Leading in Anxious Times

ESTHER: A Leader Acts With Courage

Sunday June 27, 2021 - Pastor Margareth Valui

Esther 2:13-14

SERIES

This summer we are learning leadership lessons in the Bible. How do we lead in the family, workplace, and community, and be a non-anxious presence during an anxious time?

STORY

Esther was the Persian queen who saved her people from being annihilated.

Esther wasn't born a queen. She was an orphan.

And Mordecai had brought up Hadassah, that is, Esther, his uncle's daughter, for she had neither father not mother. The young woman was lovely and beautiful. When her father and mother died, Mordecai took her as his own daughter (Esther 2:7).

1. A LEADER DILIGENTLY PREPARES

Each young woman's turn came to go into King Ahasuerus after she had completed twelve months' preparation, according to the regulations for the women, for thus were the days of their preparation apportioned: six months with oil of myrrh, and six months with perfumes and preparations for beautifying women. Esther 2:12

1. Where are you now? And are you fulfilling your current placement well?
2. What goal do you see in sight and how are you preparing for it?

God is preparing you.

2. A LEADER RESPOND TO CALLING, AND THEN FOLLOW AND OBEY

And Mordecai told them to answer Esther: "Do not think in your heart that you will escape in the king's palace any more than all the other Jews. 14 For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this? Esther 4:13

1. Esther had to respond to God's calling for her for such a time as this. She was trained to be in that position.
2. A leader has to learn to be a follower.

Obedience was a key trait of Esther.

3. A LEADER FOLLOWS THROUGH and ACTS WITH COURAGE

Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai: "Go, gather all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me; neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will fast likewise. And so I will go to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish! Esther 4:15-17.

1. If you are fighting some battles in your life, try fasting, praying, and read the Word of God. Do it with God.

"If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request. For we have been sold, my people and I, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated." Esther 7:3-4

APPLICATION

But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth Acts 1:8

1. Building relationships in Santa Clara, Silicon Valley, America, and to the ends of the earth.
2. Just like Esther, when we open and yield ourselves to the gifts and calling God has given us, our lives become more than what we can imagine. An orphan girl became a queen in a foreign land and saved her people.
3. Though most of us may not be in such a position as Esther's, each believer has an essential role to play in God's ongoing plan.
4. We can trust Him as we live out our "for such a time as this" each moment of each day, right where we are.

CHALLENGE

1. Do you know God's purpose here on earth?
2. How are you preparing and responding to carry out this purpose?
3. Do you have the courage to carry out this purpose consistently?