Before we dive in, as with any kind of governance change
or organizational change, if you have any questions
or want to have a conversation about that,
please find your elder.
If you don't know who your elder is,
there's an alphabetized list on the bulletin board
on the east side.
Feel free to contact your elder if you have any questions
about that as we move forward.
So I asked in the beginning of service maybe to think
about growing up your favorite superhero.
And I know that's probably a pretty wide spectrum
and we may get a little nerdy this morning, but that's okay.
Who were some of the favorite superheroes of yours growing up?
Or maybe currently?
That's fine too.
Spider-Man.
Why Spider-Man?
Why not Spider-Man?
All right.
Fair enough.
Okay. Others?
Superman. Sure.
Why Superman, Mike?
Because you like the tights.
That makes sense.
Okay. Other?
G.I. Joe.
The real American hero, right?
And what?
The Kung Fu Grip.
This took a turn.
Okay. She-Ra from He-Man, right?
She-Ra. Right.
She...
Yeah. Okay.
Anything else?
No. That was it.
All right.
But didn't...some with tigers, right?
Didn't she like ride a tiger or something like that?
Yeah. Okay.
Anyone else?
The Hulk.
How many did you have?
You like so many.
Okay. The Hulk.
Why?
He's so big and green.
Absolutely.
Okay. Yes.
In the back.
Over there.
Jenna.
Captain America.
Why Captain America?
Because it's Chris Lyons, right?
I get it.
But yeah.
Just because?
Huh? Chris Evans?
Who cares?
Yeah. Oh.
So 19...he's not omnipresent.
That's Jesus.
But yeah.
I mean 1900s into 2002 or whatever you said.
Good. Any others?
Maybe up in the balcony.
Any superheroes up there?
Tina. The what?
The greatest...do they have a name?
No. No.
Just the greatest American hero.
It could be anybody.
All right.
Yeah. Santa.
I'm just kidding.
But yeah. Did I see a name?
A hand up over here?
Tom, I know you got one.
I have too many.
You have too many.
Who's on the Mount Rushmore of your superheroes?
Well, some are already covered.
Fair enough.
Batman?
Batman. Yeah.
Bruce Wayne.
I mean absolutely.
And superheroes, right, if we...oh, we got one.
Yeah. Go ahead.
Which one are you?
Maverick.
Maverick. Yes.
Yeah. Your hand's up.
Go ahead.
What? Is it you?
Do you want to say your dad?
Jeff Nadeborg?
Right. Is he a superhero to you?
Iron Man.
Yeah. That's a good one.
Absolutely.
And if we follow kind of the logic of Dwight Trute from The Office,
that a superhero comes to us after some kind of trauma, right,
that they have some kind of childhood trauma that they have to avenge, right?
So there's this understanding of...you think about Bruce Wayne
and his parents being killed and then, you know, all of those things.
And I'm not going to go through all of them.
If you want all the detailed history on that, clearly go to Jess or Tom.
And so they'll have all the answers.
But we idolize superheroes.
I mean it's...how do we know?
Just Halloween, right?
Our trunk-or-treating, our fall family night, right?
We don't see a whole lot of just everyday people, right?
Sam, what do you do for Van Jrunen again?
Sales, right?
How many of you have ever dressed up for Halloween as Sam Dykstra, sales at Van Jrunen?
You dress up like it every day, right, because it's you.
But we elevate these people.
The amount of supermans and ironmans and we don't have a whole lot of she-ras,
so clearly I think you made that up.
But, you know, we put these people on a pedestal because of really their fiction.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but they are made up.
And so we want to be like them in some ways, right?
We want to either have the strength or they can fly or, you know,
they shoot things out of their eyes or whatever.
When you really break it down, it's fairly ridiculous, but we attach to them.
You think of the Marvel movies over the last 15 years.
One of the, it grows some of the highest earnings, right, with Chris Lyons or Chris Evans.
They would still do fine, you know, as far as the money they raised
because people get lost in the adventure.
I mean, no one said Indiana Jones, but I would put him in there.
I geek out on Indiana Jones, right?
In my mind, there's four because Crystal Skull should never have been made, and so I reject it.
But, you know, at the end of the day, it's people that at the right time
and the right situation, they rise up.
They meet the occasion that they're in, and some do it very flamboyantly and big and fly
like Iron Man and all these things, or someone like Indiana Jones,
they just step into their intellect.
They step into their wonder, into their knowledge.
And not to sound like super schoolhouse rock, but all of us are superheroes in some way.
That we all step into things at times, or at least we should,
and we get that DNA in the scriptures.
Because there is, and I would love it if you guys all Googled, not now,
but later today, just don't judge me for it, just the band was called Pillar.
They came out in the early 2000s, and they wrote a song called The Original Superman,
and it was all about Jesus.
Yes, it's an amazing, I know that silence, you're going, wow, that must be a great song.
Maybe we'll do it in worship next month.
No, we won't.
But that really is the heart of it.
That Jesus is the original Superman in that sense, and understanding that the season of Advent
every week is pointing us to the different superhero natures that is the Christ child.
And that there's a time for all of this.
That all of the who, what, when, where, why, how of Jesus has been foretold hundreds of years.
Come tonight at 430, you're going to hear more about that.
But what we need to understand is that we also see this in the person of Esther,
but it mirrors the person of Jesus.
Esther 9, 21 and 22, and we're going to get into the story in a little bit,
but obliging them to keep the 14th day of the month, Adar, and also the 15th day of the same,
year by year, 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, 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 the gifts to the poor.
Is that it, Hannah? Just that one?
So what this is setting up is a specific time.
That there's a time to celebrate this kind of what we call Advent, they call the days of Adar,
that this coming of Messiah, they were celebrating this futuristic person,
that they all had created their own kind of understandings about it,
and they're pulling all of their information from the prophets.
The prophets, big and small, or major or minor, do you ever know major prophets, minor prophets?
It had to do with their stature or anything like that.
It's the size of their book, so don't overthink it.
You have your major prophets, your minor prophets, and so you see in the book of Jeremiah 31,
it says, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
So this is looking forward. This is a Messianic text.
It's looking for a solution, an answer to their problems.
And if we're honest, we do this all the time, that we think of the certain situations we find ourselves
and we look to a futuristic day, whether it's a futuristic raise,
whether the hope that there will be a healing relationship,
or that God's going to intervene in a certain aspect of life.
But we are a people that look to things, and it's in our nature, because it's in our DNA.
We see from the prophet Isaiah, chapter 9,
the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.
Those who dwelt in the land of deep darkness, on them a light has shone.
So not only is there going to be light,
there's going to be this big thing is coming, that a new covenant is going to be made.
And we've learned that from previous sermon series, that covenants were important,
that this agreement, there was something active that was going to happen.
Then it gets even more descriptive.
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given,
the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called,
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Now notice, none of you mention that.
When I said, favorite superheroes growing up,
and maybe you haven't grown up in the church, so you're exempt,
but no one said, Wonderful Counselor, Almighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
I'm not going to lie, I would take, Jenna, don't get mad,
I would take the Prince of Peace over Captain America.
I would take Almighty God, I would take Messiah over Iron Man, and all of those.
Because it's for a certain time, it was for a certain purpose.
We see even in the book of Micah, one of the smallest of the books of the prophets,
we see, but you, O Bethlehem of Paphra, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me, one who is to be ruler in Israel,
for coming forth is from old, from ancient days.
And after that prophecy, it's radio silence for almost 500 years.
500 years of a people waiting, a people wanting, a people expecting,
a people with anxiety, a people with real struggles,
a people that have been bruised and beaten with the Northern Kingdom, the Southern Kingdom,
different rulers, different kings, they see, you know, they walk through the Saul's and the David's,
the Absalom's, the Solomon's, all of these human entities
that ultimately do not bring what they want to be accomplished, which is the Messiah.
And there were people every day claiming to be Messiah,
that this title Messiah was something that people would claim and they would always,
it would always fall through. They would oversell and under deliver always.
So when we talk about this anticipation and the expectation of Advent, of Christmas,
of the Christ child, understand we do this year in and year out
as the kids are looking forward to days off of school,
the parents are terrified after day three and want school to restart,
we go through the debt of buying gifts and the parties,
the introverts are exhausted, the extroverts are excited,
that's what we've turned Advent into.
That is nothing to what the people of Israel were anticipating in that season,
that feast of Adar that they would come.
And I would think how disappointed. They'd go through the feast,
the Messiah didn't come. That generation goes by, you know, go through the feasts,
Messiah doesn't come. That generation goes by 500 years.
And that's just after the prophets stopped speaking.
And then you see in John 1 as we talked about last week,
there was a witness that was John the Baptist, right, didn't write John,
but you know, that was John the disciple, John the Baptist, different.
And all of a sudden a witness comes to prepare the way.
One of the stories I love about that is that even in utero, right,
when Elizabeth is carrying John and Mary is carrying Jesus,
he recognizes the Lordship. It's unbelievable.
I don't know about you, but that's a superhuman, right, that is a superhero.
But what's interesting to me is that this idea of rescue coming from a very obscure place
is reflected in the story of Esther.
That Esther, if we actually look to it, is actually a story of the rescue of the Israelites,
where if you kind of compare that with Jesus, there is a lot of similarities.
And so you have this stage set for the person of Esther now.
I've done a lot of reading on Esther, read a lot of commentaries,
but I don't know if there's a better retelling,
and I wish we could just sit and watch it, is the Veggie Tales story of Esther.
It really does my heart good, because what it shows, it raises up this person of Esther
in a humble way, but that she was going to come down to be the rescue for God's people,
an unlikely person and an unlikely source in an unlikely way.
That there were so many things that had to intertwine in order for the people of Israel
to be saved from Haman and the guards and the people under the king,
that for such a time as that, Esther arose.
As we celebrate in Advent, for such a time as this, Jesus comes.
So we're going to do a little bit of the compare and contrast.
We're going to kind of go quickly over the story of Esther.
You have King Xerxes in some of your texts, it's King, oh, this one's hard,
a Hacerus, but that sounds more like a dinosaur, so we're just going to say King Xerxes.
King Xerxes is lonely, he wants to have a mate, he wants to have a queen,
and because he's king, and he can, and it's back in this time,
he kind of has a biblical view of the bachelor, which again, I don't watch it,
and if you do, I'll pray for you, but understand that this was kind of that thing,
that he had the authority to say, I'm going to have all the single ladies,
Beyonce and all that kind of stuff, come in, and they're just going to be in the house for a year.
Now, I could probably talk through the drama that probably goes through that,
a year of all these single ladies that are all trying to spend a night with the king
and catch the king's eye and all of that, and maybe that's where that dumb show got its take,
that was the Bible, I doubt it, but maybe, and all of a sudden he picks one,
it doesn't work out, right, and so there's this understanding,
or I should say before all of that, that's one of the reasons why he has it,
he finds a queen, it doesn't work out, right, and so now Esther's part of this group,
and Esther gets, you know, kind of, the Lord kind of anoints Esther to be a part of this narrative.
It's a narrative of pride, it's a narrative of shame, right, you have the King Zerches' right-hand Haman,
who's got this really high position and wanted to be worshipped, he wanted people to bow down to him,
and Mordecai would not do it, and so out of ego and pride and anger and pound of flesh,
he wants to kill Haman, or Haman wants to kill Mordecai, and the Jewish people.
So this is more than just a hit on Mordecai, this is a hit on everybody.
This is, we're going to wipe them all out, Haman, an evil, evil man.
And so we see Mordecai and the family come to Esther and say, we need your help.
You have been put in a position of presence, you've been put in a position of prominence
to change the story, to change the narrative, to save us.
And as the story goes, right, we see that Esther, even though she chickens out a couple times,
she makes a feast for the King, for Haman, right, does it do it the first time, gets scared, does it again,
and then the plot, you know, the plot that Haman has to kill Mordecai, the King remembers,
where Mordecai honored the King, and there was a wonderful interaction,
which I think is so ironic, of the King going to Haman and saying, who was that guy?
What do we do for people that I want to honor?
And that Haman actually has to honor Mordecai, right, it's a beautiful, just kind of irony, if you will.
And we know the story, right, Esther rises up.
It's funny, she doesn't rise up, and then all of a sudden the Israelites,
we're not going to be attacked because the King's decrees, you don't back off of those.
But what Esther was able to do is say, okay, the Israelites will be able to,
the Jews will be able to defend themselves, and they did.
And the story continues.
And so Esther being put in that position, as I was reading it this week, I thought to myself,
how often, and maybe it's not as dramatic as life and death, but how often are you called,
and I called, to be in a position of influence?
And I thought about that understanding of influence.
And some of you, I say the word influence, and you want to run and hide.
You don't want that, there's nothing you need about that in your life.
You know there's other people that can do it, and you want to go, you'll support it,
but you won't be that individual.
That's fine.
We see them all the time, right?
For every Moses in the Bible, you also have an Aaron.
So understand that if you are more of a background person, your giftings are more in the background,
understand that's amazing, because that is a beautiful compatibility of giftings.
But our places of influence, I just want to take five seconds of silence, as best we can.
And I want you to think about a relationship, maybe your job, or something else,
right where you believe God is putting you in a place of influence as a believer.
Because here's the kicker.
Anyone that claims Jesus is Lord has been given a commission by Jesus himself to go and make disciples.
No ifs, ands, or buts.
You cannot say, you cannot come to me or your elder and say,
when Jesus gave that commission, that's not me, I'll cook for them.
Or, you know, I will do this.
I am not called to go.
Friend, you are, you are, you are.
We are called to be influencers.
Now there's a part of me that hates that term with what our culture has done online, right?
I don't need to be those kind of influencers.
But understand that we have, if we have Jesus, we have influence.
But what does that influence look like?
Well, let's take a page from Esther.
Esther didn't do it with this command and authority.
She did it with humility and passion.
She made the most of her opportunities, right?
She wasn't going to throw away her shot.
She did it.
It wasn't easy.
God blessed it.
But she walked through it.
I often wonder, even in my own life, how many times I know that God's given this opportunity for me to speak into it,
for me to do something about it, for me to share that Jesus, and I just, I turn and I go the other way.
And I'm sure I'm not alone.
That is, we spend all of this energy and time preparing for the next 14 days.
Your office Christmas parties, your family Christmas parties, whether you're a New Year's Eve-er or a New Year's Day-er,
or all of those things, you're going to pray for me and Roger as Michigan plays Alabama on New Year's Eve.
Hail.
Understand that we do this preparing, God is putting you in positions this next couple weeks.
I'm going to focus on that because that's where we are.
But the third week in February, God's going to put you in a position, too.
Labor Day weekend, you got a position there as well.
Fourth of July, you can do it with fireworks and you have a position.
Or if you live in Indiana the entire month of July.
Understand that you have influence.
Understand that if you have Jesus, you actually have everlasting life.
You have the message of grace, love, and forgiveness of all of the junk in your life that a world desperately needs.
So how are you doing in that?
Because not only do we want to stand on the truth of Jesus and we want to walk that out,
but as I've said throughout this sermon series, what are you saying about the mess that is your life
and how Jesus has come and cleaned you?
Has cleaned up that situation?
Has made what was wrong right?
Maybe what was sinful into something forgiven.
Maybe you are here this morning and you go, I'm too broken to have influence.
Friend, let me turn that on you today. Your brokenness is your influence.
Because the world is broken.
But if we want to think that we have it all together, we want to have this high lofty Christianity
that does a great job of looking down on people, you are going to waste your influence
because who wants to be a part of that?
Who wants to see the hurt and the pain?
Jesus doesn't. How do we know? He tells us what to do.
He tells us to go out and make disciples.
And for 80% of you go, man, that's a job for a pastor and the elders.
My job, the elder's job, we are helped to encourage you, equip you that you are making disciples.
Let me say that again, we are assuming you are taking your shots of influence.
Not in a way of and you are gone.
No, you didn't do it. No. Because we have to do it as well.
That we understand as the church, as the people of God, especially in these next two weeks,
the world, though it doesn't recognize Jesus, the world is going to talk about it.
The world is going to sing about it. The world is going to connect all of these kind of Christmas holiday ideas
and the church is on display.
We know this Christmas, Easter, highest population in churches, though that is going down over the last 50 years,
which should shock nobody, the church has influence.
Last week, Paul Katz and I were invited to go to a meeting with small business owners.
To talk through a lot of the codes and all these little things that the town of Munster is known for,
and not in a great way, but having a good relationship with the town and wanting to be a servant in the town,
Paul and I went.
And what was interesting is they talked about oppression.
They felt that some of the codes and all these things, they felt oppressed by the town of Munster.
And I think Paul would agree. I don't think we've ever felt oppressed by the town of Munster by any means.
Yes, could that sign one day be an electric sign? Yes.
And that might be a good thing and a way to get the message out, even though Henry does a great job.
And just so you know, complete sidebar, like seven of you texted me that counselor was spelled wrong two weeks ago.
Understand, Henry does that for a reason.
It's not because Henry doesn't know how to spell, he does.
But I had a bunch of community people text me and go, candlelight spelled wrong.
And I go, you looked at the sign though, didn't you? And you remembered it.
That's exactly why Henry does it.
I didn't get it at first because I called him and said, man, like, do I have to spell this for you?
And he's like, no, this is why I do it. It's brilliant. It's strategic.
And it's going to stay that way.
But understand, we were in this meeting and we're hearing all of these people and it was negative.
I mean, Paul, it was negative, right?
Like, it didn't feel good.
But we could stand up and say, well, we've been the longest small business, by the way, 153 years.
But we want to bring the community together.
We want to have opportunities for the community to be engaged by us.
Think about what I just said.
The church was invited to a town meeting to talk about codes and a lot of the different rules to be in a town of Munster.
If that's not a seed of influence, then you don't understand influence.
Now, were Paul and I going to stand up, just, you know, throw holy water on everybody, pray and run out?
No. That would be the last meeting we ever get invited to.
But we have to understand that we have a place of influence in the system of Munster.
Is that not being part of the community?
So take that to your life.
Take that to family and friends that are unbelievers.
If you don't think you have a seed of influence, friend, I don't think you understand influence.
I don't think you understand that when Esther says to Mordecai and to her people that God has put me in such a time as this,
and if I perish, I perish because she knew it was illegal for her to call a meeting of the king.
And she does it twice.
Do we have that same mentality when it comes to sharing the gospel?
To be an influence for Jesus, to shine the light.
Now, I understand in your relationships, I doubt you have an understanding that if I share the gospel with this person,
they're going to kill me.
If that is the case, please, let's talk because there's some things we probably need to talk about.
But my guess is that's not.
However, a more realistic understanding of that is, well, if I bring up Jesus, if I talk about my faith,
that relationship might be over.
That relationship, that connection might perish.
And so I think for a lot of us, we then hang back for the sake of something and not shine the light.
Or we can fall into, pastor, I totally agree.
Amen.
But I'm going to do it in my thoughts.
Okay.
And maybe you're thinking good thoughts and praying good prayers, but what are we actually stepping into when it comes to sharing the gospel,
when it comes to evangelizing, when it comes to taking all of the mess and the miracle of our lives in the season of Advent
to someone that desperately needs it?
Twice this week I was sitting at the bedside of Reverend Besine as he is 97 and exhausted and he needs your prayers.
And if you want to visit, not a lot of you all at once because he's sleeping a lot.
But I thought that was going to be hard.
But Bill Boltman and I, we went once and then I went again.
I walked away unlifted.
Or I'm sorry, that doesn't make any sense.
I walked away unburdened.
I walked away lifted up because that was a guy that took his shot.
That for double the amount I've been alive, he's been preaching the gospel.
He's been shining the light.
He'd tell you didn't do it perfectly.
But he had the mentality, if I'm not going to do it, who will?
And I walked away going, man, what a testament of faith.
What a testament of understanding and the maturity that comes with being a believer that I'm going to take my shot.
I'm going to take my opportunity to bring this person to the cross, to talk to them about the baby,
to open up the understanding of God's word of why I live my life this way and why you believe it matters.
Friend, they may reject you.
They may persecute you.
They may say all kinds of things against you.
Well, I think that comes from a pretty good place.
It comes from the book of Matthew, chapter 5.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
And this is where I walked away peaceful, though burdened with Reverend Besine.
Rejoice and be glad.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
So, friend, take your shot.
Speak into it.
Don't shy away from it.
Step into it knowing that God's got you.
But, Pastor, I'm too afraid.
I get that.
Maybe you don't do it alone.
Maybe you take another person.
But understand that we have been given a place of influence.
That needs to be taken seriously because Jesus calls us to do that for kingdom's sake.