From the Blog
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The God Who Turns our Sorrow into Joy
We are a forgetful people. We tend to remember our pain more readily than God’s faithfulness. We remember wounds, fears, disappointments, and losses, but quickly forget the ways God has sustained and delivered us. If we’re not careful, we’ll misinterpret God’s mercy and blessings as mere coincidence rather than His hidden hand at work in our lives.
The book of Esther reminds us that God not only works to deliver His people; He calls them to remember His deliverance. In the final section of Esther, Mordecai and Esther established the annual festival of Purim to commemorate how God overturned Haman’s decree of annihilation, turning their sorrow into joy. -
The God Who Delivers From Death
In previous chapters, we saw that even when God is not mentioned, He is not missing. God positioned Esther as queen for a purpose she did not yet understand. We saw the crisis unfold as Haman’s hatred toward Mordecai turned into a genocidal decree against the Jewish people. Faced with fear and uncertainty, Esther chose courage, calling for prayer and stepping forward in faith. Then God turned the tables on Haman’s wicked plans and Haman himself was destroyed by his own gallows.
Now as we come to Esther 8–9, the enemy Haman is dead, but the danger is not. The decree still stands. Across the Persian empire, the people of God are living with the shadow of an appointed day of death hanging over them. Can God still be trusted when the threat is still on the calendar?
This text answers with a resounding yes. It shows us that our God is not only powerful enough to expose the enemy – He is faithful enough to carry His people all the way through the danger. In Esther 8–9, the author described how God providentially delivered His people from death by positioning His servants to issue a new decree that enabled the Jews to overcome their enemies and survive Haman’s irrevocable edict. -
The God Who Turns the Tables
Have you ever watched someone do wrong and appear to get away with it? Have you ever wondered why the proud prosper, why dishonest people advance, why those who manipulate and wound others seem to succeed while the faithful suffer? Maybe you've prayed, waited, and tried to do what is right, yet evil still appears to have the upper hand.
There are seasons when God's hand feels hidden and the wicked appear to be winning. Esther reminds us that while God may seem silent, He is never absent. Even when we cannot see His hand, He is at work preparing to turn the tables. So when evil appears to be winning and God seems silent, how does God work to rescue His people?
In the book of Esther 6:14–7:10, the author recorded how God providentially reversed the wicked plans of the Persian official Haman and saved the Jewish people from destruction. We can see how God providentially reverses the plans of the wicked to save His people. -
The God Who is Already at Work
This week, as Esther approaches the king and Haman’s plot continues to unfold, something remarkable happens. There are no miracles, no visions, no dramatic interventions—just a series of ordinary events. A banquet. A delay. A restless night. A remembered deed. And yet, through all of it, God is at work.
Because if we’re honest, this is where many of us live. Not in the dramatic moments, but in the ordinary details of life. And in those moments, we often wonder: Where’s God? When delays come… when plans fail… when evil seems to be advancing… when nothing seems to be improving… it can feel like God is absent.
But Esther shows us that even in the most ordinary and unnoticed details, God is already at work. In Esther 5:1–6:13, as Haman’s deadly plot advanced and Esther sought favor, a series of seemingly ordinary events revealed that God was already at work to deliver His people. -
The God Who Calls Us to Speak Up
There are moments in life when following God will cost us something. Moments when standing for what is right puts us at risk. Moments when silence feels safer than speaking, and compromise feels easier than conviction. And in those moments, God often feels hidden. We wonder: Where is God when evil is advancing? Where is God when the pressure is on? What we need is the courage to trust that even when God seems silent, He is still sovereign and He is calling us to act.
And that’s exactly what we see in Esther chapters 3 and 4. God is not named, but He is not absent. He is working behind the scenes, pressing His people into moments where silence is no longer an option. He is calling them to speak up in faith when fear says to stay quiet.
In Esther chapters 3 and 4, the narrator recorded how God, though never named, sovereignly worked to call His people to courageously speak up in response to Haman’s evil genocidal decree against the Jews of Persia. -
The God Who Works Behind the Scenes
Many of us struggle right here. We believe God is real—but when life feels chaotic, when circumstances don’t make sense, and when God seems silent, we start to wonder: Is He really at work in my life? If you’ve ever felt like God is distant, inactive, or hard to see, then this book is for you.
And that’s exactly what the book of Esther helps us see, that even when God seems hidden, He is not absent. He is working behind the scenes.
In the book of Esther, the author showed God’s people living in exile under the Persian King Ahasuerus that the Lord was providentially working behind the scenes to accomplish His purposes for His people -
The Consummation
We started with creation, where everything was good. Then came the fall, where sin broke everything. We saw the flood, the covenant, the exodus, the giving of the law, the founding of the Davidic kingdom, the exile, the coming of Christ, the work of the cross, and the birth of the church.
From beginning to end, it’s been one story: A holy God rescuing His broken world through Jesus Christ. But every story begs the question: How does it end?
Today, in The Consummation, we don’t just see the end of the story, we see the fulfillment of every promise God has made from Genesis onward. In the book of Revelation 21, the apostle John saw a vision that revealed how God will ultimately bring His redemptive story to completion. -
The Church
Today we are going to join the disciples and other followers of Jesus in their moment of limbo. They were with Jesus for 3 years during his earthly ministry, they watched him crucified but then they saw him after his resurrection. Jesus was with them for 40 days after the resurrection, and then he left them again, ascended into Heaven. And he told them to wait.
Now what? That’s not just their question—it’s ours. What do we do with the fact that Jesus has died for our sins, risen from the grave, and is now seated at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us? That is incredible news … but what comes next?
In the book of Acts, Luke recorded that God established His Church as His means to accomplish His purpose of rescuing all nations. -
The Cross (It’s Empty Now)
So far in The Story, we’ve traced it from creation and the garden, through the fall and the flood, to God’s covenant with Abraham; from the exodus and the law, to the conquest and the kingdom under David; through the heartbreak of exile—and then last week, to the arrival of Christ, the long-promised Savior who stepped into history to redeem what was lost.
But today, in this message, we reach the climax. If the Bible is the Story of everything, then the Resurrection of Jesus is the hinge upon which everything turns. We aren't just celebrating a religious holiday; we are celebrating the day the ending of your story might be rewritten… from "Death" to "Life."
To understand how we fit into this victorious story, we must look at how we respond to the "first importance" of the Gospel, which is the Good News that Jesus saves!
In the apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he reminded them of the first importance of the gospel he had preached to them in order to strengthen their faith in Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection and warn them from believing in vain. -
The Christ
If God has come near… do we recognize Him? Because it’s possible to: know the story… but miss the Savior; to be religious… but not have a relationship with God.
That was the tragedy of the first century. And it is still the danger of the twenty-first. What we need is not more information about God, but an introduction to God. We need a true revelation of God. We need to see and know Jesus for who He truly is and the relationship He offers to know God.
And that’s exactly what the opening of John’s Gospel gives us. It doesn’t begin with a manger…it begins with majesty! It begins “in the beginning.” And it pulls back the curtain and shows us who Jesus really is!
In the gospel of John, he presented a beautifully poetic and theologically rich prologue to show that Jesus is the eternal Word who became flesh and tabernacled among us, revealing God’s glory and inaugurating the fulfillment of the Story.