Tonight I want to start off with a deep question. As I ask it and put it up on the wall, I want you to just sit and think for a moment and write your thoughts on your sermon outline. The question I want us to think about for a moment is, “What is your purpose in life.” Now, I want to stress the “your” in that question. I am not asking what God’s purpose for life is in general for everyone. There are no wrong answers and I am not going to ask you to share them or turn them in, it’s just for you, so write whatever comes to mind. So, take a moment and just jot down your thoughts.
***Wait a few moments***
This can be a very difficult question to answer. I’m sure if we went around the room we would have a ton of different answers. Even though it is a difficult question, everyone is asking it. So many people today are living through their lives thinking, “I have no purpose.” It’s so easy to think that you are just floating through life, not doing anything, not affecting anyone, and feeling like you have nothing to offer the world and the people around you. Even if you believe in God, it’s easy to think, “God can’t use me because I’m dumb, or boring, or whatever!”
Well, this isn’t further from the truth as we are going to look at tonight. God does have a plan for your life and great plans at that. Psalm 139:16 declares that God saw you before you were even born. Every day of your life was recorded in His book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. In other words, God has a purpose for your life that is planned out, step by step!
Tonight I want to spend some time exploring this question of God’s purpose for your life by looking at the story of a woman in the Bible named Esther. Specifically, we are going to be looking at Esther 4:1-17 but before we can read that we have to know some of the background to what is going on in this story.
The story of Esther takes place in the Persian Empire under that reign of a king whose name was Xerxes. The beginning of the book opens up with King Xerxes throwing this huge party for seven days at which he invited every man in the kingdom. There was plenty of alcohol there and basically, for seven days, the people sat around and drank.
On the last day of the party, King Xerxes thought it would be a great idea to get the Queen (she was throwing a party of her own for all the women), put her crown on her head, and have her come and be “gazed upon” by all the men in the kingdom because she was so beautiful. Come on girls, how many of you think that would be fun at a party, to just stand there while guys just ogled you and drooled over you like a piece of meat? Well, as you might expect, she said no, which made the king a little upset. So he banished the queen from the kingdom and decided to choose another queen who was “more worthy.”
In order to pick a new queen, King Xerxes and his officials decided to hold a kingdom wide beauty pageant to pick the best woman of them all. This is where Esther comes into the story. Esther, who was a Jew, had been living in Persia with her uncle Mordecai because her parents had died. So because she was there, she, along with all the other young virgins in the kingdom, was brought to the palace and underwent 12 months, yea, a whole year, of beauty treatments before they could even see the king. When those 12 months had ended and it came time for Esther to go before King Xerxes he liked her more than any of the other women and declared her Queen of Persia. Keep in mind that throughout this process she never told the King or any of the officials that she was a Jew.
Well, to make a long story short, some time later, this guy Haman was promoted in the kingdom and was basically made the second most powerful man in Persia. Because of this, the people would bow down to him and show him respect any time he passed by…except for Mordecai. This infuriated Haman to the point where he basically became the first Hitler. He hated Mordecai so much that rather than just go after him, he decided to go after the entire Jewish population. One day, he sat down with the King and convinced him that there was this “certain race of people” who refused to obey the king that deserved to be annihilated. He also told the King that he would give 375 tons of silver, which would equal about $67 million dollars in our culture, if that certain race was killed. To this, the King agreed and the order was issued to the people. It’s here that we can pick up our Bibles and turn to Esther 4:1-14 and pick up the story.
***Read Esther 4:1-17***
Listen to the end of verse 14 again. “Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?” What Mordecai challenges Esther to think about is the question we started out with. “Maybe this is your purpose!” Mordecai exclaims. “Maybe this is what you have been created for!” Well, if you read through the rest of the story of Esther, God uses her to save all the Jews, Haman is killed by the King in the end, and Mordecai ends up taking his place. This time in her life was definitely part of God’s purpose for her life that He had planned all along. So what does this passage communicate about God’s purpose for our lives? I would like to look at two specific things I think this passage shows us about our purpose in life.
First, this passage shows clearly that our purpose needs to come from God. I think it is so important to note that after Mordecai challenges Esther in verse 14 that this might be her purpose, she spends the next three days fasting and praying. She also gets Mordecai and all the other Jews in the region to fast and pray with her. Esther could have very easily just listened to Mordecai, got all excited about finally having purpose and just rushed right into it. She could have taken matters into her own hands and went with it, declaring that this was her purpose. Instead though, she recognizes that God has been in control of everything that has happened thus far in her life and that He needs to be in control of what she is doing in the future.
There are so many things that we hear people declaring their purpose all the time; having lots of money, being happy, making other people happy, having a family, etc. These things are all great things in life that are full of purpose and meaning but the problem is that when they are not rooted in God and his plans for your life, then really those things become empty. Those things at any moment could disappear or be lost thus taking with them your purpose to live. Instead, when we find our purpose in God like Esther did, a God that is never ever going to leave us or be taken from us, there we will find a purpose that will carry us completely through this life and into the next.
Second, I think it communicates that God’s purpose for our life is happening now. I think all too often, especially when we are young, we have the tendency to think that God’s purpose is coming later in life. Some of you who are older maybe lump our opening question together with where you are heading for college or what you want to do with your life. But for now, at age 13, 15, or whatever, there isn’t really a purpose; instead you’re heading there.
I think looking at it this way is why so many young people feel they are worthless. Basically, by claiming this definition you tell yourself over and over again that you have no purpose right now and that you will find it someday. That can be a long and very depressing search.
I think it would be very easy to look at Esther’s life and say that God’s purpose for her life was to save the Jewish race. As that is true, to say it that way completely ignores a lot that happened before that actual accomplishment. Think through her story - If her parents hadn’t of died, she wouldn’t have been living in Persia with her Uncle. If she hadn’t been beautiful, she wouldn’t have been picked by the King. If she hadn’t put up with a year of “beauty treatments” she wouldn’t have been made Queen. If she hadn’t been born a Jew, she wouldn’t have been able to ask the King to protect “her people.” There were all these things in her life that if just one of them hadn’t happened or changed slightly, she couldn’t have accomplished what she did.
This is the same way it works in our lives. There will be a lot of times through life where things will happen that seem awful. There are times in life where things are going to be boring and frustrating. There are going to be life circumstances that we will wish at times didn’t exist or that they could be changed. Even though those things are hard and difficult, we need to understand they are part of God’s purpose for our life playing out now. Sooner or later, there will be times when amazing things will happen or be done by us. When you really stop to think about those things, a lot of them would never have happened if one thing earlier on in life never happened. God’s purpose for your life is playing out right now no matter the circumstances you face.
Everyone in this room has a purpose in life. God has plans for each and every one of you whether you realize it or not. God has created you in your mother’s womb and had you in mind since the beginning of creation. You are special in God’s eyes and He wants to use you to do His work in the world. Throughout your life you will face many ups and downs and God will be with you through it all, guiding you along the path.
