Good morning, Saylorville. Thanks for joining us this morning. My name is Jerrod. I’m the youth ministries pastor here, and it is truly a joy to serve here.

Last week Randy spoke about our staff, and we do have an incredible staff. So today I’ll highlight our deacons. I’m super grateful for them. They are unsung, for sure, right behind the scenes here at Saylorville, serving super faithfully. You can be proud of your deacons that we have here at Saylorville Church.

We’ve looked at all sorts of people who are unsung: Lydia and Barnabas, and last week Caleb. Today we’re going to look at Esther’s uncle, Mordecai. So if you have a copy of God’s Word, you can open up to the book of Esther. We’ll be studying Mordecai, and the title of today’s sermon is Unseen Providence. Unseen Providence.

As I’ve studied and even spoken on this book, the book of Esther, before, I’ve often spoken about Esther and the heroic deeds that God accomplished through her, and rightly so. The book is named after her. But what I’ve often missed is her uncle, Mordecai, just behind the scenes, unsung, and God using him just as much, if not potentially more. Matter of fact, Mordecai, his name is actually mentioned more times than Esther’s name throughout the book.

That makes me think of other people who are unsung. I already mentioned our deacons, but even right now I have the privilege of opening God’s Word. But in the back we have guys in the sound booth and gals running things back there. We have people in the kids ministry serving faithfully. You had smiling faces greeting you at the doors this morning, guys out in the parking lot helping direct traffic and where to park. There’s all sorts of people that are unsung that help accomplish even what happens here on a Sunday morning.

So with your Bibles open to Esther, we’ll begin in chapter 1. We’ll do an entire flyover of the entire book. Don’t worry, we’ll do it quickly, and we’ll do so with a special emphasis on God’s providence, his unseen providence through the whole book, and Mordecai as well. We’ll be focusing in on him, and then we’ll make some practical applications.

Before we dig in, let’s pray.

God, thank you for your Word. Now may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight. In Jesus’ name, amen.

The story begins in chapter 1, if you want to just follow along. We’re not gonna read every single verse, but the story begins with the king of Persia, King Ahasuerus, at the time. He has two huge banquets that last a really long time, and on the last day he demands that his queen, Queen Vashti, come before the people and entertain them with her beauty, and she refuses. The king gets angry and deposes her. He removes her as the queen.

Then in chapter 2 the king holds, ironically, a beauty pageant to choose his next queen. Esther hides her identity, and she actually wins the beauty pageant, becomes the next queen.

At the end of chapter 2 it just so happens that Mordecai overhears a plot to murder the king. Mordecai informs Esther, who then informs the king. The king’s life is saved, and Mordecai gets the credit for that.

In chapter 3 we’re introduced to evil Haman. If you’ve read Esther, you know that Haman is the bad guy in the story, right? The king elevates Haman to the highest position in the kingdom, though, and he demands that everyone bow down when they see Haman.

But when Mordecai sees Haman, he refuses. Everyone around him may have bowed down and paid homage to Haman, but Mordecai, he didn’t.

This makes Haman angry. He’s furious, not only at Mordecai, but he discovers that Mordecai is a Jew, and so he wants to take it out on his entire people group. So Haman, being a man of a powerful position, goes to the king and requests that he write a decree to kill all of the Jewish people.

The king signs the decree, and Haman rolls some dice, some ancient dice called Pur, to decide the day of their destruction. Remember the name of those dice. That will come back in our story later.

Beginning in chapter 4 we say that Mordecai and Esther come up with this plan for Esther to appear before the king and to request that he renege on his former decree, maybe write a new decree to save the Jewish people.

But there’s one problem. Esther can’t just go to the king. In fact, Persian law said that if you appear before the king without being summoned, you could be put to death.

Regardless, Esther bravely approaches the king, and thankfully the king does not kill her. She requests that the king come to a banquet, and she also invites Haman to that banquet. During that banquet she requests one thing. The king says, “I’ll give you anything, even up to half of the kingdom.” Then she requests that they come back to another banquet the next day.

So Haman leaves that banquet happy and joyful with himself until he just so happens to run across Mordecai. Of course, Mordecai doesn’t bow down to him, and Haman gets even angrier. He’s so angry that he demands that a tall stake be built, and he wants Mordecai to be impaled upon it in the morning.

It just so happens that night that the king can’t sleep, and he requests that the chronicles be read to him. The royal chronicles must have been a real snoozer of a book because he was hoping it would put him back to sleep.

The portion of the royal chronicles that he had read to him just so happened to be the portion where it talked about Mordecai saving the king’s life. You remember that all the way back in chapter 2? Well, the king didn’t. He had completely forgotten about it. He had never properly honored Mordecai, and so he determined that he would honor Mordecai in the way that he should have been honored.

So Haman, the next morning, comes into the king’s courts, and before he can get his request out to the king to execute Mordecai, here’s what the king says in Esther 6, verse 6:

“What should be done to the man whom the king delights to honor?”

And Haman thinks to himself, “Well, who would the king want to delight himself to honor more than me? I mean, I was with him and the queen yesterday. I’m going to another banquet today. He probably wants to honor me.”

So he answers with all this pomp and circumstance, and being paraded around and praised. The king says a few verses later, Esther 6, verse 10:

“Hurry. Take the robes and the horse and everything that you’ve said, and do so to Mordecai.”

Yeah, Haman thought he would be honored and Mordecai would be impaled on a stake, and there’s a plot twist. Actually, Haman is the one leading him around town, parading Mordecai around and praising him.

So we see here Haman’s humiliation and Mordecai’s exaltation.

In chapter 7 we see that very same day Haman and the king go to the second banquet, and it’s there that Esther informs the king of her Jewish identity. Then she reveals that Haman’s decree is actually a ploy to kill herself and to kill Mordecai, not only all of the Jewish people.

Now this makes the king furious. In fact, it makes him so furious that he demands that Haman be impaled upon that same stake that he had built for Mordecai.

In chapter 8 we see that Esther and Mordecai commission a new decree. On the day when all the Jewish people were to be killed, the people can now defend themselves from anyone who is plotting to kill them.

When the decree day comes that had been decided by the dice, remember that, in chapter 9 the Jewish people destroy their enemies, and this is followed by great joy and celebration because, well, the Jewish people have been rescued. They had been delivered from destruction.

The story then tells how Esther and Mordecai establish yet a new decree, an annual two-day feast called, get this, Purim. They named this day of celebration after the dice that actually was meant for their destruction.

The book then concludes in chapter 10 by sharing that Mordecai just so happens to become elevated to second in command in the kingdom, and then the Jewish people thrive while they’re in exile.

So what can we learn from this book? What can we learn from Mordecai, maybe specifically in this book? There’s several points I’d love to make, but for sake of time we’ll keep it to three.

The first point was that Mordecai was courageous. Mordecai was courageous. Perhaps this is demonstrated most clearly in Esther chapter 3, verse 2, which says this:

“And all the king’s servants who were at the king’s gate bowed down and paid homage to Haman, for the king so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai, he did not bow down or pay homage.”

We see here that Mordecai courageously did not pay homage to Haman. He refused to bow down.

When the king’s servants asked Mordecai, “Well, why didn’t you bow down?” his answer was pretty simple:

“I’m a Jew.”

Now the text doesn’t really explain much beyond that, but we can seek to place ourselves in the shoes of the original readers of this text. The original readers of this text would have been Jewish people, and they would have understood, and this actually would have been written in Hebrew, that word “pay homage” can also be translated “to worship.”

This word is used several other times throughout the Old Testament, but I find it especially fascinating that it is found in Exodus chapter 20. If you know your Bibles well, you know that in Exodus chapter 20 God is giving the Ten Commandments. The second commandment is that you would not make a carved image, would not bow down or pay homage to a carved image.

In Exodus 20, verse 5, here’s what it says:

“You shall not bow down,” that’s the same word, “to them or serve them.”

So regardless of Mordecai’s reasons for not bowing down or paying homage to Haman, this act would have been an act of defiance to the king, and it would have taken courage. Mordecai must have known that this action on his part would have been met with some consequences.

So I wonder, if I were Mordecai, or if you were Mordecai, and everyone around me was bowing down to Haman as they were told, would you have bowed down to him? Would you have courageously stood against and in defiance to the king, or would you have paid homage to Haman?

As Americans we love to take stands for certain things, right? Just a few weeks ago I was strongly seeking to convince someone that iPhones are far superior to any Android phone.

My best friend is a huge Hawkeye fan, so he would argue that Hawkeyes are obviously greater than Iowa State. Huge. I know everyone agrees.

My grandpa, he was a farmer. He loved to farm, but he was a big Case IH guy, and so he would say things like, “If it ain’t red, leave it in the shed.” So he would argue that Case IH is much greater than John Deere.

I know, I know, some of you work for John Deere. Even Mike Kubenthal, he’s running the slides right now, he works for John Deere. He said he might switch that on me the next service, so we’ll see.

Regardless, all of us are courageous about something, right? Maybe what parking spot we deserve on a Sunday morning. Maybe too close to home. Too soon.

We all courageously stand for something, right? Maybe it’s nothing on the screen. Maybe it’s not your parking spot. Maybe it’s something else. We all courageously stand for something.

So here’s a good question to ask yourself:

What do I courageously stand for, or against?

What do I courageously stand for, or against?

Maybe a good follow-up question: Does it really matter in light of eternity?

Not only do we see that Mordecai was courageous, we see that Mordecai sought the good of others. Mordecai sought the good of others.

We see this all throughout the book, but it begins right at the beginning when he sought the good of the king. The Jewish people, the Israelites, they were in exile. They wouldn’t have even considered King Ahasuerus as their actual king, and yet when he heard of a plot to murder the king, he could have kept his mouth shut, but he sought the good of the king and made him aware of that.

We see all throughout the book Mordecai is seeking to assist Esther in saving the Jewish people.

We even see this characteristic on display in the very last sentence of the entire book. Here’s what it says, Esther 10, verse 3:

“For Mordecai the Jew was second in rank to the king, and he was great among the Jews and popular with the multitude of his brothers, for he sought the welfare of his people and spoke peace to all his people.”

So we see from beginning to end Mordecai sought the good of others.

Several weeks ago Pastor Kyle spoke about blue-collar Christianity and how God uses everyday, normal blue-collar people to accomplish his purposes. Today we’ve seen that God uses not only blue-collar, everyday people, he uses people in positions of power and influence to accomplish his purposes as well.

I mean, the king, the queen, his right-hand man Haman, and then yes, Mordecai. We see that God used them to accomplish his purposes as well.

So maybe God has not allowed you to be in a blue-collar job. Maybe a few weeks ago you were listening and you’re thinking, “This doesn’t really… I can’t really relate.”

Maybe God has allowed you to be in a position of power, maybe a position of influence.

Let me ask you this: How are you leveraging your position of power or influence for the good of others? Are you using your position of power to oppress others like Haman did, or are you seeking to elevate others as Mordecai did?

So here’s a good question:

Do I seek the good of others?

Mordecai was courageous. Mordecai sought the good of others. Thirdly, Mordecai trusted God.

This is most clearly illustrated in Esther chapter 4, verse 14. Here’s what God’s Word says. He sends word to Esther, and he says this:

“For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews…”

Notice how he trusts God in this moment. He’s confident.

“…will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish.”

See, Mordecai was confident that the Jewish people would be delivered. He just wasn’t sure how it was gonna happen. He knew God’s promises. He trusted in God. There was no doubt in his mind that God was working providentially behind the scenes to accomplish his purposes, and that he would deliver God’s people.

So are you trusting God?

We have the luxury of looking at this story from 30,000 feet, and we can see how God was at work in the small details, and the coincidences, and the “it just so happened” moments.

As I look back on my own life, I have several “just so happened” moments.

I just so happened to be born into a family that knows and loves God.

I just so happened to become aware of my sin when I was a little boy, five years old. I was aware that I was a sinner and that separated me from a holy God.

I just so happened to hear the good news of the gospel, that Jesus came to this earth. He lived a perfect life, died a sacrificial death on my behalf, and three days later victoriously rose over sin and death, and I was saved.

It just so happened when I was 10 years old I contracted meningitis, and I could have died. I remember lying in a hospital bed thinking, “I know where I’m going,” confident in what God had for me no matter what the outcome.

It just so happened when I was 16 years old there was an assassination attempt on my father’s life. In that moment I had to trust God. Through that experience God taught me that I need to forgive, even when I don’t want to.

A few years later, after marrying my wife Alyssa, we were expecting our first child, and it just so happened that God allowed me to lose my job in the midst of that pregnancy. God was calling us to trust him and to depend upon him for our daily needs.

It just so happened that recently a brother in Christ, very close to me, repented of his sin. He’d been hiding it. His humility brought me to my knees and called me to a greater dependence and trust in God. He showed me that I need to be humble and repent from my sins and to trust God more deeply.

Just this past week I just so happened to be in Psalm 89. In Psalm 89, verse 1, it says this:

“I will sing of the steadfast love of the Lord forever. With my mouth I will make known your faithfulness to all generations.”

I don’t know why all these “just so happened” moments happen in my life or even in your life, but I think in part… can we get that verse back up there?… it’s because of this:

So that we can sing of his steadfast love and to make known his faithfulness to all generations.

I don’t know what God is calling you to. I don’t know how God is calling you to trust him more deeply this morning, but I know this: You can trust God with your current circumstances and any future outcomes.

So here’s a question, very simple:

Do I trust God?

I mean, do I really trust God?

In the midst of my circumstances, as I look around at the things happening in my life, do I trust God?

The person from today’s story that we’ve mostly focused on is Mordecai. But you know who is truly unsung in the book of Esther?

God.

In fact, God’s name is not mentioned a single time in the entire book.

The fact that God’s name isn’t mentioned is an invitation for us to read this story looking for God’s activity behind the scenes.

Some people call these things coincidences, or luck, or “it just so happened.” Though those of us who know God know that these things are God’s unseen providence.

As one commentator put it, “Though God’s name is not mentioned in this book, his presence certainly is.”

The book of Esther begs us to see God’s providence when it’s unseen.

Now this requires us to trust that God is committed to redeeming people and overcome evil, and God’s still doing that today. He’s still committed to redeem people and to overcome evil.

Our motto here at Saylorville Church is not “More people more like Mordecai,” or “More people more like Barnabas,” or Hannah, or Caleb from last week. It certainly isn’t “More people more like Pastor Pat,” or “More people more like Pastor Colton, or Paul, or Kyhl, or Pastor Jason.” I won’t forget about you.

Our motto is, “More people more like Jesus.”

Because even though there are commendable qualities in Mordecai, as we studied this morning, there’s commendable qualities in all of these leaders, they all fall short. We all fall short of God’s perfect standard.

Only Jesus was perfect. He was the only one who could come to this earth to live that perfect life that you and I should live, but we can’t. Then he died sacrificially for our sins.

Haman, in our story today, he died. He was impaled on a stake because of his own sins.

Jesus was impaled on a cross, nailed to a cross because of your sins and my sins. He died the sacrificial death that we deserve, and then he rose victorious over sin and death so that we, those of us who believe in him, can live forever. We can be delivered from our sin and live with him forever.

See, the deliverance that the Jews experienced in our story here today, that was a temporary deliverance. But the deliverance that Jesus offers you, that’s eternal.

John 8:36 says this:

“If the Son sets you free, you’ll be free indeed.”

Isn’t that great news this morning? If Jesus has set you free, if he has delivered you from your sins, you are free indeed.

So let me ask you: Have you been delivered from your sins? Have you trusted in Christ’s life, death, burial and resurrection to save you from your sins? Are you still being held captive by your sin?

Look at the bigger picture of what God is doing in your life. All of these “just so happened” moments.

I don’t believe that the fact that you’re here this morning is an accident or “it just so happens” that you’re here this morning. I believe that God may be calling some of you to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ today and to be saved.

Let’s pray.

Father in heaven, I thank you for your Word. I thank you for the story of Esther. Thank you for Mordecai, who demonstrates some good qualities, but thank you for Jesus, who demonstrates all the best qualities that we can and should emulate.

I pray, Father, that if there is anyone here this morning that has not yet been delivered from their sin, that today would be the day of their salvation.

I pray, Father, for those of us who do know you. I pray that we would courageously stand for what matters, that we would seek the good of others, and that we would trust you more fully even today.

In Jesus’ name, amen.

Let’s stand and sing.