On the second to last week in our series on the book of Esther. Next Sunday, Ken Kington will be here. He'll wrap the whole thing up for us. It's always fun to have Ken with us, so be here next week for sure. And the book of Esther is all about the power of choice. It's about the power of our decisions. We can all look at our lives and see areas that we need God to do something, right? We have areas in our lives where we need to see some change. And we can pray and ask God to change those for us. God does that. He can do that. God can work miracles in our lives and just make things better. But so often, God wants to work through our decisions. He actually wants to bless us and honor the choices that we make. So he gives us a lot of leeway and a lot of freedom to make a lot of big decisions. We want to make the right decisions. Our choices matter. Our decisions are powerful. Esther reminds us of that time and time again. It's all about the power of our choices. And today we're going to see a choice that Esther makes. It's really the biggest choice that she makes in this story. And it changes the entire course of what's going on. All of God's people at this point in the story are in a lot of trouble. They have a death sentence on their heads. Everything looks like it's headed for disaster, but because of this one choice that Esther makes, the entire situation turns around. And it's actually a choice that all of us can make every single day in our lives. What Esther really gives us with this moment in Scripture is a blueprint for how to solve big problems in our lives. Many of us have big problems that we are dealing with right now. I'm sure all of us at least have a problem that feels big to us. And if you're like me, you appreciate blueprints. There is a part of my brain that does not work, and in some people it works wonderfully. I cannot look at like a series of components and understand how they're gonna go together. So IKEA is terrifying for me, right? I look at the instructions over and over again because I literally cannot picture how this is gonna go together. That part of my brain does not work. Anyone grow up in the 80s and early 90s? Okay, good. There's a few of us. Thank you. You're my people. So if you grew up in the the 80s and the early 90s, then you remember when transformers were like the new thing? They were the toy. When I was a kid, having a transformer, I mean it was it was something so valuable, but I learned a valuable lesson for myself. Because I'm not mechanically minded, and because every single transformer toy is like an engineering marvel, I bought one at a garage sale one day. You see, when you buy one at a garage sale, they don't come with instructions. There's no blueprint. So I took this thing home and I'm so excited because it's a robot now, but it can become a plane, and I start to transform it, but I get about halfway through and I'm stuck. I don't know what to do, so I have this half robot, half airplane, and I couldn't remember how to get it back to the robot. So it was just, it was like that. It was my half robot, half airplane transformer. I need blueprints in my life. I need instructions. So I'm thankful when they come along, and I'm thankful for the blueprint that Esther provides us. It's really simple. It's a three-step thing. And let's jump right into it. Um, the story so far, if you haven't been with us, is pretty simple. It's 500 BC. Esther is the queen of Persia. She's Jewish, but no one knows that she's Jewish. The king, Xerxes, does not know. Haman, the second most powerful man in the empire, the king's best friend, he doesn't know. No one knows who Esther really is. She has an uncle named Mordecai who is a palace guard. He has told her to keep her nationality a secret at all costs, and she has obeyed. Well, Haman and Mordecai have have a run-in with one another. Haman already hates the Jewish people, and he decides the best way to get rid of Mordecai, to teach him a lesson and deal with this hatred he has for God's people is to wipe out all of the Jews in Persia. And he's powerful enough to do it. There were 15 million Jewish people living in Persia at this time. So we're talking about genocide on a level that would be three times what we saw in the Holocaust. He gets the king to sign a decree. He's very sneaky in how he does it. He doesn't tell the king exactly the group of people that he's gonna go after, doesn't tell them how significant their numbers are. It was about 20% of the population in Persia. But he gets the king to sign a decree saying that on March 7th, which was about a year away from the date that they were in, on March 7th, all 15 million Jewish people were gonna die. The king signs it, it's a law, it's a done deal. They have no idea that they've just signed the death warrant of the queen. King's not aware that he's just killed his wife, essentially. Haman has no idea that he's going after the queen as well, but at this point, it seems like it's too late. The decree has been signed, it is a law, it can't be taken back. But Esther's gonna have a choice that makes all the difference. And we're gonna spend most of our time in Esther chapter 4, a little bit in chapter 5. So if you want to turn there, we'll have the verses on the screen, obviously. In Esther 4, verse 1, it says, When Mordecai learned about all that had been done, when he learned about this decree, he tore his clothes, he put on burlap and ashes, and went out into the city, crying with a loud and bitter wail. This was actually pretty common in the Jewish culture. They were a very demonstrative people, and when they were mourning, this is how they would show it. So Mordecai does this. It says, He went as far as the gate of the palace, for no one was allowed to enter the palace gate while wearing clothes of mourning. And as news of the king's decree reached all the provinces, there was great mourning among the Jews. They fasted, wept, and wailed, and many people lay in burlap and ashes. Mordecai takes a big risk. He goes all the way to the palace gate. This was not something you were supposed to do. See, in this period in history, kings did not exist to serve people, people existed to serve kings. And it was very important to the kings that no one bring them down. They were supposed to have a good time, no matter the cost. And so, what would happen? It's it's pretty typical throughout history if you look at a lot of monarchies. The people right outside the palace walls are starving, they're suffering. But inside the palace walls, there's excess, there's lavish living, there's feasts, there's waste. And they're oblivious. They're oblivious to what's going on, they're purposefully ignorant of the pain that's caused. That's why, if you know the story of Marie Antoinette, she's asked what the people should eat since they have no bread. And because she lives in the palace and she's oblivious to suffering, she says, Let them eat cake. She's clueless. That's the way these kings lived. And for Mordecai to go to the palace gate and dare to interrupt the king's parties with his problem is a big deal. But he knows it's the only way to get the message to Esther. It's the only way to get her attention, and he believes she is the only one that can do something about it. And so it works. He gets her attention, he tells her, You've got to go to the king, you've got to deal with this, you've got to do something, but she's reluctant. She's extremely reluctant. We see her response in verse 10 of chapter 4. It says, Esther told Hathach to go back and relay this message to Mordecai. All the king's officials and even the people in the provinces know that anyone who appears before the king in his inner court without being invited is doomed to die unless the king holds out his gold scepter. And the king has not called for me to come to him for thirty days. It may seem strange to think that the queen is fearful of her life, that she's afraid the king will kill her. But if you know Xerxes, it's not far-fetched. He and Henry VIII would have been good friends. Okay. This is a man that banished his first wife, Vashti, just for saying no to him. And to go into his presence without being invited to interrupt the king when he's sitting on his throne without being called for, it is punishable by death, and that includes the queen. See, Esther would have been celebrated by all the people in the empire, except for King Xerxes. To King Xerxes, she is like everyone else. She's just another person that exists to serve Xerxes. And she's scared, she's hesitant. But Mordecai responds back, and in verse 13, he says, Don't think for a moment that because you're in the palace, you will escape when all the other Jews are killed. If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place. But you and your relatives will die. Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this? And I love that last statement. I love how unassuming it is. Hey, who knows? Maybe, just maybe, the reason there's a Jewish queen on the throne at the exact time that all the Jewish people are in a lot of trouble, maybe it's on purpose. Maybe you're queen for just such a time as this. And we look at that and we go, duh, of course Esther is queen for just such a time as this, but sometimes when we are really emotionally involved in a situation, we cannot see the forest for the trees. What is obvious to everyone else, we're oblivious to. That's why we have to surround ourselves with really good people who can hold us accountable and who can help us see what is right in front of us. Mordecai is that for Esther. And see, now Esther has a choice. She has a choice that she has to make. Am I going to approach my problem? Or am I going to avoid it? And that is the decision that all of us have on our plates every single day. We all deal with problems. It doesn't matter how big the problem is, it doesn't matter how small it is, but every single day we face a problem and we have the same choice. Do I approach my problem or do I avoid it? Do I engage the issue or do I run from it and hope that it will solve itself? It is so tempting to avoid our problems. We can cling to the hope that maybe, just maybe, something will happen and the problem will work itself out, but how often does that actually happen? Man, never. Rarely at best. When I look at my life and I look at problems that I have run from, problems that I have hoped would solve themselves, I really can't think of many where that actually happened. I can think of several that I thought were solved. Several that I thought worked themselves out only to find out later that they had not, and they pop back up and they're worse than they were the first time. Problems don't work themselves out. If they did, they'd be called solutions. Okay? That is the nature of a problem. And we can avoid problems because we like to avoid conflict, and oftentimes solving a problem means conflict. We don't love conflict. Maybe I don't want to leave anyone out, maybe there's a few of us this morning that actually love conflict. We wake up in the morning and we're like, I hope I fight with my wife today. That would just be so nice. We know our boss is upset with us at work, and our boss calls us in to talk to us, and we're like, yes, awkward conversation. I live for this, right? We don't like conflict. And because we don't like conflict, we can run from our problems, but our problems do not solve themselves. Jesus understood that. So he did not run from his problems. When Jesus was praying in the garden the night he was arrested, to be taken to the cross, the Bible says that Jesus saw the guards coming to arrest him, so he stood up and walked toward them. You want to talk about approaching your problems. That's how Jesus lived. And Esther has the same choice. Do I approach my problem or do I avoid it? You can see in her first response that she just hopes it'll work itself out. Maybe someone else will solve this. I don't want to have to be the one, I don't want to have to go to the king. You don't understand what this man is like. And Mordecai says, No, it has to be you. You're the one that God has put in this position. And thankfully, thankfully, Esther chooses to approach her problem. I talked about a blueprint earlier. Three steps, really simple. Esther provides us with the first one. Approach your problem. Do not avoid it, don't run away from it, don't hope that it'll just go away. Approach it. And we get to see how she approaches it. In verse 15, it says, Esther sent this reply to Mordecai, go and gather together all the Jews of Susa and fast for me. This would have been thousands of people, by the way. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will do the same. And then, though it is against the law, I will go in to see the king. If I must die, I must die. You can tell her outlook is really hopeful at this point. So Mordecai went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him. Esther is so wise. See, she knows that approaching the problem, that's step one, that's a huge choice. But the way that we approach our problems really matters, right? I'm sure many of us have decided to engage a problem and we approached it. Maybe we even approached it head on and directly, but we took the wrong approach, and maybe we even made it worse, and so now we're more afraid to approach our problems. The way we approach a problem matters. A few months ago, I was driving my son to school, four years old, Liam. I talk about him a lot. I love him. And as we're backing out of the driveway on his way to preschool, absolutely unprovoked, Liam just says from the back seat, Mom's a better driver than you, Dad. And uh and of course, my my immediate reaction, being the humble person I am, was to say, No, she is not, son. Okay. And Liam, being a child, children are so observant and they're not afraid to just speak the truth. Liam says, Yeah, she's better at going backwards. I just sort of laughed it off and said, What does he know? He's four. What does he know about driving a car? Okay, better at going backwards. Come on. A few days later, literally two days later, I took Megan away for just a weekend, husband and wife, went to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, the most romantic city on earth. And uh, because I I am all about high class, that is who I am. So we're in Gatlinburg and just living it up. And uh and while we're there, we decided to check out the cabins that we had rented for the high school road trip. Every summer we take a road trip with the high school students, we go to Tennessee, and every year we have to rent bigger cabins because this group of kids just keeps growing and growing. There you go. And so we rented these huge cabins, and we'd seen them online, but we wanted to see them in person. We wanted to know exactly where they were, so we decided one night, hey, after dinner, let's just drive up and find these cabins. So we found the little resort mountain that they're on. If you've ever been to one of those places, there's there's hundreds of cabins, and you have to drive in a zigzag for like an hour to get to the top, especially if you drive a four-cylinder Toyota Scion like I do. Okay? This thing was mad at me when we were done. And we get to the very top of the resort. We can see our cabins right next to the clubhouse, right next to the office. And there's two roads that I can take, one to the right, one to the left. I went left and realized about 10 seconds later, oh, I should have gone the other way. But see, that's not a problem because my car can go backwards. This road was incredibly narrow, very, very narrow, and the curbs were unusually high, like little walls. I don't know how this road ever got approved by anyone, but it did. So I put the car in reverse and I start to back up, but see, the angle of my approach was off by just a bit. Just a few degrees, but those few degrees made all the difference in the world. So as I back up, I feel the back side of our car lift up, and then I hear this loud thud. See, what had happened was the the back driver's side tire went up over the curb and only the back driver's side tire. And because the curb was so high it pinned against the frame of my car. My car is now 100% stuck. I have one tire on one side of the curb, three tires on the other. I can't go anywhere. I tried. My beautiful wife looked at me and said, Could we lift the car up? And I'm like, It's a car. I know it's a scion, but there is some metal in it. It has an engine. No, we can't lift it up. So we got out, and fortunately, the the clubhouse was right there. It was raining. That was just another nice detail. We ran to the clubhouse, we called a tow truck, and I went out to meet the guy at the car. And I'll never forget it because he pulls up, and this guy, this guy that works for a towing company. Imagine all the things he has seen in his days. He gets out of the car and he looks and he goes, Wow, I have never seen that before. So I just said, Yeah, my wife was driving and she's, you know, she's not she's not very good at backing up. It's just, you know. No, I I I told him the truth. But it's amazing because as soon as we went up over that, after I got past the panic and the frustration, it's like I could hear my son in the back seat. Mom's a better driver than you, dad. She's better at going backwards. See, I spin that and say, God made me to go forward. So that's, you know, think about that. That's what I'm designed to do. That was a good lesson in humility, but but it is amazing because I had a very narrow margin of error. So my approach was really important, and I took the wrong approach. Esther knows that her margin of error in approaching the king with this problem, it is non-existent. There is no margin of error. She has to not only approach her problem, she has to make the right approach. So, what does she do? She prays. It doesn't say that she prays, it says that she fasts for three days, but fasting and prayer go hand in hand. In the Jewish culture, you didn't fast to diet. This was a time when people didn't have a lot to eat. You fasted to pray. Fasting is a really powerful discipline in our faith that very few people follow. It used to be much more common. It should be really common today. Jesus in Matthew chapter 6 was talking about how we should live out our faith. And he has these three things that he says. He says, when you pray, not if, but when you pray, assuming that we would be praying. And then he says, when you give. And then later he says, when you fast. Fasting is really powerful. When we fast, we are acknowledging that we need God more than we need food. And we're purposefully doing without food for a while to make room for God to work in our lives, to fill us with what He wants to give us to sustain us. It's very similar to giving. When we give, we recognize that we need God more than money, and so we we purposely do without so that God will have room to fill us with what He wants to fill us with. And I have learned something about God. I believe this is so true. God wants to take up whatever amount of space you give him. If you want more of God in your life, desiring that, that's step one, that is huge. But making room for more of God in your life, you will be blown away because God will take up the space that you give him. Esther fasts, prays for three days. She gets a thousand other people to fast and pray with her before she makes her approach. If I look back on my life and the times that I have made the wrong approach in handling a problem, and ask myself, how many of those times did I pray first? It's very few. There have been very few situations in life where I was like, oh, I prayed for days. I prayed for days about this one decision I had to make, and then I went and made the dumbest decision of my life. I can tell you this there's never been a time where I have fasted and prayed for three days, gotten a thousand people I knew to fast and pray with me for three days, and then went and made the biggest bonehead decision of my life. That just has never happened. It's because prayer works. Prayer is effective. When we pray, God listens. When we get people to pray with us, God listens. We're told in the Bible that the prayer of a righteous person, in other words, the prayer of someone following God, it is effective. So Esther shows us this amazing step in the blueprint. Step one, approach your problem. Step two, approach it in prayer. And then we get to see her actual approach in chapter five. Chapter five, verse one says, On the third day of the fast, Esther put on her royal robes and entered the inner court of the palace, something she is not supposed to do, by the way. Just across from the king's hall, the king was sitting on his royal throne, facing the entrance. When he saw Queen Esther standing there in the inner court, he welcomed her and held out the gold scepter to her. So Esther approached and touched the end of the scepter. This has to be a huge relief to Esther. The king has not said, What are you doing here? You're dead. I haven't wanted to see you for 30 days on purpose. Go away. He has held out the scepter, he has welcomed her. See, this is just half the situation, right? It's great that he has welcomed her, but now she has to talk to him. And how do you have that conversation? Hey, honey. Funny thing. So I've sort of purposefully admitted that I'm Jewish for like the last six years of our marriage and you not knowing that kind of killed me and all my family members by signing this law. How hysterical. Let's just solve this. That's not gonna go well with Xerxes. He is a prideful man. He is not the kind of man that's going to admit a mistake. And the fact that he has done this unwittingly, because he hasn't been given the information by Esther, that's probably not gonna go well. Now she has to talk to the king. In the very next verse, it says the king asks her, What do you want, Queen Esther? What is your request? I will give it to you, even if it's half the kingdom. Why is if your husband's ever made a promise you know they will not keep? Right? That's exactly what this is. Xerxes is not the kind of man that shares anything. So if Esther's gonna say, Great, yeah, I'll have half the kingdom, he's not gonna say, Wonderful, you just draw the line and pick the side, and I'll take what's left. He's not saying this because he means it. Xerxes cares about Xerxes. He's just having some pomp and circumstance. This is one of those things that a king would say to look very regal and to look very kind and giving, but she knows who she's talking to. So this is what she says. Esther replied, if it please the king, let the king and Haman come today to a banquet I have prepared for the king. And we can look at this and say, Esther, what are you doing? You have cold feet. Are you second-guessing yourself? That is not what you want. You don't want to hang out with Haman and the king. You want this problem solved, but again, Esther is so wise. She hasn't seen the king for a month. And she knows how much Xerxes loves a party, especially one in his honor. So she comes to him first saying, if it please the king. If I could just do something to help you out, Xerxes. To help lighten your load. Would you come to a banquet with me today? Next Sunday, Ken's gonna show us what happens at the banquet. But I want you to know that the hard part's done. It may seem like Esther has relented at the end, but she's actually taking an incredibly perfect approach. I got called in the principal's office in first grade. In third grade, in fifth grade, in seventh and eighth grade, and three times in high school. Had a lot of fun in school. And so I would get called in the principal's office even in high school. When this was something I had been through before, I was nervous. I was intimidated. Can you imagine how intimidating it must have been to walk up to the throne? What that must have been like. I mean, a throne room is not exactly meant to be an inviting environment. There would have been huge statues of the king, murals of his conquests. It's designed to remind you how great the king is and how small you are in comparison. There would have been these palace guards armed to the teeth, dressed in full suits of armor, these huge guys, all these very important members of the government would have been in the room most days. Didn't happen this day, but most days, Haman himself would have been standing at the king's right hand. His most trusted advisor. And when Esther opened those doors, she had to know there was a chance she would be staring Haman in the face. How intimidating that must be to walk into that throne room, to go up to the king dressed in his royal clothing again, designed to reinforce the fact that this king is so great, so wealthy, so grand. Make sure you realize who you're talking to. So what does Esther do? She tiptoes in. She's walking on eggshells. She's coming delicately, carefully, because she has to. And she says, Oh, if it if it please the king, she would have been bowing. That's the approach she had to make to the throne when she made it. See, that's step three in the blueprint. Doesn't seem as practical as the first two to stick with me. Step one is approaching the problem. Step two, approach it in prayer. Step three is approaching the throne of the king. We're like, yeah, I can do that in my life. I have a problem right now, I can choose to approach it, I can pray about it first. I might even give this fasting thing a try. I don't really have a king to go to. Not sure what the open office is like. I doubt there's an open door policy. In reality, we have the exact same choice that we can follow the exact same steps. Because we do have a king. We do have a king. He's a very different kind of king than Xerxes. And we can't approach our king. In fact, we can approach the throne of our king. Right now, not physically in our bodies, but in terms of our mentality in approaching God, we can walk up to his throne. There are times in scripture where prophets were given a glimpse into heaven and they see God on his throne. And every time it happens, it is crazy, it is amazing, and it's really weird. And sometimes we can read the weird stuff in the Bible and get tripped up by it and go, whoa, I was okay with this whole Jesus thing until I read that. That's strange. But I would love to invite you today to be okay with the weird stuff. If I go to the zoo and I don't see any animals I've never seen before, I'm a little disappointed. Right? If you paid money to go to the zoo and you saw squirrels and raccoons, you'd be like, what? It's a backyard. Okay. And if I go to heaven one day and I look around and I've seen it all before, I'm gonna be really disappointed. I'm serious. If I go to heaven one day and there's nothing there that I've never seen, I'm gonna be like, what gives? I wanna see some stuff that blows me away. I want to be wowed. Is anyone with me? Do you want that? I do. If we get to heaven, it's just more of the same. That's gonna be a letdown. We might not act like it. We might be like, yeah, God, no, this is this is amazing. Wow. Wow. Look at what you've done with the place. Wow. But in our hearts, we're gonna be like, come on, I wanted to see something cool. And if you read any of the glimpses that the prophets get into heaven, you don't have anything to be worried about because it's awesome and a little bizarre. Ezekiel was a prophet that lived about the same time as Esther, about 500 BC. And he got a glimpse into heaven. He got a glimpse into the throne room, the same kind of room that Esther would have been walking in. And he says in verse 4 of Ezekiel 1, as I looked, I saw a great storm coming from the north. Driving before it a huge cloud that flashed with lightning and shone with brilliant light. There was fire inside the cloud, and in the middle of the fire glowed something like gleaming amber. From the center of the cloud came four living beings that looked human, except that each had four faces and four wings. This is a little more intimidating than Xerxes' throne room. Okay? Forget gold statues, forget murals. We've got a cloud of fire, lightning coming out of it. We've got these living beings, these creatures that have four wings, four faces. Just think about that. Revelation gives us another picture into the throne room, and there's these different creatures, very similar to these. They have four faces too, but they're just covered in eyeballs, which is awesome. Okay. Means there's nowhere you can go in the room where they can't see you, right? I mean, it's kind of crazy, it's kind of weird, but it goes on. The living beings looked like bright coals of fire or brilliant torches, and lightning seemed to flash back and forth among them, and the living beings darted to and fro like flashes of lightning. So now we don't just have these crazy things. They're they're literally just lightning everywhere. In between them, lightning striking. I mean, this is nuts, and then it goes on. It says, above this surface was something that looked like a throne made of blue lapis lazuli. And on this throne high above was a figure whose appearance resembled a man. From what appeared to be his waist up, he looked like gleaming amber, flickering like a fire. And from his waist down, he looked like a burning flame shining with splendor. All around him was a glowing halo, like a rainbow shining in the clouds on a rainy day. This is what the glory of the Lord looked like to me. And when I saw it, I fell face down on the ground. I don't blame Ezekiel. This is nuts. Can you imagine walking up to that throne? Flying four-faced creatures, lightning, fire, things are glowing, there's a rainbow, it's crazy. Esther had to tiptoe up to the throne of Xerxes. She had to walk carefully, delicately. How carefully would you walk up to that throne? I mean, if we're honest of ourselves, like we might be a little bit intimidated, right? We might get up to that throne and go, you know what? I'm having some second thoughts. I uh this is cool and all, don't get me wrong, but I'm I've changed my mind. How many of us have pictures of our kids crying on Santa's lap? Anybody? Isn't that a strange thing? When you have children, those of you that don't yet, you'll understand this. Your children will wait in line to see Santa, excited the whole time. Asking, how long is this gonna take? I want to get there. And then that moment comes when it's time to go to Santa, it's their turn in line, and you put them on the ground, and instead of running to Santa, they go, No, no, no, no. I've changed my mind. I didn't think through this decision, and we're we're like, no, you went through the line, we're doing this, okay? I'll make you sit on Santa's lap, you will smile, and if you cry hard enough, it looks like a smile anyway, so it's okay. It's just something about us as people that when we're actually in the presence of something that we believe is greater than ourselves, with a child, that is Santa Claus. When we're in the presence of something great, we tend to shrink. That is natural. Esther approaches the king so carefully, she approaches that throne with such care. How could you approach God's throne? Hebrews chapter 4, and this is a verse I know we've looked at before. Bible says, so let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most. How does that work? How should we come tenderly, carefully to the throne of a man, but come boldly to the throne of God? The message version of Hebrews 4.16 says, let's walk right up to him and get what he's ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help. Just walk right up to God boldly. Don't tiptoe, don't bow down, don't say, if it please my king. If you can find it in your heart, God, to hear me, it says, Go right to him and ask for what you need. See, we can do that every single day in our hearts. And we can do it for two reasons. Number one, we have a very different king than Xerxes. But number two, and this is the big one, it's because unlike Esther, we have been invited into the presence of our king. That's why Esther's so scared, right? I can't go to the king, I can't go to the throne, I haven't received an invitation. Do you realize that you have been invited into the presence of God every single day of your life? You have a standing invitation to walk up to the very throne of God, to walk right up to God and get what he wants to give you. You can go to God boldly because he's invited you. You can experience his presence because he wants you to. It's all about his presence. Many of us have been in the presence of someone that lifts our spirits. Maybe we're having a down day, but when we're with this person, we laugh. Maybe we're scared, but when we're with this person, we're brave. Sometimes being in the presence of the right person changes everything. God has invited you into his presence. A few weeks ago, I was praying in a room on our main level in our house. Megan was out running errands. Both of our kids were taking a nap. My son usually takes a good two, three-hour nap in the afternoons. It's amazing. And he had just gone down for the nap. He was asleep, so I thought, okay, I've got some time. I'm gonna go spend some time in prayer, just some quiet time. And as I'm praying downstairs, he wakes up. He doesn't know where I am. So he starts to look for me. Well, actually, he starts to yell for me. That's step one. Then he starts to look for me. And he can't find me. So he looks and he looks and he goes room to room, and I'm nowhere to be found. And all of a sudden, as I'm praying, I hear a sound, and it's him crying. So I leave the room and I go to him, and he is sobbing. He is scared out of his mind. His bottom lip is quivering, and I knew exactly what was going on. I asked him, I said, son, did you think you were alone? He just looked at me and nodded. I hugged him and I told him that I was there, that I would never leave him. But then it hit me. You know, he's four years old, and he has not spent one moment of his life alone. There's never been a single moment in his entire life where he has not been in the presence of someone that cared for him. Not a day that he's spent outside of my presence or my wife's presence or his grandparents or someone that we trust with him. He has lived his entire life 100% of time, 100% of his time in the presence of someone he trusts. And the thought of being alone, it terrified him. Do we realize that we can spend 100% of our time in the presence of God? We tend to be the opposite. We get used to being alone. And so the few moments we get in God's presence, those are amazing. Those are cloud nine experiences. But they're the exception to the rule, and God wants it to be the other way around. We can live our lives in God's presence. It's a state of our hearts. It's not about a worship experience. It's not about a church thing. It's about having a heart that understands that no matter what our problems are, at any moment, at any time, I can barge into the throne room and ask for what I need. Because I've been invited to. And I may not belong in that throne room. Some of us in the room today, we may feel like, no, I resist God because I know I don't belong. I've messed up. I have sins. I have addictions, I have problems. I don't want to take those to God. I don't belong. I want you to know this morning that you may not belong, but you've been invited. And that's awesome. I had an experience a few years ago before I had children, and I had this thing called spare time. I would spend it, and I would write sports articles online. I used to want to be a sports journalist, and one year, I've shared this story before, uh, this article that I had written got some attention, and this website contacted me, and through a series of events, CBS, the network, sent me to the ACC basketball tournament to be their official correspondent. I was the CBS beat writer at the ACC tournament. I'm a huge basketball fan. I was living a dream. And the whole time I felt like this huge imposter. Because this is not what I do. I went there, I got these credentials. I have a badge that says CBS. And there's all these other guys that work for ESPN and these networks, guys that you would recognize if you watch sports. Dick Vitel, guys like that. I mean, I'm standing right next to them, pretending to be one of them. I'm just following their lead. I don't belong there. I'm not one of them. I didn't go to school for that. I don't have any experience. Everywhere I go, I kind of flash my badge, like, yeah, I'm supposed to be here. Okay? I got my license. The name matches. All right? I'm not faking anything. I felt like this huge imposter the whole time, but I loved every second of it because it didn't matter that I didn't belong. I knew I was invited to be there. That made it better. You have invited, you've been invited to be in the presence of your God. Do you want to be in his presence? Do you want to live in his presence? Just accept the invitation. That's all it is. What are your problems this morning? What are you dealing with? He has invited you to come to him for help. Just come to him. You don't have to come to him the right way, you don't have to pray the right prayer, say the right thing. You don't have to come to him delicately. You can be bold and go right to him and say, God, this is what I need. Help. Take the mercy, accept the help. He is God, he is good, and he loves you. Just walk up to him in your heart. Because he's yours. He has invited you. We're about to worship. There's one more song. We'll pray here in just a moment. I want us to be a people. And I say that. We're at this point as a church that's really unique. If you're here for the first time, I'm so glad you're with us. But I want you to understand that us means you as well. Every Sunday should be this amazingly personal moment for all of us where we should hear God speak to us. The Holy Spirit does that. You can take a message or a song that's meant for everyone and it feels like it's just meant for you. But we're more than individuals. We are a people. We are a church. And we have a purpose in this community. See, we can never let this church be like the palace that Xerxes lived in. We can never let this be a place where we have an excess of God's presence. And yet there's people right outside our walls that don't know who God is. They don't know that He is for them. They don't know that He wants them to come to Him. You ever missed a party that you didn't realize you were invited to? That's the worst. You didn't go because you didn't think you were invited only to find out later that you had been invited. You just missed the invitation. Our community has been invited into the presence of God. It's our job to let them know that. To bring people with us to the throne. We don't go there by ourselves, we go there together. But we have to go first. We can't hesitate. We can't hold back. We can't even go like Esther to Xerxes. No, we have to run to the throne. We have to go to God. We have to go right to Him in our hearts and say, God, I need this. I need my marriage to be fixed. I need a job. I need my children to forgive me for what I've done. I need help. We've got to go right to Him. Because He's the one that wants to give us what we need. Our greatest problem today can be our greatest success story tomorrow. If we approach it, approach it prayerfully and go right to the throne of our King. Approach that throne. And so we're going to pray right now. And we're going to approach that throne together. And I encourage you, in your heart, whatever problem you're dealing with, talk to God about it. Sing if you want to, stand if you want to. It's up to you. But go to God with what you need. He's crazy about you. And he has invited you into his throne room. Pray with me. Jesus, thank you so much. Father, I just heard a little child laugh. Thank you for loving us like little kids. In our hearts, we can be like a child laughing in your arms. We can go boldly to your throne. We don't go boldly to your throne to worship you. It doesn't say we're supposed to go boldly to your throne to tell you how great you are. We love doing that, God, but it says we're supposed to go boldly to your throne to get the help we need. We need you, Jesus. We love you. Help us go to your throne in our hearts right now. Help us enter into your presence. Help us accept the invitation. And God, I pray if there's any of us right now that for any reason have not ever accepted this invitation before, we've never gone to you, Jesus, and made you the God of our life. I pray that happens right now. That someone would make that decision, that someone would go to the prayer room in the back and tell someone in there, hey, I want to know Jesus. Help me. We've all been invited to have you, and we need you. We love you. We pray all this in your name, Jesus. Amen.