The Book of Esther is one of only two works in Scripture that never mentions God. In fact, there doesn’t appear to be a single recorded miracle in the book—no moment where God steps into the narrative to save the day. That makes Esther one of the most relatable books in the biblical canon. Chances are, you’ve had moments in your life when God seemed to disappear from your story—and just when you need him the most. But just as Esther discovered, God’s sovereignty doesn’t take a single day off of work. And in the midst of the supposed silence, God is conducting a symphony in your life. All you have to do? Trust Him.

Why is God so quiet? He parted the Red Sea, rained fire from the sky, and raised people from the dead. So why can’t he mend my broken relationships? Fix my financial struggles? Heal my dysfunctions? Questions like these may lead you to wonder if God is even there at all. As we struggle in the silence, there’s a truth we must remember: Silence doesn’t mean absence. So no matter how quiet things may seem in your life, God is with you.

See, man. Oh man, it is good to see everybody. It's good to be back here. Welcome to take me back Sunday. So happy to have everybody here with us worse being today. I have been so stinking excited for this day. We've been looking forward to this pretty much all summer. It's funny, we were talking to my girls, I've got three kids. But my two girls, they're the oldest ones, Edith and Evelyn. They're seven and five. And we were telling them like, hey, tomorrow's a big day at church. Take me back Sunday. And we're telling them there's the inflatable, there's food altar and stuff. They were getting so excited about it. They went and grab pens and paper and they started coloring and eat and it was so sweet. She's like, Hey, I'm coloring a picture. You daddy. I'm doing a picture you. I'm like, Oh my goodness. That's so sweet. And she goes yeah, I'm drawing a picture you preaching. Like, oh my gosh, right. Cue the Ah, right. It was so stinking cute. I had to bring it in. It was really cute until she finished it. So what you're about to see

 it... it's very... I mean, it's spot on, man. She's got the lights. Like she's got the lights in it and everything like that. She's got the pulpit like all of it. She's even got people standing out here.

So here I am.

Delivering the Word of God. And I don't know online, you might be able to see because they're probably zooming in or something. But what I'm preaching the word that I'm bringing says, God says we need to fart.

 This little cloud that says, represents the fart. And then I say oops. And as

 if that's not enough, she drew a picture of her mom, the ever supportive pastor's wife saying he's right fart.

 That's her shouting me down to the audience like a man. Bring it right.

So we were excited. We were very excited- the young household- yesterday, for today. And again, what the rationale behind this what we were even thinking as we were planning this is we were kind of inspired by the Cleveland Indians. Whenever they had their opening day, back in April, it was still masking mandates. It was still only like 10,000 people out in the stadium. So the opening day was pretty underwhelming, right? It was like, Oh, yeah, well, it's opening day, but doesn't feel like it. Well, once the mask mandates started to come down, and once you know, you could have a full stadium again, they decided to do an opening day 2.0. They had an opening day 2.0 at the stadium because it could be full and everything like that. It was great. And so we're like, Well, you know, that would be kind of nice for us. Because whenever we brought this thing back, we were all kind of trickling in at different points, people feeling more comfortable coming back in person, people getting the vaccines, and be able to come back. So we thought you know, it'd be nice to just have a day like this where we can all come back and celebrate how faithful God has been to us amid this pandemic. And he has been faithful, hasn't he? man, he's seen us through? Yes, absolutely. He has seen us through this whole way. He's been so faithful. So good, so generous to us. And I'm believing today is kind of the start of a new chapter here at cornerstone. And a lot of ways I believe that we've got some really exciting stuff coming up in the next weeks in the next months. We've got a C group signups starting here soon. If you haven't been involved in the C group before. They're incredible here, Cornerstone getting into the community. Those are coming up pretty soon. We've got exciting, exciting, exciting updates about our here now campaign, our building campaign to renovate and to add on, those are going to be coming in the next weeks. These are just really exciting updates. Another thing. We're just announcing this today, for the first time, we're getting ready to add a third service. It's going to be Yeah, pretty exciting, right?

And here's the crazy thing. And if you're an MP, you're a volunteer, and you're going Wait, I didn't sign up for that. Don't worry, we know you did

n't. But the sad, the service is going to be a Saturday night service, a Saturday five o'clock service most likely. And so if that's something you're like, Oh, I like that. I like the idea of coming and sleeping in having Sunday brunch or something like that. Maybe that's something for you. Maybe your work schedule. If you're someone who joins us online because you're never able to come in person. Maybe that's a perfect opportunity for you. But until we can expand this facility, we're needing that room. We're needing that room. But man there are exciting days ahead. exciting days coming to God just continues to do things here at Cornerstone and I can't wait to see what else he has also so not only is today exciting because it's taking back Sunday and all this stuff is coming up.

This is an exciting day because exactly one year ago today was pastor Brenda Young's retirement service at cornerstone. So we are

 we're exactly one year past that and pastor Brenda we are still live

 in the blessing of having you as our leader for all of these decades, we're still living in the overflow of your faithfulness. And so we just want to take a moment to honor you for everything you've done.

And as we said a few weeks ago, it's amazing. We're a year past that the church hasn't burned down. So where

 are we keep trucking, right? We keep trucking. Well, today, we have this brand new series, you heard a little bit about it if you were listening to the pre silence Symphony when God goes quiet, and essentially our thesis statement or I guess it would be better to call it a thesis question, not just for today, but for the next two weeks as well. Our thesis question that's going to frame this entire series is why does God go quiet?

Why does God go quiet?

It's something that Christians have wondered, forever. If you read Scripture, you will see plenty of verses throughout the Psalms, plenty of verses in limitate. In the book of Lamentations, plenty of verses throughout the prophets, of people wondering like God, why are you quiet? Why aren't you talking? Why aren't you communicating? It feels like you're so distant from me, this is not a new thing that we just feel nowadays. This is something that believers and followers of God have experienced throughout history, the feeling that God has gone quiet.

One of the reasons it can be so confusing for us, one of the reasons that God's silence can be so unsettling is because whenever we look at scripture, and we look at history, we see how loud God can be. Right? There's nothing quiet about splitting the Red Sea was there pretty loud, pretty obvious that God was in the midst of this, that God was moving, that God was working. I mean, he split the sea. And that came after the 10 plagues of Egypt when he just did all kinds of signs and wonders, and all of these things that were so abundantly clear that God's talking, God's moving God is present. So if God is unchanging, which we discussed just a few weeks ago, in our last series, this idea that God is immutable, and he's unchanging, and he's the same yesterday, today, and forever. If God is unchanging, why did he used to be so loud and a lot of ways, like the Red Sea?

He rains fire from the sky, dead people coming back to life. Why? Why was he so loud?

But now it feels like he's so quiet.

Now it feels like, man, was... Hey, you got I don't know. Or was that like pizza had last night? Or was that the no sleep that I got? was me. Talking to myself is that you got Why are you so quiet? Why are you quiet? When it comes to my house? I have been praying and I have been praying for a breakthrough. I've been praying for something to change, things are feeling better, so I can get back to where I was. And I see nothing. Why are you so quiet? Why are you so quiet when it comes to my family relationships mean things are I don't know if you've noticed God, and things are falling apart. We used to be doing good. And then we kind of as we're cordial. And now man, we just can't even stand being around each other things are broken. I don't know how we're gonna do holiday anymore. And you're the God that part of the Red Sea. But you can't fix this relationship. Why are you so quiet? Are you not hearing me? God, I'm trying to institute healthy habits in my life. I'm trying to read scripture more. I'm trying to do all these things. And I asked for your help. I asked for you to deliver me from the temptation to not follow these old bad habits. Yeah, nice. Keep on doing it. And you feel so distant? Why are you so quiet?

God looks pretty quiet in the world. Stage two does any. Right? I mean, we're seeing COVID cases shoot up all over the place. Again, the whole situation in Afghanistan, you cannot watch the news without crying. If you have a heart, you cannot watch the news and the stories that are coming out of Afghanistan, and not have your heart just broken at the desperation that is going on over there. And you look at this and you go, God, why are you so quiet? Where are you in this? Where are you in this? Why aren't you speaking the way that you used to? So if that is you, and if you are someone who you are struggling with silence, either on the global stage or on the personal stage, maybe it's both maybe there are multiple areas in your life where you feel like God is just so quiet right now, I want to let you know today is for you. And the next few weeks are for you. I believe that God through the Scriptures we're going to be studying believe he has something he's wanting to say to us to help us in these moments when we feel like we are struggling in the silence. He has something he wants to say to us and so I hope that you will walk with us in the next few weeks. I hope that even if today you came here because someone pretty much forced you to come here right? They kidnapped you this morning that threw you in your car like look say me back Sunday. You got to come with me.

I can't show up alone, right? They won't let me back into the church if I come in alone. If you're here just for that, I want to make a personal ask of you today, if you're watching online, and you decided today, I want to make a personal ask, make the decision right now that you will be here this week, next week and the week after that, at least to finish out this series. Because we can't cover everything in one day. We just can't we can't cover everything in one day. And I promise you, what we're going to be talking about, if you are someone struggling with silence, God is going to speak to you in the next weeks if you take the time to put yourself in a position where he will speak to you. All right.

So if you would, let me pray for you. Let's hop in for the service today. Heavenly Father, again, we know that you, you have power in your word that when your word goes out, it never returns void, it accomplishes what it sets out to do. And we know that your word changes lives, and it changes our life. And so that's what we asked today God is that we wouldn't just be here as of the word but that we would take what your Scripture says to us today. And that we would apply it in our lives so that we can see change happen, as we talked about last week that we can become a little Christ in the situations that we find ourselves in that we can be more like your son, Jesus, in our marriage, in our friendships, in our workplace at school. Now we can emulate him in the way we think, speak and act. So God help us to put away any distractions today that would keep us from hearing from you so we can be present right here. Right now. We love you so much. Father, we pray all this in your name, amen. Amen.

Hey, if you have a Bible or you don't, if you have a phone app, and you want to follow along, we're going to be in the book of Esther, today, the Book of Esther, Esther, chapter three, I'm going to give you a little bit of background on where we're going to be jumping into this scripture today. So this story takes place about 100 years after the fall of one of the kingdoms of Israel, the kingdom of Judah, they have fallen to the Babylonian Empire, they sinned against God and God allowed them to be overthrown. They've been taken captive, the temple was destroyed, just everything went bad went completely bad for the nation of Israel at this moment. So they have fallen and the book of Aster takes place about 100 years after that, when it's so far in the future, that the empire that overtook the Israelites, that Empire has fallen. The Babylonian Empire has now fallen, they fall into the Persian Empire, they've completely overthrown them. And they've allowed some of the Israelites, some of the Jewish people to return to their homeland. And some of them have done that, but a few of them have decided to stay where they have been in exile this whole time.

And the namesake for the book that we're going to be studying today. Esther is one such person. Esther is a Jewish young woman who is in Persia living in this situation, and she's not there alone. She's with her cousin, Mordecai. He has served as a father figure for her, both of her parents have died. And so her older cousin, Mordecai, he's looking after and he is taking care of her during this exile as they're living in this foreign country under foreign pagan rule. And so during this time, the king the leader of the Persian Empire is a man by the name of Xerxes King Xerxes he's in charge. And whenever we look at the book of Esther, whenever we look at chapters one and two, we see that he has a queen named Queen Vashti, who displeases him pretty much for silly reasons. But hey, he's the king, and he can kind of do whatever he wants. So he decides, I'm done with you. I'm casting you aside. And I'm going to look for a new king, someone else to take your place. And so he essentially issues like an American Idol contest like a Miss Persia contest for the entire country to find his replacement queen. And so all of the young women that are living there are put into this, including Esther, Esther is one of these women, and she's a beautiful woman. She's very beautiful. God blessed her in that way. He blessed her with just a winsomeness about her to just the quality that you're attracted to her not even just from the physical beauty on the outside, but the personal beauty that comes out on the inside. And so Esther ends up becoming the new queen, Queen, King Xerxes picks her to become the new queen. And it's crazy because pretty much instantly after she comes into this new position, she's given prominence and given a good record to her name. After all, not too long after she's put into the position of Queen, there is a plot to kill the king. Someone is these two guys, they're planning to kill King Xerxes. And what happens is Mordecai her cousin finds out about it tells Esther Hey, you got to let the king know they're trying to kill him. Someone's trying to assassinate him. So Aster lets the king know gives credit to Mordecai. The assassination plot is foiled and so you think man, this is going well.

Right like this, this Jewish girl has been given prominence in the kingdom, she's the queen. And not just that her cousin, also a Jew has been the person who discovered this assassination plot, man, this is fantastic for God's people, right? They've got really good examples of themselves in high places in the government, things are going to go well. And that's where Esther chapter three picks up. And we're going to start in verse one, and we're going to read the whole chapter. This is what it says, After these events. So after Esther becomes Queen, and after Esther and Mordecai reveal this assassination attempt, after these events, King Xerxes honored Haman, son of him data via gag I elevating him and giving him a seat of honor higher than all the other nobles. Not exactly what you would be expecting, right? You'd think after these events, Mordecai would be elevated, right? This is the guy who foiled this assassination attempt. Do you think he would be the one given prominence? No. Haman has given prominence all the Royal officials at the Kingsgate knelt and paid honor to Haman, for the king had commanded this concerning him, but Mordecai would not kneel or pay him honor. We don't know exactly why that is. Scripture doesn't go in-depth on why Mordecai would not bow down and honor Haman. But this one says Continuing in verse three. Then the Royal officials at the king's gate asked Mordecai, why do you disobey the king's command? Day after day they spoke to him but he refused to comply. Therefore, they told Haman about it to see whether Mordecai his behavior would be tolerated, for he had told them that he was a Jew. When Haman saw that Mordecai would not kneel or pay him otter, he was enraged. Yet having learned of who Mordecai is people were he scorned the idea of only killing Mordecai. Instead, Haman looks for a way to destroy all of the mordekaiser people, the Jews throughout the whole kingdom of Xerxes. So all of a sudden this moment it looks like it's going to be great that like the man God's coming through man is God speaking loud and clear. I mean, Esther becomes Queen Mordecai reveals this plot. This is it's all up into the right now. Right? Everything is looking good for God's people until Haman comes into the picture. Verse seven in the 12th year of Kings Xerxes in the first month, the month of Nissan, the lot was cast in the presence of Haman to select a day and month and the lot fell on the 12th month, the month of a dar that Haman said to King Xerxes, there is a certain people dispersed among the peoples and all the provinces of your kingdom who keep themselves separate. Their customs are different from those of all other people and they do not obey the King's laws. And it is not in the King's best interest to tolerate them. If it pleases the king, let a decree be issued to destroy them. And I will give 10,000 pounds of silver to the Kings administrators for the Royal Treasury. So the king took his signet ring from his finger and gave it to him and the guy the enemy of the Jews and told him to keep the money and do what the people as you please. So this evil man has just been given all authority and all power to treat the Jews. However, he wants God's chosen people. This evil man now has them under his hand. Then on the 13th day, the first month the royal secretaries were summoned. They wrote out the script of each province and in the language of each people. All Heymans orders to the Kings say traps the governors of the various provinces and the nobles of the various peoples. These were written in the name of King Xerxes himself and sealed with his ring. dispatches were sent by courier to all the king's provinces with the order to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews, young and old women, and children on a single day, the 13th day of the 12th month and to plunder their goods. A copy of the text of the edict was issued as law in every province in Maine known to the people of every nationality so that they would be ready for that day. The couriers went out, spurred on by the King's command, and the edict was issued in the citadel of Sousa, the king and Haman sat down to drink but the city of Sousa was bewildered, they were perplexed, they were disturbed at what was happening.

And rightfully so, rightfully so. Because all of a sudden, God's chosen people, God's chosen people were marked out for execution. There was a day that was picked. The King's signet ring was stamping and saying, Hey, this is my approval. Nothing can be done to change this. And the decree was sent out to every single province, every single area of the kingdom letting them know, on this day, we will annihilate we will kill every single Jew.

And God's silent.

Do you hear me say God anywhere in there

? Now God's quiet. Think of all of the moments that I

 could have said but God in there right there's so many moments over and over.

But God why? Why did Haman get honored? Wouldn't it make more sense for Mordecai to be honored? Did he foil this assassination attempt Why? Why was Haman honored? And why didn't Mordecai just kneel? Like we see other points in scripture where people are allowed to kneel before kings? Why was it Mordecai couldn't listen, I'll just God, why were you silent? Why didn't you intervene? Why didn't you stop anywhere in here? Why were you so quiet?

And why were you quiet when we needed it the most?

Donnie mentioned it in the pre The Book of Esther is one of only two books in all of Scripture that never mentions God by name. Think about that. Not one time. Not any mention of God, not any kind of tacit mentioned to a higher power, nothing. Not only that there's not a single miracle recorded anywhere in the book. Nowhere.

That's one of the reasons I have so been looking forward to the series. It's one of the reasons I couldn't wait to preach on this. Because my goodness is that relatable.

Like is that relatable. I don't know about you, the Book of Esther sounds a whole lot more relatable to me than the Book of Exodus. Fire falling from the sky, a pillar, a cloud by day that you can see walking with you and a pillar of fire leading you at night, and plagues in the Red Sea splitting. That all sounds so foreign to me, it sounds like a sci-fi movie. But no mention of God.

 No miracles. All too often that can feel way too familiar for me.

 It can feel relatable.

So imagine the Jews at this moment. They have seen their kingdom fall, they've seen it split and now they are marked for execution. And they must be thinking, God, where are you? Why are you so quiet?

I mean, we see over and over again, as I mentioned at the start of the sermon, we see throughout the words of the prophets, all the different prophets that God has raised during periods, this same question rises time and time again, this is from the prophet Habakkuk, the prophet Habakkuk. And this is what he says. And he was someone who is kind of a contemporary to Esther, he lived about 5050 to 100 years after but listen to what he says this is him writing to God. He says, God, your eyes are too pure to look on evil, you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you so silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves? Have you been there?

Have you felt that that resonate with you? God, why are you so quiet? Why do you sit in silence? Are you even there? Are you even there?

If you've been following along with my family at all online, you know that we've been dealing with this issue. My sister Rachel, her husband, Aaron has been dealing with very serious health issues. These aren't little like, Oh, he's just not feeling too well right now. No, it's very serious. What he's dealing with can have lifelong repercussions for him very, very serious. And we've been dealing with this for some time. And if you follow Rachel, on Facebook, you've been able to see some of the updates and you've been seeing where things have been. But man Aaron, there's not like a clear why. Like he's in fantastic health, fantastic health. He's in his mid-40s. He's in great health. So there's not a clear like, well, man, it is because he was doing this with his life. He drank too much, or he was eating the wrong kind of food or he smoked too much. And it led to this. It was none of that. A neurological issue, a weird weird case of shingles that morphed into some crazy stuff. And it completely has for this period robbed him of his health, just completely robbed him of his health. And in the midst of it whenever we've Rachel's heard from doctors, and they've been talking to her, it's not been any more helpful. If you've ever been there when you go to the doctor and you're expecting finally some answers, and you walk out of consultation going I have more questions and I walked in with like, I feel like we're on completely different pages here. Doctors seem unsure they're not knowing what's going on and I will talk to this doctor, they'll know to talk to that doctor. They don't know what's going on.

And it feels like Oh my goodness. God, where are you? Like why are you so quiet? Why are you so quiet once you speaking up in this situation? Why? Why can't there be this one big moment where like, haha, there it is the Red Sea moment. There it is the resurrection moment. There it is the fire from the sky moment that we've been waiting for. And we've been waiting for and we've been waiting for and we've been waiting for it. It just doesn't come.

God, why are you so

 quiet.

But in the midst of this, and believe me, me, my family, we have my dad, my mom, my grandparents, their example, to thank for this. But in the midst of this, because of their example, we've been able to remember you know what,

 just because God is silent, doesn't mean he's not present.

Just because there is silence right now. And we have a lack of God talking just because silence is abundant doesn't mean there's a lack of presence. He is there he is present in this whole situation. And we can see it in our example, we can see it in our lives, and we can see it in the book of Esther. We can see it in Scripture, even when God's name doesn't come up, he is present. So with that in mind, we can keep encouraged. Tell the person next to you to keep encouraged, put it in the chat online, keep encouraged. Say it out loud, keep encouraged, keep encouraged, you need to remind yourself that sometimes, because turn on the news, we don't live in encouraging times, you need to encourage yourself in the Lord, you need to remind yourself, hey, God may not be loud right now. But that doesn't mean that he is not present. God may be silent, but he is not absent. If you follow God for any time in your life, you know that to be true. You know that to be true that God may be silent, but he's not absent. You've experienced it. You've experienced this thing with Aaron and his health. This isn't our first rodeo as a family. We've been down here before. And we've been through health crises before. And so because of that, because we've been down this road before and seeing God come through. It's caused us to say, Hey, we will not forget deliverance in the past due to silence in the present. Like we're not because right now we're presently experiencing silence going to suddenly forget all the times God's delivered us in the past. Because he has time and time and time again, he has come through for us in huge ways. And we're not going to forget that suddenly because he goes silent. Apparently to us.

We took the girls to Griffin, that's the first day of school and we have a tradition we go out to eat for breakfast, the first day of school until we took the kids off to Cracker Barrel. And so we finished eating and were on our way out. It's hard. It's the first like if there were you staying up later. This is like the first time they're like getting up early in the morning for school, especially because they're driving to the strip, and then back, right. So we got up early. So they're already kind of like

 we're walking out of Cracker Barrel. And if you're a parent, and you've got a young kid, you know, it's near it's next to impossible navigating the Cracker Barrel store without buying something like it's just, it just it's so hard, right?

But we're walking through there. And of course, they both asked, Can Can we get one thing? Please? Just one, just one, just one thing? And we're like, No, no, please. Like, you just can't You can't we were here not too long ago, and you guys got something not? Not today. And the thing that they said is that every kid is better than their great kids. They're not selfish. But you know, every kid said,

 we never get what we want.

Never. We never were destitute. We never get anything. And all that I'm saying is it's I'm trying to hold back on like, Oh? Oh, really, let's like let's list all of the things that we bought for you just in the last month, right? Like, that is so not true. But for some reason, for some reason, at that moment. They feel like you know what, we never get anything. You never get us anything. And it's funny when it's about them and toys. But man, how often do we say the same thing about God? You're always quiet. You never come through man. I pray and I pray and I pray and other people see things happen for them. But you never come through for me. You never do this for me. God, you're always quiet. And God saying Oh, really? Oh, really? Am I? Can we just look at the last month all the times I have shown up for you

?

I'm not quiet. I'm not quiet. Yeah, right. I mean, the Jews at this moment. I mean, imagine again, whenever they hear these dispatches were sent by the couriers to all the king's provinces with orders to destroy, kill and annihilate all of the Jews. Imagine that moment and how terrifying that must have been. And thank God you just Are you even listening to us? Do you ever listen to us? are you ever gonna do anything for us?

But if the Jews could look past that moment, and remember, you know what, I'm not gonna allow this present silence to make me forget all of the past deliverance, because all they have to do is look back at their history and go well, okay, he delivered us from the most powerful empire at the time the Egyptian Empire. He split a sea for us. He led us through the wilderness. He

He gave us our kingdom. He did all of these incredible things for us. He's come through for us, he'll come through again. If he's done it in the past, he can surely do it in the present. And it's just our own recency bias, that things happening at the moment, we tend to put more weight on that than others. It's our terrible memory. It's our own downplaying of God's deliverance, that throws things off course, and makes us feel like God, you're always quiet.

You're always quiet, that is not true. God is faithful. So it's on us to remember and record his faithfulness. That's on us. Because God is faithful and he is faithful to you. I don't care how hard you've had it. The person who has had the worst hand dealt with them in this room, God has been faithful to eat to you, he's been faithful to you. You just need to do a better job at remembering and recording it. Whatever that means. If you're if you like to write things down, get a journal and start recording all the ways that God has come through for you when they happen at the moment, write it down. One thing I've seen a lot of people start doing is they do Facebook posts because Facebook will bring it up in their memories. And it serves as a reminder of That's right. One year ago, this is where I was and God came through for me. He came through for me recorded on your Facebook post my mom, Pastor Brenda, does a stones, little stones tour of remembrance, she does a jar a year and she gets little stones and just writes a few words on them that remind her of all the ways that God has been faithful to her that year. Some people you get tatted up, you get a tattoo for every time that God does something in your life, whatever it is, do it, do it. If it's getting tatted up, man, go across the street, the big just tattoos after service, and get yourself some new ink, right? Get yourself some new ink, do what you need to do to remember, and record God's faithfulness in your life because he has been faithful. He has been faithful. We can't forget it. He's been faithful and He'll do it again. So you may be in the midst of silence right now. But remember, you have past deliverance. God has come through for you in the past. And not only that, think about this. All of those past moments of deliverance. They had moments of silence.

We can tend to do the opposite to not only do we forget when we do look back we tend to only look back glowingly. Oh, remember things were so tough for an hour. And then God came through like, Nah, that hour was more like three months. You just forget it. Now, you forget how long it took for that breakthrough. You forgot how long God was quiet. And so even those moments of past deliverance, those past moments had moments of silence in them as well. And in the same way that your past moments of deliverance had silence, your present moments of deliverance will have silence. So what if silence is the setup?

What if the silence you're experiencing in your life is the point of it? It's the point of it. God wants you to get closer to him God wants you to trust him more? What if the silence the Jews were experiencing this moment? was God pulling them in closer? What if the silence is the setup? And one of my favorite things is whenever in music or in movies things kind of get quiet a little bit because you know that buildups coming right? You know, you're not buildups coming. That's one of the things I love most about dynamics, right? They put dynamics and music they put dynamics and I mean as we just had it this morning with the battle belongs song right? The dynamics of the song builds and builds and it gets you like amps, right? It gets you going. I love that. I love that whenever it's in music. I love it. whenever it's in movies. I'm a comic book movie nerd. Like I'm the MCU I'm down with that. Like I every single one of those things I've seen right? There's so good.

The one Avengers end game if you haven't seen it, sorry, you can check out check your phone for the next like two minutes whatever I talked about it but if you have seen it, then you're tracking with me. Avengers endgame. There's the big scene towards the end when the fan owes the big bad guy. He's just beaten up on Captain America and Thor and Iron Man. It looks like hey, it's game over like this. Is it like this? Dude, this dude's inevitable. He's just gonna win. He's gonna do what he wants to do. There's no beating him. And guess what happens? The music starts to die down a little bit and just hear drums. Doo doo

 doo doo, right? And you're like, Oh, man. You feel the weight of the moment. I remember being in the theater. Like I remember it's all like quiet and everyone's just like, wow, this intense right? And then all of a sudden hearing Captain America's ear you hear Sam say like, hey, on your right. You see all these portals start opening and all the other good guys who have just been brought back from the dead all start appearing and it's crazy. I mean that the theater was like roaring.

Just like

 people freaking out and everything like that. And as it's happening, the music's building until it hits its crescendo, and boom, the Avengers theme comes through, they charge the battle starts and everyone, like people in the theater, like, I'm gonna fight like, I'm gonna fight. I'm gonna fight in the war until like, everyone's, like amped, just completely amped. And it's all about the dynamics of it. Right? Because there was the setup, it wasn't just instantly into it, it was real quiet. And it built in it built and there was something about the dynamics of that something about the way that it kept building and building before it crescendoed, that it engaged the emotions and engage the feelings to engage the heart of the people in the theater differently, then if there wouldn't have been that silence, to begin with.

So what if silence is the setup? What is silence is the whole point.

We see time and time again, throughout the biblical narrative periods of just complete silence from God, it just seems like he's not even working anymore. Where you see and you're going like, man, is this the same? Is this the same God exists the same guy who did the stuff back in Egypt, because may have he looks a lot different. Now. He doing anything like this is a wildly different guy. And we see these huge periods of silence, we see a period of silence before God moves in a big way to rescue his people out of Egypt, we see a period where his people go under slavery for a long time, and they're crying out saying, Are you here? We thought we were your chosen people. What do you what do you? What are you doing? There's famously a 400 year period of time between the last prophet speaking Molokai and Jesus's birth 400 years. And we think we prayed for a week and God has answered us, we're like, are you ever going to talk again, right? These people went through 400 years of silence, but the silence was the setup. the silence was the setup. In Exodus, it was the setup before Jesus's birth, it was a setup in our life, it is the setup. That's because God is a good director. He knows what he's doing. He knows what he's doing. And he is building up the dynamics because they affect you and me, it engages us differently. When we go through those periods of silence, we get closer to God than we would if it wasn't there. The silence is our setup. So when it is quiet, don't quit. Don't quit when it's quiet. Keep the faith because when it's quiet, you can know God's just building up the dynamic.

And he's just building this up. You're going to be portals opening up around me, I'm about to have Captain America come running out, right? Like, it's just the build-up. It's just the build-up. So you can keep faith in the moments of quiet because the dynamic is building and you can nudge the people around you just like you do in the theater. I saw that movie. And then I saw it again with my brother. And so whenever that part is coming up, I'd like the good parts coming. But the good parts coming right? You can do the same thing in your life. Whenever you're going through the silence and people like man, I'm praying for you. I know it's hard. like yeah, it seems quiet right now. But the good parts coming. I know the good parts come in because it's building up God is doing something. Silence is the setup cornerstone. We're coming out of a period of silence in a lot of ways. Right? We're coming out of it.

The dynamic is building God is doing something in our church and you can feel it, you can sense it in the same way you can sense when that music hits, something's happening. You can feel it in our church family, something's happening. The quiet is turning and God is building something up, the good part is coming. So that means that when we're in silence, when we're in these periods of silence, we can have faith and it's not blind faith. That's what that's one of the biggest misconceptions people have about Christians. That's one of the biggest that people think we just have blind faith with no, no real reason to attach it to anything. We just hope. We just hope that things are going to turn out hope that the quiet will go away at some point. But know when we're in silence, we can have faith and not blind faith but a confident faith because God is in control. God is in control. And because he's in control, we can be confident. Have you ever considered this? When you're going through the silent periods in your life when you're going through the quiet periods in your life, that God can be quiet? Because God is in control?

You ever considered that that? Maybe the whole reason God is quiet is that he has controlled the situation.

He has his hand on he's not worried or flustered or anything. He still has the whole world in His hands so he can be quiet. Have you ever noticed that the louder someone gets, the more out of control they seem right when someone's

 flailing in an argument? How often are they even keel? cool, calm, and collected? It's not you. You're an idiot. I don't know what to tell you. You're stupid. I'm out of here. Like, that's whenever you know, okay?

 Yeah, they're not in control right now.

No, it's the person who's called who steady. Who's just Hey, look, I don't have to tell you this. This is where I'm at. This is how I see things. That's the person who has control of the situation. So maybe God is quiet because he's in control. Maybe that's the reason the devil seems so loud because he doesn't have control. And so he's waving and doing everything he can to seem bigger than he is. He is trying to throw you off base. He's trying to sound threatening when he's not. God doesn't have to do that. He is quiet because he's in control. Have you seen this so stupid? You have seen the meme online? Real Geez. Move-in silence like lasagna?

No, no.

That's God. Right?

Seeing the confused look into some people like Yeah, yeah. Write the word lasagna down. You'll understand. You'll hit you in a little bit. You see,

 God, God moves in silence. Because he can.

God moves in silence. He's quiet because he doesn't need to shout. Right? God is quiet.

 Because he's in control. So the silence may seem unsettling to you.

It's uncomfortable, wasn't it? Yeah. looking around the room. People like this. He's his battery dead. I don't see his lips moving. And that was 10 seconds of silence. 10 seconds. And there were uncomfortable feelings in the room. So I get it. The quiet is disconcerting. The quiet is uncomfortable. But the quiet is a good thing. Because it means God's in control. Do you don't need to be scared of it? You don't need to be unsettled. You don't need to be freaked out. God is in control. God's quiet indicates his control. In this series, you may be wondering that the silent Symphony, where we even got this name from like, What's that mean? silent Symphony when God goes quiet. The whole point of it where we got that from his symphonies typically aren't quiet. Would you go to pay? See a silent Symphony like? No, you go to see the Cleveland Orchestra, you want to hear music, you got to hear the New York Philharmonic, you want to hear beautiful orchestration you want to hear music.

But you see, in a symphony in an orchestra, there is one member who's completely silent the entire time makes no noise. And they're the most vital person involved. The conductor.

 The conductor is the most important person, he keeps pace, he keeps tempo. He studies the music inside and out. He knows what everyone is supposed to be playing at all times at each moment when they should come in when they should go out. He knows everything. He keeps pace, he doesn't make a noise the entire time. He doesn't even greet the audience. He turns bows, conducts bows again, he doesn't say a word. And he's the most important, the most vital cog in the entire thing.

I say all that to say this, you can rest. You can rest.

 In God's sovereign silence. You can just rest in it. You don't have to freak out. You don't have to worry as long as you are trusting God and following him. I'm not this is not an excuse for people who are just doing your own thing and you wonder why God's not coming through for you know, if you are walking in the Spirit, you can rest. You can truly rest because you know, you know what, even if God is silent right now, it is a sovereign silence. It's a sovereign silence. He has control of this whole situation so I can trust the process. I can be like it says here at the end of Esther 3 verse 15, says the couriers were sent out, spurred on by the Kings command that the edict was issued in the citadel of Sousa, the city of Sousa and the king and Haman sat down to drink but the city of Sousa was bewildered that means they were confused, like, what is going on here? Why is this happening? You can be like the people in that city. You can be confused. I'm not saying, God. Silence is just like, Oh no, it's wonderful. It's wonderful. And I have no idea what's going on. But I'm not going to be confused at all. You can be confused. We still are like me. Why did this happen to me?

Aaron, this is so weird for someone who takes such good care himself who's honored, God. So well why is this happening to him? It's confusing, but you could have a confident, confused man, you can be confident that you know what I'm, yeah, I'm confused. I don't know how this is working out. But I'm confident in God. And I'm confident in his control. And so I know that even amid this silence, he's not absent. He's not absent. I'm going to ask the worship team if they would go ahead and come back up here. As we close out, I just want to let you know, while you're in this period of waiting, while you're in this period of waiting, where it feels like, man, I gots a silent. I'm just sitting around waiting for an answer waiting for him to say something and I'm hearing nothing in these moments of silence while you're waiting. Just remember God is at work. You're waiting, he's working, you're waiting, he is working. God is silent. He is not absent. So you can take heart and trust in him. I want to pray with you. All right, Let's bow our heads and let's pray together, Father, God,

 we're so thankful for the truth of your word.

We're thankful for the truth that you lay out in this book that we're studying in this series, The Book of Esther, that even though you can go silent, you're never absent. And even though we never see your name appear in the book of Esther, we're going to see in the coming weeks, that does not mean you are not there, that you are working behind the scenes and you are bringing all things together to work for you're good. So God in the midst of that, during those moments, help us to remember the past ways that you've shown up for us. Help us to remember that the moment of silence we're going through very well could just be the setup to the next way you're going to deliver us and God helps us to remember that when you're quiet.

It means you're in control.

That when you're quiet, it means that you have the situation at hand and in your hand. And so we can rest in that truly rest.

Because we know when we obey you we can leave the outcome to you. So God help us to take heart to keep encouraged and to remember that you and you alone sit on the throne and you never take a day off