Hello friends, welcome to In Bolden. I'm Chris Shatter, an ordinary Christian living with and learning about an extraordinary God. Welcome to the new series, New Beginnings. I read this great comment by a young woman that I follow on Instagram.
And it goes, 2022 is not going to be your year. It's God's year. In fact, every year has been and will be his. Once you believe that your life and your time all belong to him, every year will be a victory.
He holds the victory and the whole world in his hands every year, every day, live for him. I hope that's what you get out of this series. Enjoy. Today's new beginning story comes from Esther 413.
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. You know, in a way I hope you've never heard of Annie Lowbert. But if you or someone dear to you has ever found themselves trapped in the world of sex trafficking and drug abuse, I pray to God that he would be leading you to Annie. You see, she started out as an ordinary girl from in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
She became a prostitute, exotic dancer and drug addict. To make more money, she moved to Las Vegas, Nevada with her then boyfriend, who soon took her ID, her cell phone, every penny she earned, in effect turning her into a sex slave. After five years of physical abuse, she finally escaped her pimp. And in 2003, Miss Lowbert found herself in a hospital, the result of a cocaine overdose.
As she tells her story, this was the moment she finally took a true stock of her life and turned to God. With a support of a former customer who had fallen in love with her and her newfound faith, Miss Lowbert left prostitution behind and started a new life. That former customer trained her in estimates and service reviews in order to work with him at his auto body and design firm. It's a wonderful true story of God's intervention into the lives of non-believers, a sinner for certain, and to some, a throw away, a person so entrenched with a devil that a changed life seemed impossible.
And by all accounts, her story of it into there would sound admirable and a great testimony to God's love for all people. But that wasn't his plan. In fact, if you read all the stories in the Bible, God's gift of pulling us from the fiery furnace is never the end of the story. It's never the end of his expectations of us.
It's always a new beginning. Esther 2 17 says, the king loved Esther more than all the women, and she won grace and favor in his sight more than all the virgins so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashty. The story of Queen Esther has some disturbing parallels to Annie Loeberts. After becoming an orphan, Esther, who was originally a Jewess named Hadasha, was raised by all accounts a good and decent Jewish cousin named Mordecai.
However, when King Xerxes decided he needed a new queen, he called for all the most beautiful young women to be kidnapped and brought into his harem. Night after night, these very young virgins were raped by the king. They were then placed amongst his concubines and stripped of their names, their families, their everything. They became sex slaves.
And Esther, who was as we read, eventually selected as the new queen, she could have ended her story at reaching such a high status. She had received wisdom and helped from the right people, pegans and Jews. She had attendance, great food, a comfortable life. In fact, when palace intrigue resulted in a decree to kill the 15 million Jews scattered throughout King Xerxes Dominion, she was insulated from that information.
And when word came via a messenger that her cousin, a palace official, was at the gates and torn sackcloth, crying in despair. Her response was to simply give him new clothes. She didn't want to know what caused him so much grief. Her life was good.
I'm fine, everything's fine. Esther 4-8 goes on. Mordecai also gave him a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for their destruction, that he might show it to Esther and explain it to her and command her to go to the king to beg his favor and plead with him on behalf of her people. It wasn't known by the king and his people, originally that Esther or even Mordecai were Jews, but Mordecai's very public reaction to the decree made their background known.
And therefore Mordecai implored Queen Esther to act on the Jews behalf. She was uniquely positioned to petition the king for relief. She initially refused, some out of fear. She refused because the king didn't know she was a Jew, so why not just leave it that way?
Why rock the boat? I'm fine, it's fine. She had decided when her God-given new beginning would stop. And for some of us, that's where we stop.
God has rescued us over and over and over. He has placed us just where he wants us and we stop. We thank him for the past with our words and don't plan on thanking him with our works. I'm fine, it's fine.
But you can see by today's first Bible verse, Mordecai reminds Esther that she too will be swept away eventually, that the decree will come to all of them. She finds herself at a crossword of sorts. Well, to speak to this king without being called by him might mean death. To not speak up for the Jews will probably also mean death.
For some of us, we get stuck here, fretting about what to do. And Esther finally decides to show the Lord her commitment to him to continue on her new beginning. Esther 4, 15 to 16 says, then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, go gather all the Jews to be found in Sousa and hold a fast on my behalf. Do not eat or drink for three days, neither day, and I and my young women will fast as you do.
But then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish. She in effect prays. She trusts. God had placed her with Mordecai, who himself had good standing in the government.
He placed her with Heggai, the eunuch in charge of the heron with whom she found favor. And Heggai imparted wisdom on how to act and speak around the king. God placed her as queen. God put all the characters in place for Queen Esther to bring about the removal of an evil man from the court and overturn the death sentence for the Jews.
And the new edict, which she helped the king craft eventually, elevated the Jews to such a place that quote many people of other nationalities became Jews. And to this day, the Jews celebrate Purim in her honor for saving their lives. A.B. Simpson says, God is preparing His heroes, and when the opportunity comes, He can fit them into their places in a moment, and the world will wonder where they came from.
You and I are being prepared to be ordinary heroes. You and I have been rescued by God already so many times, in place here, right now for these times. But too many of us say, I'm fine, it's fine. We say it by telling ourselves, our Christian friends, our pastors, that we aren't needed by God, or we don't, I don't know, have enough time.
We've retired and now on a coast. We say we are happy where we are and don't need to send God a thank you note by obeying the Great Commission. We say we feel comfortable, feet uncomfortable, feeding His sheep. We say we don't need a new beginning.
Warren Wierz be issues this morning in his commentary on Esther. God will accomplish His purposes even if His servants refuse to obey. You know, Esther could have been the loser in this story. We either miss out in participating in his full glory like Moses did when he told God not to ask so much of him, or we get disciplined like Belom would he refuse to do God's bidding.
If we love God, love the fact that He loved us before we were even out of the womb, we must be compelled to be His servants instituting His plans. I heard a pastor the other day say, we need to get in, get out, or get run over. Complacency and faith, my friends. Complacency with the gifts God has given us, His no faith at all, truly.
And it certainly isn't God's plan for our new beginning. John 21 16 says, again Jesus said, Simon son of John do you love me? And He answered, yes Lord, know that I love you. And Jesus said, take care of my sheep.
As for Annie Lobert, she came to that crossroads too. She could have been like so many Christians and said, hey, thanks for saving me Lord. And gone about her life. Instead in 2005, she established footers for Jesus, a safe house program in Las Vegas with permission to hook, meaning outreach, hope in Jesus, hope through housing, and heal with restoration.
Annie Lobert, she's just an ordinary person committed to God's plan to rescue others from evil. We may not all be in the position to save as many people as she will, but if we can at least commit to not being fine where we are and ask God every morning to place us in positions to share His Word and do His good works, we are well on the way to the ordinary hero. We would be well on our way to our new beginning. You know, there are such calls in the Bible as universal calls, ones which every follower of Jesus is called to, and one of these is second Corinthians 5, 15, 17 to 20.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, He is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. All this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
That is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ. God making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God.
Amen. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Abolden Podcast. Be sure to follow along so you don't miss any episode. And check out my blog at Embolden.net.