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Sermon Details
- Pastor Name: Jonathan Cornell
- Date & Time: September 28, 2014 | 10:00am
SERMON SERIES: Leap!: Taking Risks for God’s Kingdom
Holy Spirit, we take these moments now to invite your presence to invade the recesses of our hearts, and the walls of this space. Day to day life sometimes demands more than we have to give, and moments of decisiveness call us to a courage not humanly possible. And yet this is precisely where the risen Savior shows up with faith defying power and peace that passes all of our understanding. And so this morning, Lord, in whatever moment of decision we face, no matter how large or small, I pray that you would fill it with your Spirit, and that we might have the courage to call upon your name. And we pray this not in our own strength, but we do so in the strong name of Jesus the Christ, our Savior and Lord, amen.
I want to invite you to open your Bibles, either the one we’ve made available to you or the one you’ve brought with you – even that smart phone you may use for your Bible – open to the book of Esther, chapter 4 beginning at verse 12. When I’m done reading, I’ll say, ‘This is the word of the Lord,” so that if you believe it you can say, “Thanks be to God.” Listen now, we’re reading God’s Holy Word.
And they told Mordecai what Esther had said. Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, “Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.”
Where does decisive, death confronting courage come from?
Download the entire transcript here: Esther 4 Heroic Courage
