In Remembrance
Esther • Sermon • Submitted
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Title: In Remembrance
Text: Esther 9:20-32
1. Remember Your Salvation
20 And Mordecai recorded these things and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far,
21 obliging them to keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar and also the fifteenth day of the same, year by year,
22 as the days on which the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month that had been turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a holiday; that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, days for sending gifts of food to one another and gifts to the poor.
23 So the Jews accepted what they had started to do, and what Mordecai had written to them.
24 For Haman the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast Pur (that is, cast lots), to crush and to destroy them.
25 But when it came before the king, he gave orders in writing that his evil plan that he had devised against the Jews should return on his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows.
26 Therefore they called these days Purim, after the term Pur.
· The people of God should have dedicated times of remembering their salvation!
· This annual holiday was intended to remember the incredible story we've just read.
· When you are saved from certain death like the Jews were, why would you ever want to forget that?
· Pur (poor) was the name of the dice that Haman used to gamble away their lives, and so that's how they remembered their salvation.
AP:
· Do you remember what God saved you from? Do you remember the wretched sinner that you were?
· Do you remember the depravity of your own heart?
· Ephesians 2:1-7 - "And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
· Don't forget where you came from!"
2. Remember Your Forgetfulness
· But we do forget! We begin to take our life for granted.
26 Therefore, because of all that was written in this letter, and of what they had faced in this matter, and of what had happened to them,
27 the Jews firmly obligated themselves and their offspring and all who joined them, that without fail they would keep these two days according to what was written and at the time appointed every year,
28 that these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation, in every clan, province, and city, and that these days of Purim should never fall into disuse among the Jews, nor should the commemoration of these days cease among their descendants.
· We act like God owed us salvation.
· The Jews knew their tendency towards forgetfulness, and so they scheduled an annual time. They put it on the calendar.
· They observed it the same days of the year each year, the same two days.
· The important thing was not the days, but the object they were remembering.
o Important to know the day you were saved? Not really. Just important to know that you were saved.
AP:
· You and I need reminders! We are prone to forget!
· Thankfully, God knew our forgetfulness, and he gave us a means by which we are to regularly be reminded of our own salvation.
· The Lord's Supper -
o Not a calendar day. Not even a suggested frequency.
o Per week, per month, per quarter, etc. Just do it!
o Remember the body of Christ - broken, beaten, torn, mutilated, unrecognizable.
o Remember the blood bursting out of his veins and dropping to the ground below.
o It's not healthy to try and make the Bible "g-rated." It's not. God intends for us to remember the cost of salvation. He intends for us to remember what took place on Calvary's hill.
3. Remember Your Future
27 the Jews firmly obligated themselves and their offspring and all who joined them, that without fail they would keep these two days according to what was written and at the time appointed every year,
28 that these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation, in every clan, province, and city, and that these days of Purim should never fall into disuse among the Jews, nor should the commemoration of these days cease among their descendants.
29 Then Queen Esther, the daughter of Abihail, and Mordecai the Jew gave full written authority, confirming this second letter about Purim.
30 Letters were sent to all the Jews, to the 127 provinces of the kingdom of Ahasuerus, in words of peace and truth,
31 that these days of Purim should be observed at their appointed seasons, as Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther obligated them, and as they had obligated themselves and their offspring, with regard to their fasts and their lamenting.
· Finally, the Jews intended that their children and grandchildren know of the tremendous way in which they had been saved.
· This was a story worth telling, a story worth repeating.
AP:
· Do you tell your children the story of your salvation?
· Do they know of your sinfulness past? Don’t fool them into believing that you had it altogether at one point. They know that's a lie.
· Tell them of how God redeemed you!
· Use the Lord's Supper as an opportune teaching moment!
· Unbelievers should not take the supper because unbelievers are not believers. Age is not the issue. Children don't take not because they are children, but because they are unbelievers! Parents - Teach! Tell them story, then pray for God to redeem them!
· What a day that will be when they get to remember their own salvation with you!