My church service was great as always, we're still on "Fruits That Are Never Out Of Season" (the fruits of the Spirit...Galations 5:22).
Sunday's sermon focused on gentleness/meekness (Esther 4:11-15). The pastor said that having and being gentle and meek, means having power that's under God's control. Five elements that gentle people have are:
* Personality that's under God's control
* Outlook that's under God's control
* Words that's under God's control
* Expectations that's under God's control
* Response that's under God's control
(it's an acrostic for the word power, going back to the definition of gentleness/meekness = power under God's control).
The pastor then related gentleness to Esther, and how she approched her husband the king, after fasting and praying to recieve direction from God on how to approach her husband about changing the mess that Haman made (how he made the king make a decree for all Jews to be killed (not knowing Esther, herself was a Jew), just because Esther's uncle Mordecai, wouldn't bow down to him). And the pastor discussed how Haman was the total opposite of gentleness, because he was self-centered and full of self-pride.
The pastor then said that just because you recieve a promotion of any kind in your life, it isn't all about you, that God has a bigger plan for what you can do for others in whatever position and that He placed you there for a reason, like Mordecai told Esther, God placed her there so that she could help her people, the Jews, later.
She closed out by saying that no matter what you're going through, if you wait for God's response and are under God's control, things will always work out in His own time.
That message couldn't have been better timing for me, because I tend to respond back on a mean way when someone says or does something negative towards me, but anyway, the pastor (well His wife, who is an ordained pastor too), really preached and brought it down to a level where we all could understand. The way she went through the book of Ester and telling the story (how it's full of deciet, greed, love, ect), I had to go a read the book of Ester myself yesterday when I came home. So that's what our sermon was about. What was you all's?
