God's Providential Care
Pastor Matt Bell
Sermon Summary
In this sermon, Pastor Matt examines the doctrine of God’s unseen providence through the Book of Esther, demonstrating that His sovereign care is continually active even when His presence feels entirely withdrawn. Because God is the supreme sovereign orchestrating human history, His providential care for His covenant people is universal (reaching even the exiles who remained in pagan Persia), ordinary (utilizing mundane human circumstances and weaknesses rather than suspending natural law, thereby maximizing His glory), and mediated (working through the active, faithful obedience of His people rather than passive fatalism). Ultimately, Esther's intercession serves as a typological foreshadowing of the Gospel, illustrating how Christ left His royal position to mediate for a condemned people, orchestrating a great reversal from death to life.
Sermon Transcript
Introduction: The Book of Esther and God's Providential Care
We are continuing our series, our year-long series, working our way through the Bible, the year of the Bible, reading through it together as a church, and looking every Sunday morning at a passage that we read that week. This morning, the sermon's going to be a little bit different in that we're not going to look at one specific passage, but we're going to look at an entire book of the Bible, the book of Esther.
We read this book last week. Some of you, of course, love this book, and for good reason, it is a wonderful book of the Bible. And instead of looking at one specific passage, we're going to look at the main theme of the book of Esther and how to apply that theme to our lives today. The book of Esther is 10 short chapters about God's providential care for his people. God's providential care for his people. And it tells us about how God from heaven is looking down through his unseen hand of providence. He's providing for his people and protecting his people, watching over them and caring for them. So that's the book, that's the theme.
A Foundation from Psalm 37
I'm not going to read a text here at the beginning. Well, actually, I am. And it's not from Esther. It is from Psalm 37. So if you have your Bibles open to Psalm 37 with me quickly, this won't be on the screen because I just right now decided to do this. Psalm 37 speaks of God's providential care, and it fits beautifully with the book of Esther, the themes of the book of Esther. So we'll look at a few verses here, just to whet our appetite for the direction of the Book of Esther, from Psalm 37.
If you have it, and even if you don't, I invite you to stand with me to read from Psalm 37 this morning. We'll read this, we'll pray, and then we'll recap the story of Esther in case you're not familiar with it, and then we'll start looking at some specific scriptures from Esther. Looking here, starting in verse 7, it says:
"Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him. Fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way over the man who carries out evil devices. Refrain from anger and forsake wrath. Fret not yourself. It tends only to evil. For the evildoers shall be cut off. But those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land. In just a little while, the wicked will be no more, though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there. But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace. The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes his teeth at him, but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his day is coming. The wicked draw the sword and bend their bows to bring down the poor and needy to slay those whose way is upright. But their sword shall enter their own heart. And their bows shall be broken, be broken. [Verse 16] Better is the little that the righteous has than the abundance of many wicked. For the arms of the wicked shall be broken, but the Lord upholds the righteous."
Lord, we thank you, God, for these beautiful words, these words of this psalm, and Lord, the book of Esther. We thank you, Lord Jesus, for your providential care for your people. Lord, that you are watching over us. Lord, your word teaches us that we are close to you and that you are close to us and that you never leave us or forsake us. Lord, I pray that as we spend time in your word this morning that you would help us to see your unseen hand, that you would help us to see how you are constantly providing and protecting your people. And Lord, that it would help us to trust in you, even when we don't see you. In Jesus' name. Amen.
The Story of Esther
You may be seated this morning. A little bit of overview on Esther: It takes place during the time that the exiles, the Jewish exiles, were returning to rebuild Jerusalem. God had previously removed the Jewish people from their land because they had been unfaithful to the Lord. They had rejected the Lord. They had pursued idolatry. Though God had sent many messengers, many prophets to call his people back to him, they had hardened their hearts in rebellion. And so God exiled them. He tore them out of the land that he gave them. He carried them off into foreign lands, and they were there for 70 years.
Now, after 70 years, the king of that foreign land, King Cyrus, the king of Persia, issued a decree that the Jews could return to Jerusalem to rebuild their nation, to rebuild their city, to rebuild their temple, to rebuild their culture, their society. But even after the king of Persia gave this invitation that the Jews could return to their land, we read in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah that only a handful of the people that were exiled returned. The majority of the people chose not to return, to rebuild, but they chose to stay where they were comfortable, where they had planted their families, purchased land, started businesses. They didn't want to return to a land that was desolate, decimated, no economy, no business, just wide-open wilderness that had been destroyed. The majority of the people didn't want to go and rebuild. They stayed behind in Babylon and Persia.
And so the book of Esther tells us the story of the Jews that stayed behind in Persia, tells us what happened to them, those that didn't return to Jerusalem. And it begins in chapter one with a great feast thrown by the king of Persia. During that feast, he wants to show off his wealth and his power. He wants to show off his glory. And so he calls for his queen, who is a beautiful woman, and he wants to show her off to his kingdom. Well, she refuses to come and be paraded in front of the people. And so he decides, you know what, I'm just gonna get a new queen, then. And so he sets out on this four-year process to find the most beautiful and pleasant young woman in his whole kingdom, this massive kingdom—127 provinces from India to Ethiopia, this massive kingdom that he reigned over. He seeks the most beautiful woman in the whole kingdom. It takes him four years. Four years to find his new queen.
And at the end of this process, he lands on this poor orphan peasant, Jewish girl named Esther. And he chooses Esther to be his queen. Though he doesn't know she's a Jew, that her nationality, her race, is kept secret at the time. No one knows her origins. And during the course of time, while Esther is queen, one of the very powerful men in the kingdom, a man named Haman, he grows in his hatred towards the Jewish people. He makes a plan to destroy them all. He is so bent against destroying the Jewish people. He goes to the king—rather, he goes to the king. He manipulates the king to issue a decree that on such and such a day, all the Jewish people are to be killed, and all of their property is to be seized by whoever kills them.
And so it throws the kingdom into disarray. It throws the Jewish people into disarray. And at this point that Esther's cousin, the man who actually raised her, a man named Mordecai, he comes to Esther, he pleads with her, to do something, to intervene on behalf of her people. He says, you can't just sit there. You can't just sit idly by as the queen hiding behind the crown while your people are slaughtered.
But Esther is caught in a dilemma. The only way that she can enter into the king's presence is with an invitation. No one can simply barge into the presence of the king. They have to be invited. And if anyone comes into the king's presence without an invitation, the sentence for that act is death. And so she is placed in a very difficult position where she has to approach the king, but it might cost her her life. The only way that sentence could be averted is if the king raised his golden scepter to the person who approached him, and in that case, he would be granting them mercy. That would be a great exception. But it would be a great violation for her to presumptuously enter the king's presence, and remember, this is a king who has a history of getting rid of queens that displease him.
Nevertheless, Esther decides, I'm going to risk my life on behalf of my people. She fasts for three days. She goes into the presence of the king to plead with him. He raises his golden scepter to her, pardoning her, granting an audience with him. And through her bravery, this wicked man, Haman, his plot is uncovered, and he himself is hanged on the very gallows that he built to hang the Jews upon.
Everybody loves a story like Esther. It has all the makings of a great story. It has this love story between the king and the queen. It has a great heroine, Esther, who goes from rags to riches. She's a peasant that becomes a princess who intervenes on behalf of her people. It saves her nation, saves her people. It has this evil man, every great story has a great villain, and Haman is this wicked, evil man who's scheming and plotting. And yet, because of Esther's bravery and her sacrifice, there's this very satisfying turn of events where all of the evil that he plotted against these people come back, it comes back on his own head. And everybody lives happily ever after. Everybody loves a story like Esther.
The Unseen Hand of God
But when you read the book of Esther, when you read its 10 chapters, there's one thing in the book of Esther that is noticeably absent, especially from a book of the Bible. There's something that you will not find anywhere in the book of Esther. And that is any mention of God. The 10 chapters in the book of Esther, God, the Lord, is not mentioned one time. Not one time.
Esther is the only book of the Bible that doesn't mention God. He's not named, he's not even prayed to, nobody even prays in this book. When Esther calls a fast, it's not a fast with prayer. It's just a fast. God is notably absent from this book. In fact, this great omission has led some people to argue that this book should not even be included in the Bible. One of the very famous people that argued for that was the Protestant reformer Martin Luther. He didn't even think this book should be in the Bible because it doesn't even mention God.
But what this book, Esther, is showing us by the author not mentioning God is he is showing how God, even when he is not seen, is still protecting and providing for his people. That's why the theme of this book is God's providential care. God's providential care, that God from heaven is the one who is orchestrating the events. God from heaven is the one who is moving things and setting things up and placing this peasant girl into the right place at the right time. And he is the one who is turning everything around for his people. It is a story about God's providential care. That God is the supreme sovereign. He rules and reigns over all the events of history, over the events of nations, and over the events of our lives. And what Esther reminds us is that even when we don't see God moving, he is still there. He is always with us, even as Jesus himself promised that he would always be with us.
So there's 3 things about God's providential care from Esther I want to draw out for us this morning.
1. God's Providential Care is Universal
The first is that God's providential care, it is universal. It is universal. And what that means, what I mean by that, is that his providential care extends to all of his people, wherever they are. You see, these are the Jews that didn't go back to Jerusalem. These are the Jews that chose not to sacrifice, not to go back and rebuild, not to go be surrounded by the temple, not to go back to the Jewish homeland, but they stayed behind. Most likely because they had some sense of prosperity in this pagan land. They stayed behind in Persia. And yet, God still protects them where they are. God's providential care is extended to all of his people.
Now, you may be wondering, there's times in our life where we go through all kinds of difficult things, times when it seems like God is not there. And in those times, you may be wondering, asking the question, does God see what I'm going through right now? God, do you see what's happening in my life? God, I don't understand, and certainly the exiles is there in this foreign land. The king's judgment comes down, this decree comes down: all the Jews get to be slaughtered on this day. God, where are you in this? You may be wondering, does God see my problem? Does God see my pain? Does God see the suffering that I am going through? Have you prayed prayers like that? God, where are you? Where are you in this? Or God, how could you allow this to happen in my life?
I think if we're all being honest—and I think church is a good place to be honest—we would all say there are times in life where God seems like he's a million miles away. Where we go and we pray before the Lord, and it seems like our prayers don't even reach the ceiling, much less to God in heaven. God, where are you? God, you feel so distant. You feel so removed.
If you've ever felt like that, the story of Esther serves as a reminder to us that even in those times, God sees what we're going through. And he not only sees us, he is there with us. In every trial, in every storm, in every temptation, in every calamity, God is with his people, whether we feel his presence or not. Whether we feel his presence or not. In Matthew chapter 10, Jesus says this. Speaking of God's care for his people, he says:
"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?"
Isn't that true? Two sparrows are sold for a penny? No, we don't really sell sparrows anymore. I don't know if you go to PetSmart. Probably inflation's gone up quite a bit to... to sparrows. But anyway, Jesus says, are not two sparrows sold for a penny. They're almost worthless in our eyes, is what Jesus is saying. But he says:
"And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father."
What Jesus is saying is that God's providential care, it extends even to the sparrows. He sees even the sparrows. There's that wonderful hymn that says his eye is on the sparrow. But Jesus argues—he's making an argument. It's a logical argument from the lesser to the greater. Verse 30, he says:
"But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows."
Look, if God is paying attention to the things that seem to us so mundane, so unimportant, how much more is he paying attention to the things that are important? God is paying attention to every single detail of your life. Down to the number of hairs on your head. What an insignificant thing that is. Who cares? God cares. God cares. God cares for you so much, he cares how many hairs are on your head. That's how intimately he is acquainted with every last detail of your life. God cares more than you do. And what Jesus is saying, if God so cares for the sparrows, how much more does he care for you?
And so when we go through those hard times, those difficult times, those seasons where it seems like God is not with us, those seasons where it seems like God is absent, absent, those seasons where we pray and pray and pray and pray, and yet our prayers go unanswered, and we are confused, and we don't understand, and none of it makes sense to us. We must remind ourselves of the truth of God's word that he sees and he cares for us. We must strengthen our hearts with the truth of God's word. This is why God has given us his word for this very purpose: so that we would not be overcome, that our hearts would not be overcome with our feelings in moments of great difficulty. But that through his word, we would hold fast to God, hold fast to his promises, not giving in to despair when things look bleak, when things look difficult, that we would pray like the psalmist, "Though I go through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me." That we would hold fast to God and his word and trust in him.
This isn't just theory for me. I've lived this in my own life. I've had to live this out. There's been many seasons in my life where God feels far, where God feels distant. There's been seasons in my life where I'm not, I don't understand what God is doing, where I'm confused, where I'm emotionally all over the place. Where my emotions are out of whack, where my feelings are out of whack. I know that's not really a proper preaching term but... The temptation is to give in to despair, to give in to our feelings, to forsake God. Can we just be real here this morning? Life is not, you know, a highlight reel. Life is not a highlight reel on Instagram that, you know, it's just awesome all the time. A lot of times, life is really hard.
And even in those hard times, sometimes it feels like God is not there with us. And in those moments, we have a choice. We have a decision. God, I'm going to trust in you or I'm not. I'm going to believe in you or I'm not. I'm gonna hold fast to you and have my feet planted firmly on your word, or I'm not. Which is it? Do we run to God in our moments of difficulty and hardship, even when we feel like he is not there? Or do we run from God? The book of Esther teaches us and shows us that God is the place we must run to. He is the one who is watching over us and caring for us.
I want you to know that God, for me, has proven to be faithful to His Word every time. I've never seen God's word fail. I've never seen it. He's proven himself time, and time, and time, and time again to be faithful to his word. Now somebody is sitting there and you are thinking right now, well, yeah, but that's because you're a pastor. Of course, you're closer to God than we are. The Bible says that God is no respecter of persons. This promise of providential care, it's universal. It extends to all of God's people. Are you one of his children? Have you put your faith in his son Jesus? His care extends even to you right now where you are. Even if no one else sees, even if no one else understands, God sees and God understands. Therefore, we can go to him in our moments of great difficulty.
2. God's Providential Care is Ordinary
The 2nd thing about God's providential care that I want to draw your attention to is that it is ordinary. It is ordinary. It's accomplished through ordinary means. It's accomplished through ordinary means. And we see here in Esther chapter 4, here in verse 13, when Mordecai goes to his cousin, and he's saying, you need to intervene. Look at the conversation that takes place here. It says:
"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 arise 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.'"
The means by which God accomplishes his providential care are often very ordinary. This is not some miraculous intervention from heaven. This is not some miracle that happens here. This is a queen going before the king. This is not the Red Sea parting. This is not fishes and loaves being multiplied. This is not blind eyes being opened. This is not Jesus walking on water. This is not a miracle that's taking place here. This is just the ordinary course of events of human life.
What I mean by ordinary is, I mean, it's not miraculous, it's not the suspending of the natural order of things. God moves through ordinary circumstances. Now, we have an appetite for the spectacular. We have an appetite for the extraordinary. But typically God doesn't. Typically, God loves using ordinary, everyday things to accomplish his purpose. Yes, sometimes God does part the Red Sea. But more often than not, he uses the ordinary to bring about the extraordinary.
So God will use an exiled prince with a stuttering problem to deliver his people. God will use a shepherd boy with a few rocks in his pocket to bring down a giant. God will use a peasant girl to save her people. God will use his crucified son to save the world. This is God's pattern. This is what God does. He uses the ordinary things to accomplish the stupendous. He does the incredible through things that just seem everyday.
Why does God do this? Well, because really nothing is impressive to God. Right? I mean, God's upholding the universe by the word of his power. God speaks a word and existence comes into being, right? I mean, what he enjoys doing is the surprising thing. The taking that thing that everybody sees as just insignificant, overlooked, not valuable in the eyes of anyone or the world. And then taking that unassuming thing and then doing something that's absolutely mind-blowing with it. Why does God do that? Because then God gets the glory. It glorifies him when he does this.
So Paul will talk about in 2 Corinthians 12, how God loves to do this. And he talks about this through talking about this difficulty, this hardship that he was going through. He called it a thorn in the flesh that God gave him to keep him humble. So in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, it says:
"So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations..."
Paul is saying, God was giving me all of these revelations, and he knew that I, in my flesh, tended towards pride, so God gave me, he allowed Satan to attack my life in a certain way. Paul calls it his thorn in the flesh, to keep me close to God and to keep me humble is what he's saying he has done in his life.
"A thorn in the flesh was given me, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me."
So Paul goes to the Lord. God, please take this away from me. This thorn in the flesh. Now, there's much speculation about what the thorn in the flesh was. Guess what? Nobody knows. Nobody knows. We know it was a messenger of Satan. That's bad. That was given to him by God, God allowed it into his life. So let that mess with your prosperity gospel and name it and claim it and all of that. So he goes to the Lord and pleads with the Lord. Take this from me. He says:
"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'"
He's saying, Paul, if I didn't give you this thorn in the flesh or allow it into your life, if I didn't allow Satan to attack you in this way—what way is that? We don't know. Some speculated it was a health issue, some speculated it was his own conscience for the things that he had done before he was a Christian, some speculate it was the Jews who were persecuting Paul everywhere that he went. We don't know. We know it was bad enough that the Apostle Paul felt it was a great hindrance to him and his ministry. I could do so much more for you, Lord, if you would remove this thorn from me. But God says, I've allowed it in your life to keep you from becoming proud. He says, my grace is sufficient for you. I'm going to give you—I'm not going to remove it from your life, but I'm going to give you the power to overcome it. I'm going to give you the power to rise above it. I'm not gonna remove it, but I'm going to give you my strength, my power, so that you will not boast in your strength, but that you will boast in my power. Because everyone's going to see this problem, this circumstance, this situation, and they are going to see Paul, that the power and the strength that you are living in, it is not your own, but it has come down from heaven. And through that, I will be glorified and not you. So he says to him:
"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong."
Are you weak here this morning? I've got good news for you. The Lord has power for you, not to remove that thing, that thorn in the flesh, that obstacle, that thing that is coming against you, not to remove it, but to give you the strength to be victorious over it. This is what God does. Because then his power is put on display.
When we go through hardship, we can pray that God will remove the hardship. That's okay to do. Paul did that. He did it 3 times. But at some point, we should also pray, God, give me the strength to endure. Or if you're not going to remove this, give me the strength, give me the power. And Lord, let your name be glorified in my life and in my weakness. So that when I am weak, I can be strong. May we be like the Apostle Paul, who will say, for the sake of Christ, for the sake of his name, for the sake of his glory, I will be content with weakness. I will be content with insults. I will be content with hardships. I will be content with persecutions and calamities. Yes, for the sake of Christ. Yes, for the glory of Christ.
We need to be content with the ordinary things of life. Because it is through the ordinary things of life that God puts his glory on display. Let us be careful that just because we're not seeing miracles, like we would like, we think we should see them, that we then conclude and assume that God, therefore, is not moving in my life and on my behalf. I think a lot of people, when they pray for a certain miracle, they don't see it the way that they told God it should happen. They presume that God is absent. He's far, he's distant, he hasn't heard their prayer. He hasn't answered their prayer. That he is not working on their behalf.
But that's not the truth of what the Bible says. In fact, Jesus in John 5:17 says:
"My Father is working until now, and I am working."
That God is always working on our behalf. He's always working. He's never taken a day off. He's working on our behalf. And so often he's working in the ordinary things of life. He's working through the ordinary means of grace. The word of God, the Lord's table, worship, prayer—on the surface, these things seem very ordinary. But underneath them, there is the supernatural power of God.
There's this wonderful quote from C.S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity about the power of prayer. It's a little bit of a longer quote, but I do want to read it to you because it shows us that, just because it's ordinary, it doesn't mean that there's not incredible things happening as we pray. This is what he says:
"An ordinary, simple Christian kneels down to say his prayers. He's trying to get in touch with God. But if he is a Christian, he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God. God, so to speak, inside of him. But he also knows that all his real knowledge of God comes through Christ. The man who was God. That Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray. Christ is praying for him. Do you see what is happening? God is the thing to which he is praying, the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the thing inside of him, which is pushing him on the motivating power. God is also the road or the bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal. So the whole threefold life of the three-personal being is actually going on in that ordinary little bedroom where an ordinary man is saying his prayers. The man is being caught up into the higher kinds of life. What is called the Zoe, or spiritual life. He is being pulled into God, by God."
God loves to use these little ordinary things of life. And just because they're ordinary on the surface does not mean that God is not moving in a very powerful way through them.
3. God's Providential Care is Mediated
Number three thing I'm going to draw your attention to is that God's providential care is mediated. It is mediated. What I mean by that is, Esther has to engage. Esther has to go. Esther did what was right. So we can't simply say that, well, God is sovereign, and his care is providential, therefore I don't have to do anything. And God's just going to do what he's going to do irregardless of my actions. That's not the way his providential care is carried out.
And so we see in Esther chapter 5, verse one and 2, that she goes into the presence of the king:
"On the third day Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the king's palace, in front of the king's quarters, while the king was sitting on his royal throne inside the throne room opposite the entrance to the palace. And when the king saw Queen Esther standing in the court, she won favor in his sight, and he held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand. Then Esther approached and touched the tip of the scepter."
Just because you can say, yes, God is providential, yes, God is sovereign, it's not an excuse for being passive. God carries out his sovereign purpose through the faithful obedience of his people. When we faithfully live in obedience to God, God's plan and purpose is carried out in the world. We are the body of Christ. We are the hands and feet of Jesus. And so if we see people in need, let's be the body of Christ. Let's go to them in love and care and support. Let's encourage them. Let's pray for them because through us, God's providential care is extended. We can be the mediators of God's care to others in the world.
And in that, we get to be a part of what God is doing. You see, Mordecai told Esther, if you don't intervene, somebody else is going to. God's going to bring deliverance some other way. You can be a part of what God's going to do or not. I want to be a part of what God's doing. I want to be a part of how God's building his kingdom in the world. This means that God's people need to be active applying their faith, living out their faith in the ordinary things of life. Because when we do that, God does extraordinary things through his church in the world.
Conclusion: Esther as a Picture of the Gospel
In the end, Esther becomes for us a picture of the gospel. We see that in that there's this great reversal of fortunes. God's people are slated for death. They're as good as dead. But because Esther is willing to intervene, because she's willing to sacrifice herself, God's people are saved.
And just as we are dead in our sins, that is how we were without hope. Christ left his place of comfort. Left his position of royalty and came and laid down his life. He intervened on our behalf. He became the ultimate mediator for us, so that we who have trusted in Christ, we have passed from death to life. We have passed from being sinful to righteous. We were without hope, but because he paid the price for us, our future now is bright. And we have a promise of eternity with him, world without end. So whatever this life holds for us, the future is bright. Whatever challenges we are in the midst of and facing, God is going to be faithful to his word. And when we step out in faith and obedience to him, God can accomplish incredible things through our lives, putting his glory on display. Amen.