God Given Purpose

Let me begin our study by asking a question….How many of you have a birthday? Raise your hand if you have one! This is not a trick question; everyone’s hand should be up! Birthdays are obviously significant; because that’s the moment you made history by coming into the world. What blows my mind is that God is the one who brought us into existence in that time. For example, why were we born in this century and not another? For me, I ask myself, “wWhy did God want me to be living right now”? And If I was born for this time, then what am I here for?”?

When we think about these things, we are essentially asking one of life’s biggest questions, and that’s “What’s my purpose”?

Purpose is something that everyone wants in life. It motivates us, pushes us forward, and more importantly gives us reason to live. But I don’t want to overlook that there may be some here today who may feel like they don’t have a purpose. So if that’s you, the question becomes, “hHow do I know there is a purpose to my existence?”

In Genesis 1 and 2 we see that everything created by God had a purpose, whether it was the light, the land, or the waters, all of them have a purpose. When God created Adam, in Genesis 2:15, it says that God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend and keep it. God created Adam with the purpose of tending the garden, and having a relationship with God.  One thing, we can make clear, is that God doesn’t create anything without a purpose, especially us. Ephesians 2:10 –says - For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. The word beforehand means, in anticipation, or in advance. This means that before we came into existence, God, in anticipation of the plans He had for us, prepared in advance a purpose for us to fulfill.  This means that none of us “just exist”! There is purpose to you being here. The enemy is just a master at getting people to believe that they don’t matter, and this is a lie. This leaves us to ask, “Iif God has a purpose for our lives, how do we find it?” One of the beautiful things about God is that when you ask Him “what’s my purpose?”?, His response is always “let me show you!”! For me one of the things that I’m learning is that, when we ask God this question, He isn’t going to suddenly show us a movie of our life but he reveals our purpose over time, as we walk with Him.

I believe this message is important, because there are many people in the church who feel like they don’t have a purpose, like somehow they were saved just to sit in church, or live life aimlessly. We aren’t just here to take up space, but we’re called to be active with what He has purposed for us to do.

In our time today, I want to talk with you about how we can find our purpose in the Lord, by taking a look at the life of Esther in the bible. We’re going to look at 3 things that God showed Esther that are key to finding the purpose God has for us:  The setting Esther was placed in  Evidence that God was writing her story  How being patientce and faithful helped her see what God was doing.

Let’s turn to the book of Esther.

The book of Esther takes place in the Persian Empire, which lasted from 539BC– 331BC. This is after many Israelites had returned from the Exile in Babylon to Israel to rebuild the temple and set up the sacrificial system. Many Israelite captives, however, chose not to return to their homeland, even thought the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah told them, that if they return, God would bless them (Isaiah. 48:20; Jeremiah. 50:8; Jeremiah Jer 29:10-11). As we will see in our study, Esther and her family were apart of the exiles that didn’t return to Israel.

And now lets looks at the setting Esther was placed in.

The setting Esther was placed in Esther 1:1-7 The setting opens up with a King Aha-suer-us, who according to historians, was also called Xerxes, who ruled over 127 provinces in Persia for 21 years. In the 3rd year of his rule he threw 2 big parties. The first was only for the princes and his key administrators, which lasted 180 days. The second party he threw was for 7 days, and anyone was able to come. The kingdom of Persia was very wealthy, so during this 7-day party, no expense was spared. At this party everything from the cups to the furniture was made of gold and marble, and the King provided an abundance of wine. Now, according to the culture, at the time, only men could attend parties like this, but in verse 9 Vashti, the Queen of Persia, decided, “why should men have all the fun?”? And she threw her own party for the women”.

On the 7th day of this party, the king was very drunk from the abundance of wine, and in verse 10, the king commanded Queen Vashti to come to his party, so that he could show off how beautiful she was to all of his guests, but Vashti refused.  We are not told why Vashti refused, but I think it’s easy to assume why she did. Being alone in a room full of drunken men wouldn’t be a good idea. Although it was a smart move, her refusal made the king look like he wasn’t a big shot in front of his guests, so the king became furious and removed Vashti from being queen. After King Aha-suer-us’ anger subsided he realized that his actions were foolish and began to search for a new queen by gathering all the young women in Persia to his palace. This is the setting that we see Esther placed in.

Esther 2:5-8 Mordecai was the great grandson of Kish, who was taken into captivity, when the King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, defeated Jerusalem. He was also Esther’s cousin, who, after the death of her parents, raised her as his own. As the young women from the kingdom were gathered to the king, Esther was also taken into the palace to be brought before the king, but she was warned by Mordecai not to reveal that she is an Israelite.  Notice something here;, just because God had a purpose for Esther didn’t mean that she was promised a good life. She was an orphan, growing up in a land that wasn’t kind to people like her. o For many of us, when we think about God having a “purpose” for our lives, we think of everything being good, but this isn’t reality. The truth is that the people that God has a great purpose for are often wounded deeply. In Genesis 50:20, after being promoted to second in command in Egypt, Joseph speaks to his brothers who wounded him by selling him into slavery. He said- But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive. . The truth is that sometimes life is going to hurt, but we serve a God who is able to turn our hurts into weapons.  What do I mean? We are all going to experience pain in this life, but the hurt that we face, is never meant to define us, or disqualify us, but when we bring them it to the Lord He can turn our hurt into a testimony that brings people out of darkness.

Like Esther, we may not understand the setting that we have been placed in, but like any story, the setting is only a set up for the story God is writing with our lives.

Evidence that God wrote her story For me when I think about “my story,”, the first thing that comes to my mind is “who’s writing it?”? Is it me? And if it is me, what if I write a horrible short story? Our story is something that can only be written by God Himself. He is the one who crafts our lives to bring glory to Him, and we can be confident that no matter the trouble we face, if we are in Christ, our story will always have a happy ending.

Now when we think about God writing our story, for some reason we begin to think that God doesn’t want us to dream, or have goals, because He’s already got everything written out, but that’s not it! Like I said before, when we ask God to show us our purpose, He doesn’t give you a script to go by. He reveals it over time as you love Him, and love others, as you live your life.  This means that we have the freedom to chase our dreams, but we let Him write the story As we look again at Esther’s life, let’s see how God continued to write her story.

Esther 2:15-18, At this point, it had been a year since Esther had been taken to the King’s palace. The custom of that time was that, when the women were taken, they didn’t immediately go before the King, but the women would receive beauty preparations for a whole year, while they waited for their turn to stand before tThe King. Imagine that – a whole year of Mary Kay, mud masks, pedicures, manicures, maessages and more! All expenses paid!  Esther was taken before the King in the month of Tebeth, which is the Babylonian name for December and January. When Esther finally went before the Kking, we read that King Aha-suer-us loved her more than all the other women that were brought to him, and he made her his new queen,; but a problem soon arose.

Esther 3:1-6 King Aha-suer-us promoted a guy named Haman to second in command. With this promotion, the King required everyone to show a special kind of respect to Haman by bowing themselves before him. Everywhere Haman went, everyone was required to bow to him, but Mordecai refused;, and when asked why, he said it was because he was a Jew.  We are not given specifics of whether bowing to Haman was a religious act or not, but for the Jews, to bow as an act of respect, to an official wasn’t illegal. We have many references of Jews bowing before King David,; but bowing as an act of worship was something that God commanded them not to do, and it seems like that’s what Mordecai was avoiding by not bowing to Haman. As a result, Haman, in His selfish pride, wanted to kill Mordecai and all the Jews.  In his anger, Haman goes to King Aha-suer-us and convinces him, that the ways of the Jews were threatening to the Persian Kingdom, and that they should be killed. The King gives Haman permission to do what he wants and sends a command throughout the entire kingdom that the Jews should be killed within a year. o Why a year? In verse 7 it says that Haman cast a lot, which is kind of like rolling a dice. Haman cast his lot and the result came to a year’s time before he could do something about the Jews. o Haman thought that “luck” was on his side, because he had a whole year to prepare;, but even here we see that God is still in control of the story. Proverbs 16:33 – says - The lot is cast into the lap, But its every decision is from the Lord . What Haman thought was just “chance,”, was actually God giving His people time to prepare for anyone who would come against them.  When God writes our story, He is the one who puts us in the right place and time, for what He has called us to do. God would use Esther in that year to change the King’s mind about this decision. Like Esther, we can be confident that God is the one writing our story, so all we have to do is be patient and faithful with where God has put us.

Be patient/ Be faithful I think the worst part about trying to find what your purpose is, is the wait. God never gives us the full picture of our purpose, because we wouldn’t be able to comprehend it all. That’s why we have to be patient with what he has already shown us, and faithful with where He’s put us.  In Luke 12:43-48 – Jesus teaches about the faithful servant, who was faithful to do what his master asked him to do, while he was away. When the master got back and saw that he was faithful, he rewarded him, but he punished any servants that were unfaithful. o If we are followers of Jesus, then we are his servants, and we are called to serve till He returns, but many times we become discontent with where He has us and begin to desire something else. . This is a characteristic of the unfaithful servant. When we give in to this kind of thinking, we beging to think that what we’re doing doesn’t even matters, and pretty soon, we’re giving a half effort, in something that God has called us to put our best into.  You may be a parent sitting here thinking that, what you’re doing has no impact with your kids, but God sees the impact that you can’t see;, continue to be faithful to raise your kids to be lovers of Jesus and let the Lord handle the rest.  You may feel like you’re not seeing the fruit of your ministry, but God has called you to be faithful and He would take care of the fruit. He is using you in ways you can’t imagine.  No matter where you’re at in life, God see’s your effort to live for Him. He sees your struggle, but stay faithful because even though we don’t see the impact we’re having now, one day it will be made clear and it will blow our minds!

When we look back at Esther she continued to be patient and faithful with where God had put her. Esther’s cousin Mordecai found out about Haman’s plan and immediately warned Esther. Even now, as Queen, Esther knew she wouldn’t be able to escape Haman’s plans if she kept quiet, so she decided to act. Her plan was to approach the king herself and try to convince him to take back the command to kill the Jews.  Here’s the problem with that. Back then,; women didn’t have a lot of rights. In fact, it was a death sentence to approach the King unless he asked for you. Even the queen couldn’t get around this rule. o Esther has a decision to make to go before the King and get killed or be silent and watch her people die. . Let’s see what her response is!

Esther 4:15-16 This is one tough woman! She is willing to risk her life for her people!  But understand this, God is the one who put Esther in the right place at the right time for this pivotal moment in the purpose God had for her. If Esther had gotten impatient, or become unfaithful, she wouldn’t have been ready for this moment. o Esther’s purpose is revealed in this, that God purposed to use her to save her people from extinction, but Esther didn’t know that when she was first taken into the palace, or when she became Queen. . In the same way, you may not know why God allowed you to be promoted over others, or why you have that specific job, but God put you in the right place in the right time for a reason. If anything, to prepare you for a defining moment in your life.

After three days Esther approaches the King, risking her life for her people,; let’s read how it turns out. Esther 5:1-3 Amazingly, the King accepts her, and grants her permission to ask for anything she wants. As the story continues, Esther reveals to the King that the Jews are her people, and exposes the evil plans of Haman. Haman is stripped of his title and killed. The King also sends out a command to reverse what Haman had been planning. In the end, the day that Haman had planned as a day of death for the Jews became a day of celebration. This celebration would later be called the feast of Purim, and it’s still celebrated today.

In conclusion How do you find your God -given purpose?  First, understanding the setting God has placed you in is not for nothing, but it’s the staging ground for the story that God is going to write with your life.  Remembering that you have the freedom to chase your dreams, but remembering that He is the one who will write the best story.  Be patient and faithful with where God has placed you because Hhe has you there in the right time and place, for a purpose.