Mordecai: a Principled Believer became an Effective and Promoted Leader
Mordecai: a Principled Believer became an Effective and Promoted Leader
Paul wrote, “Imitate [mimetes] me, just as I also Christ” (1Cor 11:1). Are you imitating Christ successfully? Do others imitate you as you imitate Christ?
This is the core of discipleship. We can learn a lot about living a principled and disciplined life from Mordecai’s example.
Although the name of God is not mentioned in the Book of Esther, God is clearly seen preparing Mordecai for a role in saving the Jews from annihilation. God also orchestrated Esther’s selection as Queen and used her to wield the most influence to save the Jews from annihilation.
What can we take away from Esther? God prepares leaders before He uses them. Jesus prepared His disciples. Who is discipling you? Let’s see how Mordecai can encourage us to let God prepare us now for greater leadership opportunities and to use us to disciple others to imitate Christ!
- Took care of Esther when her parents died
- “And Mordecai had brought up Hadassah, that is, Esther, his uncle’s daughter, for she had neither father nor mother. The young woman was lovely and beautiful. When her father and mother died, Mordecai took her as his own daughter.” (Est 2:7)
- “Now when the turn came for Esther the daughter of Abihail the uncle of Mordecai, who had taken her as his daughter, to go in to the king, she requested nothing but what Hegai the king’s eunuch, the custodian of the women, advised. And Esther obtained favor in the sight of all who saw her.” (Est 2:15)
- “And every day Mordecai paced in front of the court of the women’s quarters, to learn of Esther’s welfare and what was happening to her.” (Est 2:11)
- Mordecai was a stranger in another kingdom
- Mordecai was not privileged and a was foreigner among a conquered people
- Mordecai was principled
- Instead of ignoring a threat to the king and wishing him harm, Mordecai alerted the King to a planned assassination
- “And it was found written that Mordecai had told of Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs, the doorkeepers who had sought to lay hands on King Ahasuerus. Then the king said, What honor or dignity has been bestowed on Mordecai for this? And the king’s servants who attended him said, Nothing has been done for him.” (Est 6:2-3)
- Mordecai was discerning
- served the King faithfully but would not submit to Haman, an opportunist and insincere leader in the government
- “When Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow or pay him homage, Haman was filled with wrath.” (Est 3:5)
- “Then Haman said to King Ahasuerus, There is a certain people scattered and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of your kingdom; their laws are different from all other people’s, and they do not keep the king’s laws. Therefore it is not fitting for the king to let them remain. If it pleases the king, let a decree be written that they be destroyed, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those who do the work, to bring it into the king’s treasuries.” (Est 3:8-9)
- “Yet all this avails me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate.” (Est 5:13)
- Mordecai was wise
- He knew that Esther could avert the attempted annihilation of the Jews, and asked Esther to risk her life to ask the King to intervene
- “And Mordecai told him all that had happened to him, and the sum of money that Haman had promised to pay into the king’s treasuries to destroy the Jews. He also gave him a copy of the written decree for their destruction, which was given at Shushan, that he might show it to Esther and explain it to her, and that he might command her to go in to the king to make supplication to him and plead before him for her people.” (Est 4:7-8)
- “For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Est 4:14)
- Mordecai was patient and rewarded in God’s time
- He prevented the assassination because it was the right thing to do and was never rewarded
- He trusted in God to reward him in God’s time
- He accepted honor from the King and did not have a disdain for or disrespect toward the king
- “So Haman took the robe and the horse, arrayed Mordecai and led him on horseback through the city square, and proclaimed before him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor!” (Est 6:11)
- Mordecai was promoted
- Esther successfully averted Jewish annihilation
- And Esther said, The adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman! So Haman was terrified before the king and queen. Then the king arose in his wrath from the banquet of wine and went into the palace garden; but Haman stood before Queen Esther, pleading for his life, for he saw that evil was determined against him by the king.” (Est 7:6-7)
- “If it pleases the king, and if I have found favor in his sight and the thing seems right to the king and I am pleasing in his eyes, let it be written to revoke the letters devised by Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, which he wrote to annihilate the Jews who are in all the king’s provinces. For how can I endure to see the evil that will come to my people? Or how can I endure to see the destruction of my countrymen?…You yourselves write a decree concerning the Jews, as you please, in the king’s name, and seal it with the king’s signet ring; for whatever is written in the king’s name and sealed with the king’s signet ring no one can revoke… By these letters the king permitted the Jews who were in every city to gather together and protect their lives—to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the forces of any people or province that would assault them, both little children and women, and to plunder their possessions” (Est 8:5,6,8,11)
- “On the day that the enemies of the Jews had hoped to overpower them, the opposite occurred, in that the Jews themselves overpowered those who hated them.” (Est 9:1)
- Mordecai was the replacement for Haman
- “And Mordecai came before the king, for Esther had told how he was related to her. So the king took off his signet ring, which he had taken from Haman, and gave it to Mordecai; and Esther appointed Mordecai over the house of Haman.” (Est 8:1,2)
- Mordecai had the respect of the King and of other government officials
- “And all the officials of the provinces, the satraps, the governors, and all those doing the king’s work, helped the Jews, because the fear of Mordecai fell upon them.” (Est 9:3)
- Mordecai operated in the authority of the King
- “So Mordecai went out from the presence of the king in royal apparel of blue and white, with a great crown of gold and a garment of fine linen and purple; and the city of Shushan rejoiced and was glad.” (Est 8:15)
- “For Mordecai was great in the king’s palace, and his fame spread throughout all the provinces; for this man Mordecai became increasingly prominent.” (Est 9:4)
- Mordecai was advanced up, elevated in leadership and authority by the King
- “Now all the acts of his power and his might, and the account of the greatness of Mordecai, to which the king advanced him” (Est 10:2)
- “For Mordecai the Jew was second to King Ahasuerus” (Est 10:3)
- Mordecai was written about in the Chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia
- “Now all the acts of his power and his might, and the account of the greatness of Mordecai, to which the king advanced him, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia?” (Est 10:2)
- Feast of Purim was created by Esther and Mordecai
- “And Mordecai wrote these things and sent letters to all the Jews, near and far, who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, to establish among them that they should celebrate yearly the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar, as the days on which the Jews had rest from their enemies, as the month which was turned from sorrow to joy for them, and from mourning to a holiday; that they should make them days of feasting and joy, of sending presents to one another and gifts to the poor.” (Est 9:20-22)
- “So they called these days Purim, after the name Pur.” (Est 9:26)
- “these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation, every family, every province, and every city, that these days of Purim should not fail to be observed among the Jews, and that the memory of them should not perish among their descendants.” (Est 9:28)
- “Then Queen Esther, the daughter of Abihail, with Mordecai the Jew, wrote with full authority to confirm this second letter about Purim. And Mordecai sent letters to all the Jews, to the one hundred and twenty-seven provinces of the kingdom of Ahasuerus, with words of peace and truth” (Est 9:29-30)
- Esther successfully averted Jewish annihilation