LS Community Church Live Sunday Gathering

What this episode covers

LS Community Church live Sunday gathering. Teaching from Stan Rodda. For many Christians today, God seems silent. There may be that occasional moment that gives us a fleeting reminder that God’s Spirit is still at work in the world, but the days of the Bible where God consistently showed up in the lives of believers feels consigned to the pages of Scripture. But just because God isn’t parting the sea or raising the dead, it doesn’t mean he’s left his creation to function on its own. God is still at work. God is still using imperfect people to do extraordinary things to expand the Kingdom of God – on earth, just as it is in heaven. Enter Esther. The book of Esther is a book for our time. Set in the Jewish diaspora, some 100 years after the Babylonian exile of the Israelites from their land, we find a faction of Jews living in the Persian Capital (Susa) but God seems absent. In fact, God is never mentioned in the book of Esther, not once. But this oddity is actually an invitation to read the story looking for God’s activity (and there are signs of it everywhere!). The story is full of odd coincidences and ironic reversals that force you to see God’s purpose at work behind every scene. The book of Esther asks us to trust in God’s providence even when we can’t see it working. That requires a posture of hope, to believe that no matter how horrible things get, God is committed to redeeming his good world and overcoming evil.

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