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This podcast is a production of Watermark Community Church in Dallas, Texas, USA. Watermark exists to be and make more fully devoted followers of Christ, looking to God's Word as our only authority, conscience and guide.
Good morning, Watermark. How are we doing? Good to see you. It's the last week before summer hits. (Okay, there are a bunch of parents in here not feeling good about _that_.) Hey, if this is your first time ever with us, welcome. I'm so glad and thankful that you're trusting us with your Sunday morning. I hope this place can feel like home for you.
If this is your church home and you've been on the journey with us as we've been making our way through the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation, I want to say "congratulations" to you, because as of yesterday, you have now completed both the books of the Law and the Historical Books in the Bible. So, let me show you where you are. Do you remember "Five, twelve, five, five, twelve"? Have those numbers been haunting you?
God, I pray that they _would_ haunt them in the name of Jesus.
Anyway, you finished the first five books of the Law and the twelve Historical Books all the way through Esther, so, starting tomorrow, we are jumping into what's known as the _Wisdom Literature_ in the Bible. That's a great place to jump in with us if you haven't been on the journey this far. Tomorrow we're starting the book of Job. So, especially for the people in the room who are in the midst of a trial… If you're in the midst of grief, walking through heartache, the book of Job is for you.
Hey, look. If you're still stuck in 2 Chronicles or even Ezra, it's time to let it go. You're not going to catch up. I hate to speak that over you, but I just want to call it. Call it. Just say, "Okay, time of day, 11:33. It's dead. It's done." We're starting, as a church, the book of Job tomorrow. Let's do this together all the way through the year. God is using it in such great ways.
This past week, Kat and I got out of town. We got away just to hang out, be together, and get refreshed. The first night we were gone, I was in a deep sleep. I was dreaming. I was having a dream, and as I was asleep (this wasn't in my dream; this was in reality), a storm rolled in. As I'm in this deep sleep, dreaming, the lightning crashed, the thunder rolled in such a way… It was more spectacular than any other time I can honestly remember in my life.
The lightning crashed outside at just the right moment where I was in this sleep, in this dream, that there's no other way to say it besides it shook my system. It shocked my system to the point that I wasn't fully awake until I was already standing outside of my bed, and my wife was rubbing my back, saying, "It's okay. It's okay." I was so shocked into alertness that I couldn't breathe.
I thought about that. That doesn't normally happen to me when there's lightning outside, but that moment made me think about when we were going through the book of Judges. The message I was saying to our church was, "Hey, let's be a church that's awake." Like, "Wake up." When I think about prayers I've prayed over the last month for our church, what I've been praying is that we would be a people who would be living awake. One of the specific prayers I've prayed is "If we are people who think we are awake but are actually asleep, God, would you wake us up?"
So, I say that just to ask, "What's your status right now?" Are you awake? Are you spiritually awake? I'm not just talking about right now in this room. Have you been awake to God? Have you been awake to his presence? Have you been awake to his goodness? Have you been awake to his power in your life? Have you been awake to his purposes? Have you been awake to the mission he has called all of us, as believers, to be on? Are you awake to what he's doing through his people here at Watermark Community Church? What's your status?
Some of you might say, "Yeah, I'm awake. I am awake. I love what's happening in my life. God is moving, and it's evident." Or maybe… You know those nights where you're not sure if you ever fell asleep? You wake up, and you're like, "I think I was kind of in and out." It kind of felt like you took three or four naps throughout the course of the night, and you're not sure when you were awake and when you were asleep. Maybe that's you spiritually but the inverse.
You're like, "You know what? Some Sundays it feels like I might be waking up, but I don't know. It feels like I'm not locked into the groove of how God is moving." Or it feels like the wind is blowing but your sails aren't up and you're not moving with God. So, my prayer for our church is that God would wake us up, that there would be a widespread awakening.
Maybe today might be a day where God, in some ways, kind of like that lightning crashing outside of our room… Maybe God would shake this place up today with his presence and power in such a way that we would all leave here awake and alert to God. So, I just want to give you a moment to pray. Say, "God, would you wake me up?" Even if you already feel spiritually awake, just ask him. Say, "God, I don't want to be asleep in any way. Would you wake me up?" Just pray that really quick.
Lord, would you shake this place today with your presence and your power in such a way that not one person would leave here still spiritually asleep? In Jesus' name, amen.
I want to let you know that this morning is going to flow a little bit differently than most Sundays. Next month, when we read the book of Psalms together… All throughout the book of Psalms you're going to see this word _selah_. People think it means to pause and reflect. It's like you're in the middle of worship, and it's like, "Hey, let's just stop. Everybody, pause. Now reflect." We're going to do that today.
I'm going to talk some, we're going to pause, and then I'm going to give you a chance to pray. Even one time we might sing a song in the middle of the service. We're just going to talk some, and we're going to pray some. We need to pray more as a church when we're together as a family. We say we're a praying church. Well, we're going to pray as a church today.
If you're one of those note takers, it might feel disruptive to you, so let me just tell you the four things we're going to pray for today. First, we're going to pray for _God's_ _presence_; secondly, we're going to pray for _those in need_; thirdly, we're going to pray for _God's church and your role_; and fourthly, we're going to pray for _God's mission_. We're going to use the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther to drive our prayers.
So, if you have a Bible, I want to invite you to turn to Ezra, chapter 1. If you've been on the journey with us, then you know the nation of Israel, due to disobedience, was first fractured as a nation, and then the nation was taken into exile. When Judah went into exile, there were two things that happened. The temple was burned to the ground, and the wall around Jerusalem was destroyed.
The books of Ezra and Nehemiah are about returning and rebuilding. The book of Ezra is about Israelites returning and rebuilding the temple. The book of Nehemiah is about Israelites returning and rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem. Here's the thing. The nation of Israel is a nation that struggled to live awake to God.
I don't know if you sensed it when you were reading Ezra and Nehemiah, but these are people who got kicked out of the country for 70 years. You would think that after 70 years they were like, "We get it. God, we get it." But then they come back, and there's a lack of urgency for everything. There's a lack of urgency for the temple. There's a lack of urgency for the wall.
Then you get to the end of the book of Nehemiah. It feels like they're having this revival. There's this incredible moment where there's the reading of the law and everyone is repenting, but then you get to the end of Nehemiah, and Nehemiah is talking to God, and he's like, "God, just remember me as the guy who tried. I did my best with what you gave me. It has been a mediocre experience," because he's looking around, and people are spiritually asleep.
So, we're going to learn from the nation of Israel today. May that not be true of us. One of the things, in God's sovereignty, that prompted the return of the Israelites to the land was the fact that Persia conquered Babylon. Because Persia conquered Babylon, here's what we read in the very first verse of the book of Ezra. It's going to prompt us to pray for God's presence.
**"In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing: 'Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel—he is the God who is in Jerusalem.'"**
I just want to invite everyone to look up at me right now, because this is so important. This is crazy. Cyrus is a pagan, foreign king, and God calls him to rebuild the temple. So, a pagan, foreign king issues a command that God's people are supposed to go back into the land and build the temple. Why? Because God cares about the temple. The temple was the dwelling place of God. The temple was a key part of Israel's identity, because the nation of Israel was to be the people with whom the God of the universe dwelt.
But here's the disappointing thing in the book of Ezra. The disappointing thing is that you read about the rebuilding of the temple in the first six chapters of the book of Ezra, but at no point in the book of Ezra or in Nehemiah is there ever a clear moment where the presence of God once again fills the temple.
If you go back and look at what happened in Exodus, God's presence filled the tabernacle, and it was profound. It was magnificent. Then, when Solomon built the temple…you can go back and read…God's presence filled the Holy of Holies, and it was spectacular. But in the book of Ezra, the temple gets rebuilt, yet God's presence never fills it. So, what you have is a building that's missing the fullness of God's presence. There's no indication that God's presence ever fully fills the temple again.
What's interesting is if you fast-forward into the Gospels in the New Testament, you get the story of Jesus cleansing the temple. One of the most appalling things that even prompted Jesus to cleanse the temple was what was going on in the temple, but the reality was the presence of God was long gone from the temple, yet it was business as usual for the Israelites. So, what you had was activity with no intimacy.
I just think about that, and I'm like, "May that never be true of Watermark Community Church." See, here's the reality. There are enough people who call this church home, enough people who on Sunday mornings… Like, you don't think about it. You just get up, you get dressed, and your car drives to Watermark. It's just your rhythm.
Because there's a critical mass who are all in the same rhythm of coming to church, it would be easy… "Hey, look around the room. Look at how many people are in this room. Good things are happening." It's just easy to conclude that. So, it's possible that God's presence could be long gone from this place and it's just business as usual. "Things are good." There can be activity here with no intimacy.
When you read the book of Ezra, it cultivates a longing for something greater. It cultivates this longing for the fullness of God's presence to return. That's why Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, when he comes, refers to himself as the _temple_. We call Jesus _Immanuel_, which means God with us.
The presence of God had returned in bodily form, but then Jesus lived, died for our sins, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven, so the presence of God in the person of Jesus left. But that's okay, because the Spirit of the living God came, and the Spirit of God makes his home in every person who trusts in Jesus Christ.
Do you know what Paul calls us individually? He calls our bodies _temples of the Holy Spirit_. But not just that. In 1 Corinthians, chapter 3, listen to what Paul says. **"Do you…"** That _you_ there is in the plural. So, he's not just talking to individuals; he's talking to the church collectively. He's saying, **"Do you** \[church\] **not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?"**
Here's what this means. The temple is no longer a place; it's a people, and the thing that makes us God's temple, as a church, is God's presence in and among us. So, the truest thing about Watermark Community Church is that we should be a church marked by the presence of the living God.
So, this is a moment where I want to pause and reflect. I want us to pray for God's presence here. You know, a couple of weeks ago, I talked about not settling for a long-distance relationship with God. Do you remember that? Some of you were like, "Man, I needed to hear that." But you heard it, and for the last couple of weeks you've still been settling for a long-distance relationship with God. Enough!
Let's be clear. God doesn't have to settle for a long-distance relationship with us. He's present. It's us settling for communication without an awareness of his presence. When we do that, we're settling for activity without intimacy.
So, I want to invite you right now to pause and reflect. Here's what I'm really asking you to do. I'm asking you to make yourself aware of God's presence, that he's here in the room. God is here. God is inside of you. Tell God you don't want a long-distance relationship with him anymore and pray that our church would be marked by his presence. Take a couple of minutes and pray.
\[Pause\]
We just prayed for God's presence. We just asked God individually to make us aware of his presence and for our church to be marked by his presence. Now we're going to sing a short chorus. We're going to sing that prayer to the Lord. As we sing it, let me just invite you. You're free to respond during this time how you want. If you want to stand, you can stand. If you want to sit, you can sit. Let's just sing our prayer to the Lord that we would be marked by his presence.
\[Song\]
Lord, we pray that you would make us more aware of your presence. We want you here. We already know you are, but I pray that you'd wake us up. Lord, I'm not talking about mere emotionalism; I'm talking about true enjoyment of you, God. I'm talking about loving you, not just with our minds but with all of our hearts, all of our souls, and all of our strength. So we ask and pray for you. In Jesus' name, amen.
I want to invite you now to turn over to Nehemiah, chapter 1. Remember, during the book of Ezra, the temple got rebuilt. During the book of Nehemiah, the wall around Jerusalem got rebuilt. The book of Nehemiah is first going to invite us to pray for those in need. Look at how the book of Nehemiah starts.
**"The words of Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah. Now it happened in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Susa the citadel, that Hanani, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah. And I asked them concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, 'The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire.'"**
So, the way the book starts is Nehemiah gets a report, and here's the report: "The nation of Israel has returned, and they are not flourishing." The most specific thing Nehemiah finds out is that the wall around Jerusalem had been broken down. The reason that's so important is that a wall around a city communicated something to foreign nations.
A broken-down wall communicated at least three things. The first thing was that Israel was defenseless. The second thing it would communicate was that God's blessing was not on Israel. The third thing it would communicate was that Israel was not flourishing. So, Nehemiah gets this report about people in a place that he cares deeply about.
Now, here's what I want you to see. Look at verse 4. If you're reading in your own Bible, I want you to stop reading it in your own text just for a moment and read it from the screens. Verse 4 starts out this way: **"As soon as I heard these words I…"** Pause. How would the rest of _your_ verse 4 read if you were Nehemiah?
If you got a report that people you care about in a place you care about aren't flourishing, what would be your response? What would it say? "As soon as I heard these words, I got in my car and immediately drove to Jerusalem." "As soon as I heard these words, I opened up all of my news apps so I could get more details." "I checked in with my favorite influencers to get their take on what was happening." "I picked up my phone to start calling and texting around." What would it read?
Look at what Nehemiah's verse 4 says. **"As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven."** Do you want to know how long Nehemiah fasted and prayed in this moment before activating? Four months. For four months, Nehemiah fasted and prayed before taking action. There are a few things I want to point out here that I really love and appreciate.
The first thing I really love, which is instructive to me, was that Nehemiah was burdened to the point of shedding tears, fasting, and praying for other people. The reason that's instructive is it's good sometimes to ask the question…_Is there anyone in your life outside of yourself that you're burdened for to the point of shedding tears or fasting and praying?_ Is there anyone in your life right now who you are so burdened for it would be worth you fasting and praying for them this week?
The second thing that's instructive for me in this is that he fasted and prayed for four months before activating. So, the belief that some people are good at praying and some people are good at activating in the end is just an excuse not to pray. Go read the book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah was an activator. I don't care how strategic you are or how high of an achiever you are. Nehemiah has you beat.
He is more strategic and a greater activator than us, yet he sat down to pray and fast for four months. See, here's the thing. The thought process of "less praying, more doing" can sound godly, but that mentality of "Hey, less praying, more doing; let's go do it" shows an inflated view of self and a deficient understanding of prayer.
Nehemiah teaches us that extended prayer and fasting isn't the prework; it's part _of_ the work. You have to think about it this way. When we're praying, God is working. I believe that God, when he works, responds to our prayers. Now, some of you guys heard that, and you're like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean? That diminishes the sovereignty of God to say that God responds to our prayers." No, no, no. My theology is intact.
I firmly believe in the sovereignty of God. What you have to understand is that within God's sovereignty are his people praying. God is so sovereign to work it out that he responds to our prayers. He might wait to respond _until_ we pray, and that doesn't diminish his sovereignty; it actually increases our view of his sovereignty.
This idea of "Why would I pray if God is going to do what he's going to do?" is ridiculous, because in his sovereign plans, he has his people praying. Why? Because think about it. God is most glorified when we fervently seek him and he responds and we worship. He's most glorified. So pray.
Do you know what Nehemiah also shows me? So often, we make the key marker for a godly man out to be someone who steps up, takes charge, and gets things done. Like, that's a real godly, manly man, someone who is willing to step up and take action. That's partly true, but what Nehemiah shows us is a truly godly man is a man who prioritizes kneeling down before stepping up.
I tell you that to say… If you're an older man discipling the next generation of men, let me just ask you. How are you doing cultivating their prayer lives? Don't cultivate young men into majoring in God's Word and minoring in prayer. If you do that, you're cultivating a generation of men who consistently skip leg day, and they're going to look all lopsided spiritually. I'm not just talking to men right now. Older women discipling younger women, how are you doing cultivating their prayer lives?
Nehemiah prayed and fasted for four months. Look. We have to remember, because of Christ, the veil has been torn. We have access into the Holy of Holies. We can boldly approach the throne of grace. We can go to God on each other's behalf, and we can ask him. The other day, I was praying with a friend, and as we were praying, I sensed that Jesus was in the car with us, like, "Ask me." Like, in such deep love for us, just putting his arms around us, saying, "Would you ask me? Just ask."
Sometimes I wonder if we're down here like, "Well, I don't know what we're going to do, and I don't know how this is going to work out," and I just wonder if God is like, "Ask me. I care." God responds to his people praying. I say that, and some of you are like, "No, I prayed and he didn't respond." There is more there than I can unpack right now, but let me just tell you…pray.
So, I want to give you a moment to take a second and pray, and here's what I want you to ask God. Ask God who he wants you to be burdened for enough to pray and fast for them. Just ask him. "God, who do you want me to be so burdened for that I would pray and fast for them even this week?" Whoever he brings to mind, pray for them now. Okay? Take a second and pray.
\[Pause\]
Make a decision right now that sometime this week or next you would fast from a meal for them and you'd pray for them. Just make a decision right now. Will you pray and fast for them just this week? That God would burden you in such a way that you'd say, "I feel responsible to ask on their behalf."
I want to invite you to turn over to Nehemiah, chapter 3. So far, we've prayed for God's presence and for those in need. Thirdly, we're going to pray for God's church and your role. Nehemiah is all about rebuilding the wall, so a good chunk of the book is just about the wall being rebuilt. Nehemiah, chapter 3, is basically all of the different people who were involved in rebuilding the wall.
If you go and study the book, you see that some people just watched, some people served, and some people opposed. Look at the people watching. This caught me. Sometimes you have to read the Scriptures slowly to catch things that if you're reading too fast, you're going to skip over. Watch this. Nehemiah 3:5. These are the people watching. **"And next to them the Tekoites repaired, but their nobles would not stoop to serve their Lord."** Isn't that amazing?
How would you want _that_ to be what you're remembered for? You're one of the nobles who refused to stoop to serve. There was an unwillingness. In the end, here's what they wanted. They wanted the benefits of the wall without the work of building the wall. But then you have those who were really serving. Look at verse 8. This is what I love.
It says, **"Next to them Uzziel the son of Harhaiah, goldsmiths, repaired. Next to him Hananiah, one of the perfumers, repaired…"** I love that. What was his job? To spray people as they went out? Like, "Go in peace to love and smell good for the Lord." Was that their job to just make sure everyone smelled good? I love that. **"…one of the perfumers, repaired, and they restored Jerusalem as far as the Broad Wall."**
So, some people building the wall were operating in their skill set and others just wanted to be a part of God's work no matter what. It's like, "Man, I'm used to working with perfumes, but yeah, I'll figure out how to use that tool." So, you have some nobles who are like, "No thanks. Eww! I'm not a part of that," and then you have perfumers who are like, "I'll figure it out."
Now look at verse 12. This is pretty awesome. **"Next to him Shallum the son of Hallohesh, ruler of half the district of Jerusalem, repaired, he and his daughters."** It's a family deal. He's like, "Look. We're all going today. Do you want to know what you're doing tomorrow? We're waking up early, and we're working on the wall together." It's this beautiful moment of all hands on deck. Everybody is in.
Then you have the people who were opposing. This is my favorite passage in Nehemiah. In chapter 6, it says, **"Sanballat and Geshem sent to me, saying, 'Come and let us meet together at Hakkephirim in the plain of Ono.' But they intended to do me harm. And I sent messengers to them, saying, 'I am doing a great work and I cannot come down.'"**
I love that answer. "Hey, guys, I'm sorry. I'm doing a great work. I can't come down right now. You want me to come down because you're trying to screw things up. I can't come down. I'm doing too good of a work." Sometimes it's good to remember when you're centered in God's will and you have opposition, a good response is "I can't come down right now; I'm doing a great work. Sorry. I'll get back to you later."
**"And they sent to me four times in this way…"** If you keep reading, do you know what happens? They start saying things that aren't true. They were saying things and believing things that just weren't true about the work. So, here's my question to you: Which one represents _you_ here at Watermark? Are you watching, serving, or opposing?
Are you watching, just spectating? Like, right now, this is your greatest involvement. You want all of the benefits of church without any of the work of building up the church. Or maybe you're serving. You're fully invested. It's so encouraging that there are so many members at this church who are all in, fully invested, serving, giving, giving of your time, talent, and treasure. Or are you opposing, where every Sunday you're getting in your car and complaining and critiquing?
You have boiled church down to your one soapbox preference, and you're evaluating everything we do based on how we're meeting that one preference. If we're not meeting that one preference, then we're not being faithful in your eyes, so you critique, yet you refuse to serve or you refuse to become a member. That makes no sense. You're living an incongruent life, and you're turning into dead weight, where you're willing to complain, but you're not willing to invest. That's a problem. You're saying, "I care about our church, but I don't care about our church."
Nehemiah 6:15-16 says, **"So the wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty-two days. And when all our enemies heard of it, all the nations around us were afraid and fell greatly in their own esteem, for they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God."** They're saying, "Look. We completed the work in miraculous time, and people were like, 'Something crazy is happening in Israel. Something miraculous is going on.'"
Friends, I'm going to tell you, that's the type of work I want to be a part of here at Watermark, where people are looking around, saying, "The Lord is moving there in an unmistakable way." That's my prayer for our church a lot. "God, would you move in an unmistakable way?"
I just want to remind you one of the greatest blessings of the gospel is we get to belong to a family, and we get to build up Christ's church. Here's what we're about here at Watermark: _Abiding in Jesus_, _we are making disciples together_. So, we want to be about abiding in Jesus. It's on our website. It's on the wall right out _here_ in between these two doors. It's on the TV screens when you walk around our campus during the week.
We want to be a people who abide in Jesus. What do I mean by that? We want to be a people that when we go out into the world, people are like, "That person meets with God. That person really believes in Jesus. That person knows Jesus." That's why we want to be a gospel-saturated, praying, Bible-revering, Spirit-led church.
We want to be about making disciples. That's why we want to be a missional church. This church isn't just for us; it's for all of the people God wants to reach through us. So, we have to leave this building, and we need to go out into our workplaces, our gyms, and wherever God has put you to live on mission for him.
We want to be a maturing church. We want to raise up the next generation of Jesus followers. We want to reach the nations. We want to be a sending church. We want the gospel to go to the places that have yet to hear the name of Jesus, and we want to do it together. That's why we're a shepherding church. Membership matters.
We want to be a community church. It's why every member is in a Community Group, to be known and loved. And we want to be a unifying church where we're not the only show in town. There are great, amazing churches all around us that we want to partner with and champion and cheer on, because we're on the same team. So, my question to you is…_Are you watching_, _serving_, _or opposing?_ Which one is it for you? Just evaluate.
I want to give you a moment right now, even, and I want to do this part a little bit differently. If you came with someone today, I want to invite you to turn toward them and pray for God's unmistakable work in our church and for your involvement in this church. If you didn't come with anyone, you can pray quietly or you can turn to some people, make some new friends, and pray, but just take a few minutes. Pray together for God's church here at Watermark and how God wants to use you.
These are your people. You've given us your Spirit. You've invited us to live on your mission to accomplish your purposes for the sake of your glory, so use us, God, I pray. In Jesus' name, amen.
Finally, I want to invite you to turn to the book of Esther, chapter 4. The book of Esther is going to encourage us to pray for God's mission. If you read and finished the book of Esther yesterday, then you know that the book of Esther is a book about salvation. It's where God saves the people of Israel through Esther.
If you want to know how things fit together, Ezra and Nehemiah were books about what was happening in the land of Canaan. The book of Esther was what was happening with the Jews who were still located in Persia, who hadn't returned from the exile. There's this major situation where an order has been given for the nation of Israel to be wiped out. Mordecai comes to Esther and is like, "Look. You, as the queen, have an opportunity to go to the king to beg the king to save your people." There's this… It's basically a famous passage, Esther 4. Here's what it says. Mordecai says to Esther:
**"'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?' Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, 'Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.'"**
You get this moment where Mordecai is like, "Look. You might be queen for such a time as this. It might be that God put you in _this_ place at _this_ time to save _this_ people," and Esther says, "Okay. If I die, I die, but I'm going to own the fact that God has put me in _this_ place at _this_ time to save _this_ people." The reality is that Jesus is the greater Esther. Esther _risked_ her life to save her people; Jesus _gave_ his life to save his people.
Here's the reality: Jesus saves us, and then Jesus sends us out into the world, and Jesus uses us to save others into his kingdom. It's so easy for us to live for "someday" when being on mission with God will make more sense. Do you know what I mean? Like, "You know what? When I get _that_ position, when I'm married, once we aren't so paycheck to paycheck, after I get through this crazy season, I can devote more time to being on mission with God."
But what if God has you right where you are for such a time as this? Stop waiting for "someday." How can you be on mission with God _today_? Who has God put in your life who needs salvation today? So, I just want to give you a moment right now to pause and ask God to give you one person to pray for and to pursue who doesn't know Jesus. If you have 10 people who come to mind, pray for those right now.
Lord, I do pray for all of the names that were just mentioned in prayer. Would you use us, God, for your glory? We want to be a people, we want to be a church that is on mission, God. So even today, I pray that there would be men and women in this church who have the privilege of sharing the gospel with someone else and that there would be someone who puts their trust in Jesus. Amen.