December 2, 2008

• Bible Reading: Esther/(11) Kingdom-Obsessed people don't act like Queen Vashti

  I think this will be my final post in my series about Kingdom-obsessed people. I realize there's some overlap between this and a lot of other things I've written, even in this particular series, but I know I certainly need these reminders and suspect there are others who need them as well. May our King strengthen us to will and to do of His good pleasure, so we might not despise His work but dwell with our King for His work.

     
  
  Kingdom-Obsessed People don't act like Queen Vashti: they don't despise God's work but they dwell with the King for His work

  As Christians we are citizens of God's Kingdom, therefore, we must willingly offer ourselves to serve our King and His Kingdom purposes. We ought to be submitting ourselves to His desires. We should faithfully serve wherever He sends us. We are to persevere in the work He has assigned to us. We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus to walk in the works He has ordained for us. We are to be about our Father's business.

  But when our King gives us a command to work for Him, we sometimes try to put restrictions or boundaries on the work He has given us to do. Like Moses, we begin to argue with God that He must have the wrong person, and begin to spew out a series of excuses. Or, like Jonah, we conveniently book passage on a ship headed in the opposite direction to God's will for us. Or, like Saul, we finish most of the work, but there's a portion left undone. Or like Peter, we are more concerned about the work of others than about our own work.

  But God, I don't really want to serve in that way. Honestly, that makes me a bit uncomfortable. But You know that I would be glad to do this other thing for You instead.

  God, I know I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. Yes, I know You created me, but I'm having doubts that I'm fearfully and wonderfully made for this particular work.
  
  God, yes, I hear You, but I don't get it. Don't You understand that I wouldn't get to use my gifts if I did that? And that would certainly would be a waste of my potential––wouldn't it?

  Um, are You really sure about this? Am I hearing You right? Isn't there someone else you can get to do this?

  You know, I think there's a boat leaving for Tarshish in the morning...that seems like a plan, to me. It certainly makes a lot more sense to me than going to Nineveh.

  What was that? Well, yes, but I did do most of what You told me to do. Isn't that enough?

  You want me to do what? What about her?

  Out of all the zillions of sermons I've heard since becoming a Christian (I'm estimating well over 1500!), one sermon that the Holy Spirit keeps bringing to mind is a sermon I heard on Isaiah 6 a few years ago. The thing I keep remembering is how the speaker said something like, "We cannot despise the work God has for us." God told Isaiah there would be guaranteed results...but not the type of results we look for or desire...God was calling Isaiah to go to a people who would not hear him. Guaranteed failure! It would have been easy for Isaiah to despise the work God had for him. In His graciousness, God did encourage Isaiah with the promise of a remnant, but in the meantime Isaiah is told to persevere in the work God had given him...until the land is devastated...to the bitter end..even though Israel still won't hear. This makes no sense to us. We seek success, growth and popularity, not failure, decline and rejection. But if God calls us to work for Him, we cannot refuse His call, no matter where it leads us, no matter what the outcome. Whenever and wherever our King calls us, we must heed His voice and follow Him in whatever work He has given us to do, without grumbling or questioning.

  I often find myself second-guessing God and despising the work my King has given me, instead of remembering that I am not even worthy to untie His sandal strap! For God to invite us His Kingdom in the first place is an amazing thing (a holy God offering salvation to sinners is a truly marvelous thing!), but then for Him to invite broken vessels like us to work in His Kingdom is almost even more amazing. It is truly a most awesome privilege and a tremendous responsibility to serve our King. Yet too often I become prideful and think I can pick and choose what I would do, rather than remembering that I serve at the pleasure and behest of my King, Who expects me to heed His call and obey His voice.

  As I read the first chapter of Esther, a soberness came over me. I realized how often I act like Queen Vashti toward my King.

  On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he commanded Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha and Abagtha, Zethar and Carkas, the seven eunuchs who served in the presence of King Ahasuerus, 11 to bring Queen Vashti before the king with her royal crown, in order to show the peoples and the princes her beauty, for she was lovely to look at. 12 But Queen Vashti refused to come at the king's command delivered by the eunuchs. At this the king became enraged, and his anger burned within him.

  I realize that we can't draw exact parallels here between a human king, King Ahasuerus, and our heavenly King, but I think there is a definite lesson and warning here for us and for me...

  How often do we act like Queen Vashti? How often do we refuse to come at our King's command?

  How often do I refuse to come at my King's command!

  Each time we refuse to come at our King's command, each time we despise the work our King has given us, we are, in fact, despising our King! The King who laid down His life in our place...
  
  Then consider Mary, the mother of our Lord.

  How very different was Mary's response to her King's call than Vashti's response:

  And Mary said, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.
  

  Our King expects us to offer ourselves as living sacrifices to Him. As the apostle Paul reminds us, to do so is our reasonable worship, or service.

  Certainly it is completely reasonable that our Redeemer expects us to offer ourselves up to Him without grumbling and questioning, without delay and with joy and gladness? After all, we owe Him our very lives. He has bought us with His precious blood, therefore, we are no longer our own and are no longer to live for ourselves but for our King. Yet how often do we call to Him, "Lord, Lord," but don't treat Him as Lord and King? On Sunday mornings, we may render praises to our King with our mouths, but are we rendering our whole lives to our King?

  God has written His law on our hearts so we might obey Him with joy and gladness. He has given us His Spirit so we can walk in newness of life, now able to choose to live a life of willing and glad obedience to our King, to obey His voice when He calls us rather than to refuse His commands. For all who are in Christ, His love ought to be constraining us to obey His commands not out of obligation but out of love for Him and thankfulness to Him who died for us.

  The irony to all this is that I often ask God to show me how He wants me to be serving Him, but then when He shows me, I balk. I see it as an inconvenience to me. Or I see it as too difficult. Or I see it as not really the right thing for me since I'm expecting something different (usually that means something "better"). Or I think He must have someone else better suited to the job.

  When I respond in those ways, I've forgotten that all my life is to be given over to doing my King's good pleasure–that my whole heart, soul, mind and strength is to be bound up with my Father's purposes, so my life might be all about my Father's business and His Kingdom. I forget that God's call to work is truly a Divine summons which I cannot disregard or disobey.

  Because Queen Vashti did not please the king, because she did not come when called, King Ahasuerus sought a new queen:

  Then let the young woman who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti.

  Brothers and sisters, our King is looking for men and women and boys and girls to please Him. Are we pleasing our King?

  Our King is looking for us to live lives like our Savior.

  ...I always do the things that are pleasing to him. John 8:29b.
  

  The Lord Jesus is our example of perfect obedience. God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, was constantly about His Father's business...even years before that day He ended up in the temple at age 12 and told us so...(After all He was the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.)

  We often seek the best place, but God's call is for us to take the place of a servant, to follow in the steps of the One who willingly took up the basin and towel and knelt down to wash feet. When we look on our Savior's wounded hands and feet and pierced side, we remember that he came to serve and not to be served. When we lose sight of that, we begin to despise the work God has for us and we often refuse to come at our King's command. When we see any work as being beneath us, then we despise that work. We forget that our Savior Himself left His place in heaven to become a servant The One through whom all things were made made Himself nothing. This is yet another glorious thing for us to consider as we reflect on the mystery and marvel of the incarnation this Advent and Christmas season.

  Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Philippians 2:6-8.

  Jesus did not shrink back from obedience to His Father, even when obedience meant death on a cross...

  Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name. Then a voice came from heaven: I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again. John 12:27-28.

  The Lord Jesus came to do His Father's will and not His own. He lived a holy and blameless life, wholly sanctified to doing His Father's work. He delighted to do His Father's will. He sought to bring His Father glory. He steadfastly set His face to Jerusalem. He was despised and rejected and mocked and tortured. He willingly suffered outside the camp and was made a reproach. The One who was without sin willingly became sin for us so He might bring us back to God. He died a criminal's death on the cross. In all that, Jesus glorified His Father and finished all the work His Father had given Him to do. God the Son lived a life of perfect obedience to His Father.

  I desire to do your will, O my God;
  your law is within my heart. Psalm 40:8.

  I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. John 17:4.
  

  
  Do we desire to do God's will like Jesus did?
  How often do we not push through and persevere in obedience the way our Lord did?
  How often do we lose sight that we are saved to render ourselves to our King for His purposes?

  How can we ever do this? Well, the good news is this:

  The Lord Jesus is not only our example of obedience but is our power to obey. The promised Holy Spirit has come to indwell all believers so we might live no longer for ourselves but for Him who died for us. He frees us from being slaves to the devil, to sin and to self so we might be slaves to God and bear fruit to righteousness, to live lives of obedience to our King. As partakers of the divine nature, we have the very life of Christ working in us so we might live more and more like Jesus. As children of God, we now have the power to obey our King's commands because the Spirit of Jesus Himself dwells in us so we might render ourselves as living sacrifices to our King and render ourselves as living sacrifices to Him and do the things that please Him just like the Lord Jesus. God has put His law in our minds and written it on our hearts. Through the power of God at work in us, as we continue to present ourselves to God, we will be transformed by the renewing of our minds, so we will prove what is God's good, pleasing and perfect will, and be increasingly conformed into the image of His Son, which is God's will for us.
  
  I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20.

  Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or questioning...Philippians 2:12-14.

  If we are God's children, we have no excuse not to come when our King calls. He has given us the power to obey Him. For the born-again child of God, God's commandments are not burdensome.

  ...give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou wilt...
  (St. Augustine)

  When our King calls, do we choose to do obey our King's command or do we refuse to come like Queen Vashti?
  When our King calls, do we resemble Mary or Vashti?
  Are we about our Father's business or about our own business?
  Do we desire to do His will or do we despise the work our King has given us?
  Do we willingly offer ourselves to be about the work God has given us or do we shrink back from complete obedience?
  Do we focus on pleasing our Father and glorifying Him like Jesus?
  Do we do all things He has commanded without grumbling or questioning?

  So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. II Corinthians 5:9.

  From Spurgeon's "Morning and Evening," Morning June 3 (emphasis, mine):

  "These were potters, and those that dwelt among plants and hedges:
  there they dwelt with the king for his work."
  –I Chronicles 4:23
  
  

  Potters were not the very highest grade of workers, but "the king" needed potters, and therefore they were in royal service, although the material upon which they worked was nothing but clay. We, too, may engaged in the most menial part of the Lord's work, but it is a great privilege to do anything for "the king" and therefore we will abide in our calling, hoping that, "although we have lien among the pots, yet shall we be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold.' The text tells us that those who dwelt among plants and hedges had rough, rustic, hedging and ditching work to do. They may have desired to live in the city amid its life, society, and refinement, but hey kept their appointed placed, for they also were doing the king's work. The place of our habitation is fixed, and we are not to remove from it out of whim and caprice, but seek to serve the Lord in it by being a blessing to those among whom we reside. These potters and gardeners had royal company, for they dwelt "with the king," and although among hedges and plants, they dwelt with the king there. No lawful place, or gracious occupation, however mean, can debar us from communion with our divine Lord. In visiting hovels, swarming lodginghouses, workhouses, or jails, we may go with the king. In all works of faith we may count on Jesus' fellowship. It is when we are in His work that we may count on His smile. You unknown workers who are occupied for your Lord amid the dirt and wretchedness of the lowest of low, be of good cheer, for jewels have been found on dunghills before, earthen pots have been filled with heavenly treasure, and ill weeds have been transformed into precious flowers. Dwell with the king for his work, and when He writes His chronicles your name will be recorded.

  Holy Father,
  Thank You for making us Your children.
  Thank You for bringing us into Your Kingdom.
  Help us to live lives worthy of Your Kingdom calling.

  We confess we have despised the work You have given us.
  We confess we have despised You.
  Protect us from despising You and despising the work You have given us.
  Help us to embrace You and the work You have given us.

  Give us eyes to see that all work for You is royal work
  Help us to see that no work for You, O King, should be despised

  Give us the grace and power to dwell with You for Your work
  without grumbling
  without questioning
  with joy and gladness
  with delight
  with willing obedience
  For You have blessed us to be a blessing
  You have saved us to serve You
  Wherever and whenever You command
  Help us to will and to do of Your good pleasure
  Make us pleasing to You, O King,
  Help us to dwell with You for Your work
  All to Your Glory
  For Your Kingdom's sake.

  

  Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. 14 Do all things without grumbling or questioning...Philippians 2:12-14.

  Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, 21 equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Hebrews 13:20-21
  
  Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it. I Thessalonians 5:23-24.

  You may also be interested in reading:
  

  • Fourth Sunday of Advent (2007): The Magnificat
  • Happy Mother's Day (2007): Mary's "Kingdom Availability" and "Kingdom Vision"
  • A Song of Surrender: Aaron Shust's "Give It All Away"
  • Bible Reading:The Good Shepherd Recovers All, Disadvantages Himself & Is a Good Theologian
  • Atlanta: What Is Poverty? Jesus' Poverty: The One Who Wast Rich beyond All Splendor
  • What Is Success? What Is Making a Difference? Part 1: Jesus and Success
    
  • What Is Success? What Is Making a Difference? Part 11 ... from Oswald Chambers
  • What Is Success? What Is Making a Difference? Part 14-Being Faithful Wherever God Places Me
  • The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day
  • A Hymn for "Shelf" Times..."Lord, We Know That Thou Art Near Us"
  • Kingdom-Obsessed People don't keep looking in the rear view mirror...at "unfinished" work, # 4
  • (9) Kingdom-Obsessed People don't seek "great things" for themselves
  • The Feast of Christ the King: (10) Kingdom-Obsessed People crown Him Lord of all

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  Scripture quotations marked "ESV" are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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