Esther week 3 - Know the enemy

This is the summary of week 3 of our Esther series, looking at chapter 3
You can listen to the sermon here
And check out week 1 and week 2 notes to catch up on the story

The enemy appears
Esther has been queen for 5 years when the story teller chooses to pick up the action again to highlight the appearance of the final major character in the narrative, a man named Haman.  From the outset we see that Haman has been showered with the king's favour and promoted to the highest office in the land besides the king.  Along with his high office comes an edict from the king himself that all other officials were to bow down and pay homage in Haman's presence.  But one man refuses, Mordecai the Jew.  So as Haman burns with anger against Mordecai's refusal to honour him he devises a plan to wipe out the entire Jewish race... making him become the enemy of the people of God.

Now while Haman is clearly the enemy of the people of God in this story, he also stands as a pointer to the one who has been the enemy of the people of God forever... Satan.  In fact the parallels between Haman and Satan are quite stunning:

• Haman is set high above all others by the King… Satan was given great importance and authority among the angels
• But for Haman this prestige was not enough unless everyone bowed down to him… likewise Satan was not satisfied with his high station either and desired to have ultimate worship as well
• Haman sought to gain this worship by destroying the people of God… and Satan sought to gain worship by attacking God’s precious newly created people

Haman is in this story not just because he is part of the historical happenings… but he is here to remind us of our real enemy.  And so as we get to know him this morning we will also get to know our enemy.

The enemy craves your worship

The trigger for Haman's journey into evil was his pride causing him to crave the worship of people.  Mordecai's refusal to pay homage to him enraged him to the point of scheming the genocide of the Jewish people.  So it should not surprise us that Satan also craves our worship... and like Haman he won't be satisfied until he gets it. While you think it might be easy to starve Satan of worship simply by avoiding Ouija boards, witchcraft or demonic incantations, the reality is that the enemy of God has a plethora of ways he can extract worship from you.  So whether it is overtly or subtly he works to receive our worship whether we know it or not: when we seek security in our possessions, when we seek identity in our status, when we seek significance in romantic relationships or when we seek to justify ourselves through our own moral goodness we are chasing after something other than Jesus the one true God; and so our worship defaults to the enemy of the one true God.

The enemy will bait you with pride

Unlike kid's movies where the bad guys are often portrayed as bumbling fools who formulate half baked plans and have terrible aim when trying to shoot the good guys, Haman is no bumbling fool.  In fact he is crafty and careful... he is an evil mastermind.  His plan to destroy God's people is well thought out and patient.  He waits for the right day, even casting lots to ensure the gods would be on his side and he seeks kingly approval for his plan to ensure its empire-wide success.  And when he goes in to entreat the king to carry out his scheme he does not mention specifics; discrediting the Jews before king even knows who they are.  Haman is well planned and methodical, but most importantly he knows the perfect bait with which to lure the king.

He paints this unnamed people as breakers of the king’s laws and enemies of his pride, he assures the king that his plan will remove this blight and elevate the king’s standing, and he promises the king financial gain out of the endeavour.  He basically says, "Follow my plan and your pride will be preserved, promoted and prospered… but if you fail to act your pride will suffer great injury."  And he knows how the king will respond because he remembers how he responded when Vashti injured his pride. He knows that if the king cut Vashti off he would also give Haman consent to cut the Jews off.  And so the king buys into his scheme… infatuated with his own pride he calls his scribes and issues an edict for the destruction of the Jews.  Haman’s hook baited with pride had enticed the king and he had been caught in the scheme against the people of God.

And when we remember that Haman is representative of the arch enemy of God you realise that pride is the bait of Satan as well.  It was pride that Satan tempted Adam & Eve with in the garden, “you will be like God…” It was pride that Satan tempted Jesus with in the wilderness, “I will give you [all the kingdoms of the world], if you will fall down and worship me.” And it is with pride that Satan will tempt you and me.

• When he tempts us into envy is it not because he is presenting us with an image of how great we would be if we just had those possessions, these talents, this look or that relationship 
• When he tempts us into lust is it not because he is offering us the pride boosting pleasure of sexual gratification 
• When he tempts us into self-righteousness is it not because he is leading us to believe that we can attain holiness by our own strength and that we will be known as the holy man or the woman of God 

Self-promotion is at the root of every one of Satan’s temptations, he is crafty and he knows our weakness and our weakness is always pride. Pride is the crack in the door through which Satan can jam his foot and gain access to our entire life. And like the proud king it is so easy for us to be drawn into the enemy’s schemes through his tempting of our pride.

Know the real enemy
And so in this epic story that we are following the real enemy has shown his face; but it is not who we first thought it would be... it is not King Ahasuerus. When you read chapter 1 and see the pride, arrogance and cruelty of the king it is easy to assume that he will be the bad guy, but in actual fact he turns out not to be the orchestrator of evil.  It would have been easy for the people of God to read the edict carrying the king’s name and see the king as the enemy.  They could have risen up against him and they formulated their own assassination plot, but regardless of how successful they were they would not have stopped the evil that stood against them… they would merely have killed the fall guy.

And there is a need for us the people of God today to understand who our real enemy is. Because in certain sections of the church there seems to be a kind of militant aggression that is altogether misdirected. We need to realise that our enemy is not flesh and blood, it is not visible and it is certainly not going to be defeated by our protests. Our enemy is not: atheists, promiscuous popstars, abortion doctors, Muslims or pornstars.  These are not our enemies… like Ahasuerus they are merely hostages of the real enemy, lured in by his temptations of pride and conscripted into his plans to thwart the purposes of God and destroy the people of God. And it is so easy for us to fight the battle on the wrong front, to fix our aim on the hostages instead of the kidnapper.  But our prayers need to be for the people trapped in his plans not against them, our heart needs to be bent towards them in love not harden against them in hatred and we need to save our prayers, energy and righteous anger for the true enemy of God.

Confusion and peace

At the end of the chapter we find an almost surreal scene in verse 15, “...the king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Susa was thrown into confusion.” Inside the palace Haman and the king sit down to drink, while outside the city and the whole empire are thrown into confusion. It seems that Haman, the enemy of the people of God, was only able to rest at peace when the city was in chaos. He was only able to rejoice and celebrate with wine when the city was gripped by fear.

And this is the reality, Satan our enemy desires chaos. He is only happy when our lives are cast into fear and confusion. This is what brings him joy, this what satisfies his heart.  Like the end of chapter 1 the end of chapter 3 leaves us feeling fairly hollow: the people of God have their heads on the chopping block, the city has been cast into chaos and confusion and the enemy of the people of God is resting easy and celebrating his scheme.  Everything seems to be mounting up against the people of God; the situation seems hopeless.

But if we know anything about our God it is when everything seems to be at its worst that He does His best. See while the enemy of God craved joy and peace for himself by inflicting confusion and chaos on the city, Jesus appears as one who absorbed chaos and confusion into Himself in order that the city might have true joy and peace. The pain of betrayal, the shame of mockery and scorn and the sting of death mounted up the most horrid chaos against Jesus and yet He absorbed it all so that you and I might live free from confusion in ultimate peace and joy. Seeing the nature of our enemy can be daunting… but it is only when you see this Jesus who absorbs our confusion and chaos so that we can live in peace that we realise that our God is more than able to conquer even the worst the enemy can do.

Questions

1. What do you think about the idea that there is an enemy of God?  How does it make you feel?
2. Have you ever thought about the reality that worshiping anything other than God is by default the worship of Satan?  Do you agree?  
3. Haman clearly baited the king with pride.  Be honest and think through the temptations you struggle most with.  How does Satan lure you towards them through your pride?
4. Who have you previously thought of as enemies of God or enemies of the church?  Have you hardened your heart to these people?  How does viewing them as hostages of our real enemy change the way you respond to them?
5. How does seeing Jesus as the one who absorbs the chaos of the enemy in order to shower us with peace and joy encourage us?

Esther Week 2 - Our best for the pagans

Here is a summary of the second sermon in our Esther series. You can download the sermon online and/or use this summary to help with your own study of Esther. Read Esther Chapter 2 yourself and there are some reflection questions at the bottom. You can find the week 1 summary here.

Confusion in a post-Christian world

With church attendance down, the moral standards of society changing, legislators debating laws that push a godless agenda and our tolerance obsessed society is becoming more and more intolerant of our faith... it is easy for Christians living in the west to feel as though society is slipping away from us all too quickly.  And so I sense there is great confusion, doubt and fear that surrounds us when we think about engaging the post-Christian world we now live in. 

But being in the minority is something that God’s people have often had to confront… We have our Richard Dawkins brand of atheism, godless education system and materialistic consumer society… but the people of God living in Susa had Ahasuerus!

If you remember from last week King Ahasuerus was infatuated with himself to the point of cutting off and shaming his most favoured queen because she cramped his pride.  The city of Susa and the whole nation to some degree was flavoured by the pride of their king.  So when we left the people of God last week they were living under the yoke of this proud king longing for the day of their rescue... longing for a better king!

Proud to choose another queen

Well about 3 years later we pick up the action in chapter 2 when King Ahasuerus discovers what all people obsessed with their pride eventually discover... Pride is a terrible idol.  Pride caused him to cut off his nose to spite his face.  His pride had forced him to cut of Vashti but now his pride wouldn't let him be happy without her.  He longed for someone to fill the void left by Vashti.  So his advisers propose that a whole bunch of hot women are rounded up and taken to a palace where they will be pampered and vie for the affection of an overly rich king who will choose one of them to make his wife... no this is not "The Bachelor Susa"... it is a contest that no one would really want to be in.

Think about it.  How would you feel if you were a young virgin and you were told that you were to spend a night with the king and then in all likelihood spend the rest of your days living in the harem as property of the king... as spent goods... never fulfilling your dream of getting married, starting a family in the normal way?  That was the fate of the women in this contest... unless they won.  And if they won they were faced with the prospect of having to please the king or, like Vashti, they would be thrown on the rubbish heap, shamed publicly... or worse.

Esther appears

It is into this contest that our heroine first appears... and straight away we are drawn by the storyteller to make a stark comparison between the king and Esther and her cousin Mordecai.  Where the king had everything go his way in life and even if it didn't he cast others away to get it... Esther and Mordecai have known nothing but trial.  Living far from their homeland, oppressed and bearing the pain of lost loved ones... 

But when Esther is thrust into the centre of this contest we see that instead of kicking up a stink and whinging for their own way Mordecai allows her to go... allows her to go into the palace of the proud king where her whole life might be swallowed up and rendered useless by the fickle king... and Esther goes in obedience and trust.

Where we wrestle and complain against the pagan world as it encroaches more and more on our lives... or we pull back in and hide from it to protect our own... Mordecai and Esther embrace their situation with courage and trust in the timing and providence of God... and so Esther is cast out into the centre of our story... and as providence would have it, the centre of God's purposes.  And so as we meet Mordecai and Esther we will see how we can live as a minority in and among our world... because God's purposes are rarely found in retreat.

Invest rather than impose

While God does want us living in and among the pagan society we find ourselves in, He does not want us going out blind.  And Mordecai certainly did not let Esther go into the palace unaware.  You get the impression throughout the chapter that Mordecai has fathered Esther with great affection and wisdom.  Twice we are told that Esther obeyed Mordecai’s instructions without question and we know this comes from love not fear because twice we see that Mordecai cared so much for Esther that he made his way to the palace every day to find out how she was travelling.  

Sometimes we get so busy trying to protect our children or fellow church members from the big bad pagan world that we invest more time in fighting off the world than we do in them. And we end up just enforced on them the rules and restrictions of traditional Christianity obscuring the joy, hope and peace of the gospel.  We impose regulations on people rather than investing Jesus into people! If we learn anything from Mordecai’s raising of Esther it is that it came in the context of a personal relationship based on love and trust. He invested rather than imposing ...

• Parents… we need to impart a faith to our children that is more concerned with the person of Jesus than the rigours of religion 
• Church… we need to disciple one another in a way that invests love rather than imposes rules 
• Brothers and sisters… we need to care so deeply for one another that we will seek them out in the world in which they walk and pray for, encourage and guide them

Living out our faith in a pagan world requires us to model true living faith in Jesus to one another rather than cold moralism… we need to model faith in God not fear of the world and assurance that comes from trust in Jesus not trust in the external code of the law.

Esther gives her best
The first we hear of Esther we see that Mordecai's investment in her was worth it.  We see her walk into a situation that would have been a daunting and even terrifying prospect.  She was forced to win the affections of a pagan king who was obsessed with himself.  In fact she may have found the situation repulsive.  And yet she doesn't cower in the corner... she doesn't protest... she doesn't ever just give a half-baked effort; she gives her best!

In fact this chapter paints Esther as a young woman growing in many qualities that endear her to the people of the palace; Esther grows in winsomeness… the more we get to know here the more people she wins over:

• In verse 9 she wins over Hegai the guardian the king placed over the women
• In verse 15 she wins over everyone she meets in palace
• And in verse 17 she wins over the king himself causing him end the contest by declaring Esther the winner and placing the crown on her head 
• But it was not just his eye or affection that she won... her winsomeness changed him ever so slightly.  Because for the first time in his reign Ahasuerus does something to honour someone else.  He throws a feast for Esther... it is called "Esther's Feast"

Despite being in a situation that most would find repulsive… despite being at the whim of a proud pagan king… Esther, a young Jewish girl, chooses to express her faith in Yahweh not through protest or debate… not through aggressively standing up for her rights… but Esther proved her faith in God by giving her winsome best for God as a gift to the pagan world.

And she surely learned this from Mordecai who also gives his best for the king.  From verses 19-23 we learn that Mordecai overhears an assassination plot against the king.  Now Ahasuerus was the pagan king who reigned over the Jews, a proud, ruthless and horrid king and this assassination plot was really the king's own doing (when you elevate yourself at the expense of others you make a lot of enemies) so Mordecai, as a Jew, would have been tempted to simply forget that he overheard the plot and leave the king to face an unknown threat to his life… But Mordecai acts swiftly to spare the king death because he believed that God wanted him to give his best… even if it was to a pagan king.

God wants us to give our best to the world

Traditionally Christians have seemed to desire to give their best on Sunday while they are at church.  The feeling was that you should give your best on Sunday because we should save our best for God. But God is not confined to church services and God’s call on our lives extends beyond Sunday!
In fact I would rather you are unable to give your best at church on Sunday because you have been giving your best all week out there in the pagan world. Because God wants us to be the best we can be in the contexts that He has placed us in... the best nurse, accountant, speech therapist, chef, photographer, teacher you can be... He wants us to look out for the people around us and give our best so they can prosper and thrive in life… Why? Because He wants us to be winsome people…

• God wants you to give your best to the pagan world in order to win the pagan world… 
• God knows the world will not be won through condemnation and judgmentalism 
• God knows the world will not be won through His people pulling back 
• God knows the world will not be won through half-measures and false care 

God gave His best
And we know God knows all this because it is how He chose to win the world…
When the pagan world was ignorant of Him… and even when His people the Jews had deserted Him… When the whole world stood opposed to Him… God gave His best!  God gave Jesus… His most precious Son… the One with whom He shared perfect glory, joy and love… God gave His best to a rebellious world in order to win a rebellious world.  And Jesus gave His best to those He walked among… His best teaching, His best miracles, His best love and compassion… Jesus held nothing back from the world even when they hated Him. Ultimately Jesus gave His best on the cross as He absorbed all of our hate and rebellion and still said, “Father forgive them…”

It is only when you see this Jesus… when you see God’s best, given to a pagan world, that you can give your best to a pagan world.

Questions

1. Spend some time thinking through the workplace, university, school or neighbourhood that you dwell in.  What are the aspects of life in these places that are most challenging or confronting?
2. Be honest, have you tended to shy away from these places and go into protection mode while you are there? 
3. Are you more likely to want to protect and pull back your children or other loved ones when it comes to their engagement with the world?
4. How can you invest Jesus into people around you rather than imposing regulations?
5. In what ways have you found yourself giving less than your best to the world?  How can knowing Jesus encourage and empower you to give your best to this broken world? Name a couple of situations where you can help others to prosper.and thrive.

Esther Week 1 - Longing for a better king

Here is a summary of the first sermon in our Esther series.  Feel free to listen back to the sermon online and/or use this summary to help with your own study as you read Esther Chapter 1.  There are some reflection questions at the bottom.

The King's Pride
The stunning story of Esther begins in the Persian city of Susa in around 483BC.  The first character we are introduced to in this story is King Ahasuerus (Xerxes) who reigned over the vast Persian Empire from 486-465BC.  And as the storyteller begins with Ahasuerus hosting a 6 month long celebration of his reign and the giving of lavish feast we can tell that we are supposed to be drawn to the majesty of this king.

Now on the surface it seems like this feast is the gracious and generous act of a kind and merciful king. That he would provide a time of celebration and festivities for his people… But in reality the king had less than generous intentions for this feast. Verse 3, “The army of Persia and Media and the nobles and governors of the provinces were before him, while he showed the riches of his royal glory and the splendour and pomp of his greatness for many days, 180 days.” The lavish act of kindness was actually a lavish act of pride! The feast was not about generosity and kindness but about the riches of his royal glory and the splendour and pomp of his greatness. He wanted people from all over his kingdom to come to him, bow down at his feet and marvel at his splendour! He wanted everyone to partake in his feast and bath in his luxury so they would puff up his ego and stroke his pride.

The Problem with Pride
But pride is it more addictive than any drug… and the more you feed off it the more addictive it becomes… the more you crave the feeling of having your ego stroked!  And King Ahasuerus spent 180 days feeding his pride.  But in verse 10 when Ahasuerus was nearing the end of his 6 month season of self-indulgence and his heart was merry with wine… he pushed the envelope one step too far.

He decides he has one last possession to show off to the world and so calls for his favoured wife, Queen Vashti, to come "before the king with her royal crown, in order to show the peoples and the princes her beauty, for she was lovely to look at." (v11) Now many scholars believe that the king intended Vashti to come wearing only her crown... that she might be paraded naked to demonstrate the king's ability to have whatever he desired. But Vashti was not going to be treated like just another one of the king’s possessions that he could show off.  And so for the first time in 180 days somebody says “no” to the king.

The king's addiction to himself meant that when one small thing didn't go his way all the pomp and ceremony of the last 6 months meant nothing… its value was now tarnished by this one disobedient woman. So in the space of 3 verses Ahasuerus goes from having a heart merry with wine to having a heart that burns with rage. And so he makes a binding declaration against Vashti banishing her from the king’s harem, stripping her title and basically publicly disgracing her.

King Ahasuerus had an idol… and that idol was himself… and he was so addicted to himself that anyone who threatened to take away his grip on power, even if it was his favourite queen, would have to be sacrificed on the altar of his pride! 

We Can be Just as Proud 

It is easy to see the happenings in the palace and think that this kind of pride is only a problem for the rich and famous... for people who have too much money and spare time; it is the kind of story you expect to see paparazzi pictures of on TMZ. But if we are to be honest pride is at the root of so much of how we think and act:

• We carefully chose which photos get posted of us on Facebook to protect our image 
• We never admit fault and always look to pass the blame 
• We cringe when other people are praised or receive accolades instead of us 
• We crave compliments and recognition

Our pride is just as hungry as Ahasuerus’… we just don’t have the means to make it happen.  And like it did with Ahasuerus it has the potential to cause us to use the people around us, even the people we love, as a means to stroke our egos and puff up our pride.

• Parents who have pushed their children to succeed just so they can brag to their friends 
• Workers who have betrayed co-workers by speaking poorly of them to management just to better their own chances of getting a promotion 

All too often we secretly view the other people around us as servants of our pride!

Longing for a Better King
But Esther chapter 1 gives us no answers to our pride problem!  The chapter rounds out with the king still seething over Vashti's defiance... still proud as ever.  In a way the storyteller is simply saying is, "Welcome to Susa.  Welcome to the reign of the pathetically proud King Ahasuerus." And as the scene for this story is set a huge hole forms in our hearts. Because we know what it is like to have a pathetic, self-serving king reign over us:

• We have trusted our bosses with our energy and effort and they have used us for their own gain
• We have trusted our leaders with our vote and they have used us for their election victory and then screwed us over
• We have trusted lovers with our heart and they have used it for their own pleasure
• And even when we trusted ourselves we just let ourselves down

Seeing the pride of Ahasuerus makes us long for a better king than Ahasuerus and all the other kings we have ever known... And in Jesus Christ we find that King!

• A king who did not need to summon people to come and bask in His glory but left His glory in Heaven to come and find people who were lost & broken 
• A king who did not demonstrate his power through lavish luxuries but by embracing a life of a suffering 
• A king who did not exploit women to puff up his pride but one who esteemed, valued and restored women; even women of the lowest reputation 
• A king who did not inflict shame on others to preserve his honour but one who was dishonoured and shamed in our place 
• A king who did not cut off and banish the ones he loved when he felt betrayed but one who was prepared to be cut off himself for those he loved despite their betrayal 

If you have seen the abhorred pride of King Ahasuerus and your heart longs for a king who will not let you down. If you have seen the pride of your own heart and know you need to be rescued from yourself.  Then can I appeal to you to reach out for Jesus... the only humble King you can trust with your life.

Questions

1. How does the pride of King Ahasuerus make you feel?  Where have you seen or heard of similar abuses of power today, big or small?
2. Be honest with yourself: in what ways have you noticed pride rearing its ugly head in your own life?
3. What makes humility such a hard thing for us to truly live out?
4. How does reflecting on Jesus' life help us put our pride to death?
5. The humility of Jesus is incredibly attractive and if people could experience it they would be drawn to Him. Is there anything you can do this week that can demonstrate the humility of Jesus to those around you? 

Post-Worthy Fatherhood

I love my girls!  I remember the first time I held our oldest daughter.  Born via emergency c-section, I held her for almost an hour while the doctors finished with my wife in surgery.  She looked up at me with her big blue eyes and I could not imagine a greater feeling of love, protection, joy and hope than what I felt for her in that moment - and I had only just met her!  But when each of her sisters came along my mind was blown again and again as those feelings, that I thought couldn't be surpassed, instantly expanded to include their precious new lives.

Like most dads I am probably just a little bit smitten with my girls!
I am excited by their stories... I am amazed at their achievements... I am heartbroken when they suffer... I am taken by their beauty... and I am constantly astonished that God would be so gracious as to entrust them to me.

But as I engage with social media I sense a disturbing trend that seems to have permeated modern parenting culture... a trend that has the potential to do great damage to parents and children alike... and a trend that I find myself caught in all too easily.

Every dad wants their child to do well.  We want them to hit all of their developmental milestones, to make friends easily, to learn well at school, to enjoy playing sport and to basically succeed at life as a child.  But the world of social media has turned these normal and natural desires into a competition for parenting supremacy.  Yes, it is a wonderful thing to celebrate the growth, development and achievements of our children... but Facebook celebrations have taken this to a whole new level:

• No longer do I just want my child to enjoy their make believe play... they have to make something spectacular so I can post a picture of their creative genius
• No longer do I simply want my child to learn to speak... I want them to say the cutest things so I can post our conversations in an entertaining way  
• No longer do I want my child to do well at school or sport... they need to win something tangible so I can post a picture of them with certificate or trophy in hand

Now you might have purer motives than me when you post stuff like this... maybe you just genuinely want to "share the moment" with friends and family.  But when I searched my heart to find out why I am drawn to post stuff like this I found that often it was more about sharing "me" with the world than sharing my kids.  I can honestly say that I have fallen into the trap of thinking that my kids, and their achievements, are nothing but a reflection on my achievements as a dad... and looking at the constant flow of child related posts on Facebook, I can't help but think  that I am not the only one.

All to easily we seek to use our children to justify our parenting skills... to justify our genetic superiority... to justify our creative ideas... to justify our love for our children.  Basically we can be guilty of using our children to show the world how great a dad we really are.  But the problem is that even if I am the best dad in the social media world... if I used my kids to justify this status I am probably closer to the worst dad in the real world.  There are few thoughts more crushing to a child than the notion that their dad might be using them, their achievements and their relationship with him for his own gain.

• How long before I start viewing my children's achievements through whether they are post-worthy or not rather than celebrating just for the sake of blessing them?
• How long before my desire to spend time with my child is more about finding new material to gain likes on Instagram rather than genuinely longing to invest into their life?
• How long before being a dad is just a means to the end of promoting myself amongst my peer group?

Not only will I crush my children with the thought that they have to measure up to my post-worthy standards... but I will burden my own life with the doubt and fear that I won't measure up either... My fatherhood will live and die by how many "likes" my kids can receive.

But there is one thought that can help me escape this cycle of post-worthy fatherhood... it is the thought that before I am a father I am a son... a son of a heavenly father whose love for me is not conditional on my capacity... my achievements... my looks... or my success.  In fact when David reflected on the father-heart of God in Psalm 103 he said,

"As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him..." 

God knows my fragilities, failures and flaws and yet chooses to lavish His steadfast love on me anyway.  His love for me is not conditional on my achievement but is given with the full knowledge of my averageness... even my below averageness!  A love He proved when He willingly gave of Himself to redeem me from my sin through the sacrifice of His precious Son Jesus.  God my Father did not choose me as His child because He thought my capacity to achieve might get Him more glory... rather He gave of Himself so that I might gain His glorious love.

As I watched my girls run around the park at Little Athletics on Friday night I realised that in all likelihood they probably won't be Olympians... but seeing them run, jump and throw with smiles on their faces... and just be who they are... gave me so much joy.  And God is teaching me that if I like this... I shouldn't really care if anyone else does or not!

Trusting the shepherd is good

Very occasionally I like to surprise my girls.  It usually goes something like this: I plan, purchase or prepare something I know they will love and then I begin to give them a series of cryptic clues in the lead up to wet their appetite for the coming joy.  When the time comes for them to receive their surprise it normally involves some form of instructions they have to follow, "make your beds and get dressed so we can get going" or something like that anyway.  Now normally these instructions would be met with rolled eyes, pained expressions and passionate protests... but not when I have told them something good is coming... even when they don't know exactly what the good is they trust me enough to know that it will indeed be good and so they get on with their jobs.  So it always makes my heart happy to see their faces when they discover what the surprise is... it is like the fun they have with me is vindication for their trust in me.

As I listened to Francis Chan's morning session on day 3 of Oxygen Christian Leaders Conference I was shattered by the reality that the simple trust that my children have in me, even though I am a flawed, weak and inconsistent father, is so often what I lack in my relationship with the perfect, almighty and faithful Jesus.

Chan's text was the famous statement of Jesus, "I am the good shepherd" and if his message focused on anything it was that I need to stop always thinking of myself as shepherd and remember that I am also a sheep.  I need to rest as a sheep in His care and trust like one who knows that my shepherd will lead me by still waters, into green pastures and through the shadow of death.  I need to be more like my girls and even though I don't know how things are going to work out, if my shepherd is in the lead I have to trust that it will be good.

But Jesus does not leave us without tangible truths about Himself on which we can hang our hats of trust:

1. His affection, dedication and concern for us is unquestionable.  In the text Jesus holds Himself up as good shepherd against the phony cattle thieves of His day (Pharisees).  And the comparison couldn't get any more stark. Jesus says that the thieves come to "steal and kill and destroy" but that He "lays down His life for the sheep."  Basically the thieves prey on their sheep & feasts on their blood... But the good shepherd prayed for His sheep & sweat drops of blood.  Chan impressed on hearts that this is how much Jesus loves us and that no one loves us more than this.  We can trust Jesus to lead us towards the good because He was prepared to lay down His life for us.
2. He is doggedly protective of His sheep. Jesus says that the hired hands when confronted with a threat will run away and leave the sheep to their own devices because they care nothing for the sheep, only their own necks.  But Jesus says that the good shepherd goes into fight for His sheep because of the above mentioned love He has for them.  Surely knowing that our shepherd has our backs should give us confidence even when danger lurks at every corner. Chan said at this point that "If I was a sheep and Jesus was my shepherd I would actually love to walk into the valley of death just to see Him fight for me."  We can trust Jesus to lead us towards good because He has our backs.

So when Jesus says that the life He is leading us to is the "abundant life" or "life to the full" surely we have grounds for trusting Him.  Even when the life we are living doesn't fit our shallow view of abundance we have to trust that following the good shepherd actually leads the the abundant life.  And what does this abundant life look like... well if it looks like anything it probably won't look like the image of abundance put forward by secular western society... it will look like Jesus' life:

• Abundance is not to be found in the status our possessions obtain for us but in the joy the sharing of our possessions gives others
• Abundance is not to be found in the privilege and power we crave but in the meekness with which we empower others
• Abundance is not to be found in the relationships that satisfy our desires but in the giving of ourselves to other without expectation of anything in return

But it is just so easy for me to hold back from following my good shepherd because I think I know what good is better than He does.  I put control measures in to ensure my safety, security and peace.  I shy away from difficult paths because I am not confident they will work out well.  I procrastinate when it comes to obedience because I am not convinced that it is for the best.  But at the end of the day what I think Francis Chan was getting at, and what Jesus is offering as my shepherd, is the kind of abundant life where I am so convinced of the love and protection of our shepherd that I will just rest and joyously follow knowing that He will lead me into true abundance.