part of it And that's not what God calls us to because there's something more there's something better And you know, it's easy for us as older people to point to young people and see how they're compromising because You're drinking you're doing drugs you're sleeping around don't drink don't smoke don't you don't don't don't don't don't and kids who do that You're compromising teenagers these days. They just know where is their heart? Where is their commitment? Well, we have to recognize something Yes teenagers young people are very tempted to compromise and struggle with that But it's not something that goes away with age new big and goes on to write because now the sins which the church most vigorously condemns And you are usually the sins of which old people are no longer capable

The characteristic sins of the middle age and the old are sloth cowardice and compromise with the world and we more these are more leniently dealt with Ouch You know you see you go They're not doing the right things. We're going yeah Are we living as if the chief in a man really is the glory of God? I mean is that just a nice little slogan you can kind of say and feel good and then you go back about your business as if nothing else on life has anything to do with that Doesn't that somehow affect what you do at work? How you parent how you spend your money? Doesn't affect what you do how you interact with the neighborhood I mean if you are no different than anyone else in the neighborhood is somebody where to meet you and go you're a Christian what? I never knew I never would have guessed that this probably something wrong, you know And it and it could be I mean hopefully you're tactful and you're not distressing people from you know You can you can retreat from the world by distancing people with so much God talk that nobody will come near you That's not faithfulness, but it's also not faithfulness this blend in so much that there's no difference now I'm so out of time, but I got to go to this because now you'll leave just totally depressed So let's uh two things two things as we go to the key for us The key for us is confidence in God's love You know wait if you like me is I was thinking about this. I was thinking about my life as a man I'm such a compromiser I'm such an accommodator and it just makes you want to go I'm such a worm nobody likes me everybody hates me. I think I'll go eat worms and you just feel You can get very depressed about this And then what you'll do is you'll kind of pull yourself up by your dudes bootstraps and say I'm gonna do better I've been compromising with not anymore. I'm gonna be a marine for Christ. Yeah. I'm gonna do better And let me tell you it won't work It will not work if you think you can pull yourself up by the bootstraps and do this You're gonna you can either kill people alienate people But you will not be able to be in the world and not out of the world the only way you can do it is by being confident of God's love for us And so here's a couple things one You may be sitting here thinking my life is such a life to compromise That the guy can never use me We're only an Esther chapter two Your life is only in chapter two. I'll care how old you are you may be 80 your life is only in chapter two There are lots more chapters to be written of your life And next week we're gonna see how God can use Compromising people people who prostitute themselves to the world to do amazing things amazing things Your story is not over do not quit your story at chapter two Keep living your story. God is writing it And he has some wonderful things to write into your story as we seek to follow him And so there is hope there's hope for you So so press on and come back next week the second thing is The second thing is as we we need to be gripped with the love of God, you know as we as I think about this How compromised with the world I think why did I compromise why do I do this it's because I want to be comfortable And so even though I don't say this at the time when I'm saying is Jesus you're holding me back I mean, you know I like our friendship and I like it in private but I don't want to be seen with you in public And so so you know I just want to keep you as my little private Jesus and you're holding me back I'm afraid if I if I live out your faith with me It's gonna hold me back and so I reject you as my friend so that I can make it well in the world and I've turned my back on you And that's what we do and you begin to think about that and that's crushing and till you begin to think about this Yes, we have turned our back on Jesus and we need to confess that and you need to be honest about that And you've got to really deal with that do not skip over and without examining where you've been compromising with the world But do not stop there Because what we see then is even though we've turned our back on Jesus Jesus is the kind of friend who never turns us back on us Even when we turn our back on him All we like sheep have gone astray each of us has turned his own way But the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all While we were still sinners god made him who knew no sin to become sin for us Christ died for us the godly for the ungodly It is when we were rebelling against him that we see his love for us the most You ever you ever done something wrong to a friend you ever turn your back on a friend You ever you ever just done something that just rejected them If you say no you're a liar you're a liar you're a liar We do that to our friends You ever done that to a friend and had your friend Still love you They still love you Did you respect your friend go down at that point? It is you still love me you say hey great now I can really take advantage of you It's not what you think not at all when you've been gripped by how much Christ loves you What it does is saying Man he's so faithful to me. I want to be faithful to him. I want to That's what's going to motivate you when the love of god for you captivates your heart You'll know how to live in the world. There are no formulas. There's no do this. Don't do this. No little checklist Is simply knowing the love of god and walking faithfully in a world that is hostile to Christ Let's pray Father, we do thank you Lord, I thank you to one for their patience and sticking with this It's so critical that we understand your love for us It's a Lord we pray That you would show us how we've been faithless show us where we've been compromising For some Lord maybe you need to show how they've been living in a little Christian ghetto keeping the world at a distance through Staying with just their little Christian friends and and and ostracizing everyone with a bunch of religious talk But for most of us Lord We need to recognize how we've just failed to be distinct at all But Father, we thank you that Christ Christ is unlike us He he did not despise the suffering Instead of denying us in order to be free of pain. He embraced us and entered our pain And made that grip our hearts and made we know how loved we are so that we can leave here today with such delight That we have a faithful friend in Jesus We pray to song Christ name Amen