Join us as we explore the fascinating story of Esther, a young Jewish girl who rose to become the Queen of Persia and saved her people from annihilation. Pastor Rick walks us through the principles that determined her destiny and how those same principles apply to our lives today. The episode sheds light on understanding personal gifts and limitations, the unique shape that these create, and how both good and bad circumstances are integral parts of God’s plan. Tune in to find out how to stop the pity party and embrace your unique path towards a fulfilled life.
Hey there, everybody, and welcome to Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope. And whether today is your first time tuning in or if you’re a regular listener, we’re really excited that you’re here. Well, today, Pastor Rick is continuing his series called Discover Your Destiny. So get ready to explore the practical steps to grow in all areas of your life. spirit, mind, body, relationships, and even your career. So stick with us as we uncover God’s incredible plan for your future. Okay, let’s get right into it. This is part one of a message called, How Can I Know My Destiny?,
SPEAKER 01 :
You see, God didn’t create you just to take up space to breathe, use resources, retire, and die. He has a plan. He has a purpose. He has a destiny, a calling for your life. Now, the question I’m often asked is, well, how do I know? I mean, really, how do I know what God wants me to do with my life? I want to give you a little equation. Would you write this down at the top of your outline? Gifts… Write this down, gifts plus need plus calling equals destiny. Your gifts, the gifts God gives you, that’s the assets and the liabilities in your life, the needs that you see around you plus the individual calling God has on your life, that’s called your vocation, Your calling comes from vose, the Latin word for call or voice, vocal. Gifts plus need plus calling equals your destiny. Now what I want us to do this weekend is look at a very well-known story in the Bible, the story of Esther. as a model of the four things you must do in order to fulfill your destiny and in order to discover what your destiny is. Now next week, we’re turning the corner on this eight-week campaign where we’re gonna look at four key areas of your life. We’re gonna look at your finances. And my goal for you in the next three years is that your finances will be determined and disciplined and debt-free. Some of you it’s gonna take a little bit longer than three years, it may take you the whole decade. But we’re gonna help you, I want you to get directed and disciplined and debt free in your finances. We’re going to look at your health and I’m gonna look at my own health. I want you to be holy and happy and I want you to be healthy as we go into this decade. We’re going to look at what you have to learn, and that’ll be another specific week. What are your learning goals? We’re going to look at the fact that I want you in three years, the end of phase one, to be more skilled. I want you to be smarter, and I want you to be successful because of what you have learned. And when it comes to what you do in life, I want you to be… more caring, more creative, and more cheerful, because the Bible says do everything with a good attitude. And we’re gonna look at those specifically, but this week I want us to look at how do you know your individual destiny? And we’re gonna look at lessons from the life of Esther. Now, one of the most gripping stories in the Bible is this story of Esther, which is in the book of Esther. It is an amazing story of how a young Jewish woman saved the entire Jewish race, changed destinies of history, and prevented an entire people from genocide. Now let me give you a little background. 2,500 years ago, the Persians ruled the world. The Persian Empire stretched from India all the way into Africa. In fact, look up here on the screen. Here’s the map of the Persian Empire. And you know modern day Persia is Iran. And the mighty king Xerxes was the emperor of the mighty Persian empire, which, as I said, goes from India to Africa. And Xerxes was a very powerful king, but he also liked to party. And he held a banquet, and I’m not making this up, a banquet that lasted six months. Now that’s a party animal, if you ask me. That’s a party animal. And one day, when he had all of his cronies, I don’t know, hundreds or thousands of people partying at this party, while he is drunk, he asks his wife, Queen Vashti, to come pose naked for all of these drunk guests, because he wants to show off his lovely wife. Vashti was a woman of integrity, and of course she refused to do this. And so Xerxes divorced her and banished her and took away her queenship. So then he decreed an empire-wide search for a new young wife. And he has a mandatory Miss Persia contest. And so they go all over the empire and they’re looking for bachelorette number one and number two and number 500 and number 1000. And this is not optional. They took the most beautiful young women in the empire and they forced them to all come to Susa, where was the capital of the citadel. Now, at this point, They narrow it down to a finalist group. And a young, poor, orphaned girl named Esther, who was Jewish, was not Persian, but Jewish, is one of the selected finalists. And she is put in a harem run by a guy named Haggai. And Haggai has, I don’t know, hundreds of these young virgins. And for one year, they are given the spa treatment. And they are fed certain foods, and they’re pampered, and they are given facials and hair and makeover. I mean, anybody can look good after a year, don’t you figure? I mean, if you were at Burke Williams for a year, you’d probably be pretty pretty too. And she is being pampered for a purpose. And then each of these girls is to go spend one night with the king, have sex with him. Now, this sounds like a disaster in the making. This poor orphan but attractive young girl named Esther. Now, each of the women go to this one night with the king, and when the king, Xerxes, the Persian king, sees Esther, and she’s been told by her adopted father, Mordecai, don’t tell him you’re Jews, you’re Jewish. He falls head over heels in love with her, and he makes her queen. So the queen of Persia is now an orphaned, poor, young Jewish woman. Now the plot begins to thicken. And after Esther becomes queen, they uncover a plot by an evil man named Haman. Haman is a government official who is the original anti-Semite. And he decides that he’s going to get all of the Jews in the empire destroyed. And he gets the king to approve a genocide decree. The king does not know his wife is a Jew. It’s a true story. Does not know his wife’s a Jew, and he approves Haman’s genocide. By the way, during World War II, many of the Jews called Hitler Haman because he was trying to do the exact same thing that Haman did 2,500 years ago. Well, I don’t have time to go into all the details of this story. It is a fascinating political thriller filled with intrigue, lots of double dealing. It’s a great, great story, but the bottom line is Esther, this young girl, risks her life at great personal expense, she could die for this, to save the Jewish nation. And it’s a phenomenal story. In fact, I highly encourage you to read this story this afternoon. It is a fascinating story. But what does it have to do with your life and what we’re gonna call Decade of Destiny? Esther did four things to discover her destiny. And you’re gonna need to do these same four things. Would you write these down? Number one, first, I must recognize the gifts God has given me to use. I must recognize the gifts that God’s given me to use. These are the gifts that you had nothing to do with. They were just given to you by God sovereignly. These are the cards you’re dealt. This is the hand you got. There are a lot of things in your life you had no control over. You didn’t choose your parents. You didn’t choose your background. You didn’t choose your race or nationality. You didn’t choose when you would be born. You didn’t choose where you would be born. You didn’t choose the natural talents that you were given. You didn’t choose the color of your hair till much later. There are a lot of things you had no choice over when you were born. Now, God gives every individual a different shape. We call these gifts that God gives you your shape. We talk about it in Purpose Driven Life. Shape is S-H-A-P-E, the five things that make you you and make you unique. And everybody has a different shape. Spiritual gifts, heart, ability, personality, and experiences. These five things make you. Spiritual gifts, what am I gifted to do? Heart, what do I love to do? Abilities, personality, we’re all different personality, and experiences. We all have different kinds of experiences. There’s nobody in the world like you. God never makes a clone. God never makes a copy like a snowflake. He never makes two snowflakes alike. You have a unique thumbprint, eye print, voice print, heartbeat, you have a unique footprint. There’s nobody, and when God made you, he broke the mold. Now, you have different gifts. Now, you’ve heard it said in the Constitution that all men are created equal. Now, that’s true in one sense, in that we’re all equally loved by God. We are all equally valuable. We are all equally worthy of respect. We all have human dignity. There is nobody who is unimportant. And so we are all equal in that way. But we are not all equal in giftedness. And we are not all equal in background. And we are not all equal in opportunities. And we are not all equal in education. And we are not all equal because We’re all in different places. You could have been born in Sudan, southern Sudan, where you don’t have any, one set of clothes, no home, and are starving to death. You’re fortunate, you live in America. And you’ve had many, many blessings that other people don’t have. I don’t know if you’ve realized this, but the truth is life is not fair. The Bible never says life is fair. In fact, that’s why one day God’s gonna settle the score. That’s why there is a heaven and a hell. One day God is gonna even the odds. He’s going to bring about justice. He’s gonna settle the score. He’s gonna balance the issues. And all the unfairness is gonna be taken care of in eternity. Life is not fair here because this is not heaven. This is earth. Now, God does dole out different gifts and we all have different gifts and different abilities and different background and all these different things. Now, I am not accountable for the gifts God did not give me. Does that make sense? In other words, I’m not very good, for instance, at art. In fact, I can’t draw stick figures. I’m a terrible artist. I’m really not very physically coordinated. I have not very good hand-eye coordination. I can actually be clumsy. I was never very good at sports. I’m not good with mechanical things. I couldn’t rebuild the carburetor if I had to. And I get very impatient. I’m very patient with people. I’m very impatient with things. And I’m just not good at that. So when I get to heaven one day, God isn’t gonna say, hey, Rick, why didn’t you paint like Rembrandt? Because he didn’t give me those gifts. He’s not gonna say, why didn’t you shoot hoops like Kobe Bryant? Because he didn’t give me Kobe Bryant’s physique. Mine’s better. I mean, I’m a hunk of burning love, you know, when you think about this. Yeah. Why are you laughing? My own church makes fun of me. I can’t believe it, but anyway. The truth is, I’m not accountable for the gifts I don’t have. Does that make sense? And you aren’t either. And when you get to heaven, God isn’t gonna say, why weren’t you more like your mom? Or why weren’t you more like your brother? Or why didn’t you have the talents that your dad did? And why didn’t you accomplish what your sister did? And on and on and on. God is not gonna compare you to anybody else. He’s gonna compare you to you. He’s gonna say, what did you do with what you were given? And the evaluation of your life will not be on what you did compared to everybody else, but what you did given the hand that God dealt you. Does that make sense? Now the Bible says this on the screen, Romans chapter 14. Each of us will have to give a personal account to God. You’re not gonna give an account for anybody else, just yourself. Now, listen to this carefully. What we consider to be limitations in our lives, are actually part of the giftedness. That God, when he decides what he wants you to do with your life, what he creates you for, what your destiny is, he gives you both assets and limitations. It’s not just good things. There are actually bad things in your life, too, that he allows them to happen in order to shape you for what he wants to do with your life. Life is not fair. Now, let’s just take this young girl, Esther. She has some assets, but she has some liabilities. Let’s start with the liabilities. First liability. Number one is that she’s orphaned. Both her mom and dad died. So she’s starting off with not an intact nuclear family. Mordecai, her relative, adopts her, but she doesn’t have a mom and dad. So that’s a strike against her. Second, she’s a minority. She’s a minority. She’s a Jew living in Persia. So she’s a minority. That’s gonna be tough. Third, she’s a single woman. And in the Persian Empire, women had zero rights and single women had less rights than married women. So she’s got no rights, okay? She’s poor, she’s young, she’s a minority, she’s a single woman, and she’s a believer in God in a pagan culture. So she’s got five strikes against her. Exactly the kind of person God says, I think I’m gonna use to change the world. God loves to use the unexpected people. We always wanna choose the superstars. God says, no, I think I’m gonna take a single, young, poor, orphaned, minority woman to change the world. This is typical of God. He loves to use the unexpected. Now, that’s not to say she didn’t have some gifts because she did have some gifts. Number one, she was smart. Esther is very, very bright. She’s intelligent. When you read the story, she’s extremely smart in knowing how to use her words and knowing how to get back against the political intrigue of the palace and knowing how to make things happen. She’s extremely smart. She listens to advice. And that’s a sign of intelligence. So she’s got a sharp mind. Second, she’s attractive. She’s a looker. Obviously, she made the finalist group. And then she’s given a year of these treatments. She’s purpose-driven pampering. You know? getting her ready for her one night with the king. And the third thing is she’s winsome. Esther has an attractive personality. She’s engaging. She’s charming. In fact, as you read her story, everybody just falls in love with Esther. Okay, yes, she’s minority. Yes, she’s a believer. Yes, she’s got all these things that strikes me. But she just knew how to get along with people. And three times in the story, we’re told that she found favor with different people. Look at these verses on your outline. Esther chapter two. Verses eight and nine. Esther pleased Haggai and won his favor. Now who’s Haggai? Haggai is the supervisor of the harem. So there’s hundreds of women in this harem who’ve made the finalist thing and it says that Haggai liked Esther and he gave her preferential treatment. Immediately he provided her with beauty treatments and special food and he assigned to her seven maids selected from the king’s palace and he moved her and her maids into the best place in the harem. So she gets favor with the guy running the harem. Then in verse 16, 15, it says, Esther won the favor of everyone who saw her. This girl is winning miscongeniality. Everybody’s going, oh, we love Esther. They don’t consider her competition. She’s just so charming, so engaging. And in verse 17, it says, then she won the king’s favor and approval more than any of the other virgins. So he, this is Xerxes, set a royal crown on her head and made her queen. Now, you need to understand this. Orphan girl, now the queen of Persia. But none of it would have happened if she hadn’t had her limitations. Not just the gifts, but the bad things in her life. I mean, if she had been a rich, married man, she’s not even in this story. Because the king wasn’t looking for a rich, married man. And if she hadn’t been a minority, if she hadn’t been Jewish, she couldn’t have saved the Jewish race. She wouldn’t have even cared about it. So the things that seem to be kind of on the downside were actually on the good side. The point is this, what often looks like a disaster, in this case, I’m part of a cattle call and I’m gonna go out to have sex one night with somebody I don’t even love and then probably would be discarded and because I’m no longer a virgin anymore, nobody’s gonna wanna marry me. What looks like a disaster was actually God’s plan to save the Jewish race from genocide. What’s the point? Even the bad things in your life have a purpose. It all has a purpose. It all has a purpose. And you will never know and you will never fulfill your destiny until you stop having a pity party about the bad things that have happened to you. You gotta stop having the pity party. You gotta realize that not just the assets, but the liabilities in your life are God ordained to make you you for what he wants you to do. Not what he wants somebody else to do, what he wants you to do. See, so many people wish they were somebody else. Well, if only I were like that person. If only I had her talent. If only I had her husband. If only I had his wife. If only I had that job. If only, if only, if only. And what you gotta do is you gotta stop saying, well, it’d be nice to be that person. Sucks to be me, but it’d sure be nice to be them. That will, as long as you have that attitude, you will never fulfill your destiny in life. You gotta stop the pity party. You gotta stop moaning and murmuring, and you’ve gotta realize that even the downsides in your life are part of the plan.
SPEAKER 02 :
Wow, such a great message from Pastor Rick today. And I hope you were just as encouraged as I was. You know, the truth is that most of us don’t pay much attention to our health until something goes wrong. We put on a couple of pounds every year and think, no big deal, right? But a few pounds over five or ten years really adds up. Yeah, I know about that. But on a more serious note, it can lead to major illness like diabetes and heart disease. So that’s why Pastor Rick worked together with medical and fitness experts to create the Daniel Plan Study. This is a six-session video and workbook study kit from Rick Warren, Dr. Daniel Amen, and Dr. Mark Hyman. This is an out-of-the-box approach to a healthy lifestyle based on five essentials – faith, food, fitness, focus, and friends. The Daniel Plan study gives individuals and small groups the encouragement and accountability needed to succeed. So if you’ve been watching the scale going up lately, or your health may be in trouble because of your weight, it’s really not too late. So join the thousands of people who’ve lost weight, improved their health, and improved their relationships through the Daniel Plan. So be sure to request your copy when you partner with Daily Hope to take the Word of God to a hurting world. Just go to pastorrick.com to get your copy of this great resource. That’s pastorrick.com. Or you can just text the word HOPE to 70309. That’s the word HOPE to 70309. And thank you so much for your support. Your gift to Daily Hope really helps us share the hope of Christ with people all over the world. Be sure to join us next time as we look into God’s Word for our Daily Hope. This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope and your generous financial support.
