Embracing God's Providence: A Journey Through Esther

1. "God, we come to this place today, Lord, resting in hope that you are true, that you are good, and that our life is not meaningless. God, this struggle that we're going through is not meaningless. This relationship that we're having a hard time seeing restoration in, Lord, Lord, it's not meaningless. There is movement of you, Lord. And we're just to call out on the name of Christ today." [10:26] (34 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "I was talking to a brother just before service. I asked him, where is the Lord moving? He said, anywhere they let him. He just burdened, Lord, with your churches this morning that are going to come together and sing and pray and hear God's word speak, but the Spirit may never really be moving, God, because it's just a tradition, just a ritual that has been established. Lord, Lord, may we break out of ritual today. May we not have tradition in the sense that takes our heart from you, Lord. May we just rest in you today." [11:22] (34 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "God delivered me out of a mess y'all and I know he delivered you too about I just think about my own mess and where I was and I was in the midst of a one of those dark clouds where there's wickedness all around you it's kind of like a a hurricane spinning around and there's wickedness everywhere you can imagine and I'm not just over spiritualizing I mean like drugs and alcohol and and and sexual stuff and everything else you can imagine just whirling around it's like any direction I would go there it was and in the eye of the storm church in the eye of that storm was my own deceitful heart in the midst of the whole thing but you know what happened god came down right in the midst of that mess and he cleared it and split it just like the red sea." [45:50] (50 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "God remembers you don't ever forget it know it within your soul know it within your bones that he remembers you he remembers you he remembers his promises in fact god has always remembered that's the good thing about our lord being omniscient and all-knowing and all-powerful is he's got a memory where you never fade out of it in fact in genesis 8 it said god remembered noah and the water began to subside in genesis 19 it says so it was when god destroyed the cities on the plain he remembered abraham and brought lot out of the middle of the upheaval when he demolished the city in genesis 30 it said god remembered rachel and he listened to her and opened up her womb genesis 2 it says god heard their groaning and god remembered his covenant with abraham isaac and jacob and numbers 10 says when you enter into the battle into the land against your adversary who is attacking you sound short blast of the trumpets and you will be remembered by the lord your god first samuel then elkanah was intimate with his wife hannah and the lord remembered her." [50:22] (71 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "I believe that god has brought you here not by accident can you say amen church i mean it that you set right where you set not by accident that he has brought you to this moment to this place for such a time as this i believe that every relationship that you've had every mistake you've made every sin that you've committed every opportunity you faced every challenge that has come against you i believe that in the midst of it all there has been a providential hand of god that's right there and you're not here by accident even all the messy situations god had a providential plan for you and so my question today as we start this 10-week series is will you embrace this divine moment in your life." [01:08:24] (49 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6. "I believe that through his mercy and his grace he will bring healing to your family and restoration to your family and those relationships around you and to the further ends of the the earth where we see nations coming to jesus i believe god has plans and and in his sovereign providential work he uses us here in blackfoot to fulfill him it's amazing what happens when we seek the lord become dependent on him and say wherever you take us god we're going the question is is will you embrace this divine moment in your life i love the way esther embraced it we'll see it later more fully we'll talk about it more fully but i want you to know what esther said when mordecai looked at her and said i don't know but maybe for such a time as this you have been brought to this place and here's her response to it in chapter 4 verse 15 she says she sent reply to mordecai go and assemble all the jews who can be found in susa and fast for me don't eat or drink for three days night or day and i and my female servants will also fast in the same way and after that i will go to the king even if it is against the law if i perish i perish." [01:10:10] (66 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7. "Would you come to the altar today and say god would you cleanse my heart so that tuesday i can start with this power of knowing it's a work you're already doing maybe you're here today and you hear all this and you know that you're apart from christ and none of this really makes sense because you need to get that relationship right first if that's you then you come up today let me walk through with you to show you that jesus is the answer he's the only answer you he's the one that died death on a cross for you and fulfilled what was required that death was required but then he defeated the grave gave his resurrection and his righteousness to us that only he deserved what a blessed message it is would you respond to that first then would you let your heart be cleansed today and would you commit maybe you've never fasted before and today you come to the altar and you say god i have no clue how to fast but i'm going to try this for 10 weeks i want to put you first in my life for 10 weeks what would he do well let's find out." [01:15:45] (59 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8. "I've never fasted before. I don't even know where to start. Well, here's how you start. You start. Are you with me? It's like most things in life. If you don't start, you're never going to get started. And so what does that mean? It means on Tuesday, on this Tuesday, you say, okay, God, whatever it is, I'm giving this up. And all those categories, I'm giving this up and I'm going to turn my attention to you. And even if that starts with just a few little prayers and it builds into something, just start. Just start. Fast unto the Lord and see what he does in the life of your home and in the life of our church. And then we're going to give him all the credit, all the glory, and we're going to see what he does." [01:22:52] (43 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)